Artaxerxes

“ The extreme youth of Artaxerxes had induced Artabanus to believe that but a slender and insecure life now stood between himself and the throne; but the young prince was already master of the royal art of dissimulation: he watched his opportunity— and by a counter-revolution Artabanus was sacrificed to the manes of his victims. [188]
Thus Artaxerxes obtained the undisturbed possession of the Persian throne (B. C. 464) . The new monarch appears to have derived from nature a stronger intellect than his father. ”

“ ARDASHIR, the modern form of the Persian royal name Artaxerxes (q.v.) , “he whose empire is excellent.” After the three Achaemenian kings of this name, it occurs in Armenia, in the shortened form Artaxias (Armenian, Artashes or Artaxes) , and among the dynasts of Persia who maintained their independence during the Parthian period (see Persis) . One of these, (1) Artaxerxes or Ardashir I. (in his Greek inscriptions he calls himself Artaxares, and the same form occurs in Agathias II. 25, iv. 24) , became the founder of the New-Persian or Sassanian empire. ”

“ Artaxerxes was easily persuaded, and, with the assistance of the guards, kills his brother. Artabanus seeing his treachery succeed according to his heart's desire, now boasts before all his sons that the time was come for his advancement to the kingdom, and forthwith comes to Artaxerxes with his sword drawn, and wounds him. The king not being much hurt, bravely defends himself, and kills Artabanus upon the place. ”

“ And now Artaxerxes, after having cut a prodigious extent of trench at the cost of so much labor,—provided a valuable means of resistance, especially against Grecian heavy-armed [p. 42] soldiers,—and occupied it seemingly until the very last moment,—throws it up from some unaccountable panic, and suffers a whole army to pass unopposed through this very narrow gut. Having surmounted unexpectedly so formidable an obstacle, Cyrus as well as the Greeks imagined that Artaxerxes would never think of fighting in the open plain. ”

“ We are astonished at the retreat of the ten thousand; but we should be much more so, if Artaxerxes, a conqueror, at the head of a hundred thousand men—at least it is said so—had allowed ten thousand fugitives to travel in the north of his vast states, whom he could crush in every village, every bridge, every defile, or whom he could have made perish with hunger and misery. ”

“ In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the Great, Mardocheus, who was a Jew and dwelt in the city of Susa, had a dream. And the same night he overheard two eunuchs plotting to lay hands on Artaxerxes, and he, being a servitor in the king's court, told the king; and the eunuchs, after examination, were strangled. ”

“ No inscriptions have yet been found in Persia of Artaxerxes, the first son of Xerxes. A vase, however, was discovered at Venice by Sir J.G. Wilkinson, bearing an inscription in hieroglyphics, and in the three species of arrow-headed characters so common in Persia. This vase and its inscriptions have been examined by M. Letronne and M. Longpérier, who do not hesitate to ascribe it to Artaxerxes the first, or Longimanus, whose names and titles have been made out both in the hieroglyphics and cuneiform characters. ”

“ Other late sources narrate the destruction of Jericho and a deportation of the Jews to Babylonia and to Hyrcania (on the Caspian Sea) . The evidence for the catastrophes under Artaxerxes I. and III. (see Artaxerxes) , exclusively contained in biblical and in external tradition respectively, is of particular importance, since several biblical passages refer to disasters similar to those of 586 but presuppose different conditions and are apparently of later origin.37 The murder of Artaxerxes III. by 386 Bagoses gave a set-back to the revival of the Persian Empire. ”

“ Artaxerxes, whose ear could tolerate more flatterers than one, took the Cretan into favour, and made him a present of a superb marquee, a silver-footed bedstead, with costly furniture, and, along with them, sent a slave, as a Turkish pasha would send a cook or a pipe-lighter, because, in his opinion, the Greeks who prepared 107sleeping-places for so many Persians at Marathon and Platæa, understood nothing of bed-making. ”

“ From this statement, taken in connection with the account of Herodotus that the Persians had learnt to sacrifice to Mylitta, [285] the conclusion has been drawn that Artaxerxes II. introduced the worship of Bilit among the Persians. But it was not necessary to teach this worship to the Damascenes and Lydians (I. 358, 563) , and even in the Avesta, Anahita as the goddess of the heavenly water is the goddess of fertility. Hence the statues made by Artaxerxes were, no doubt, images of Anahita the goddess, whom he invokes along with Auramazda and Mithra in his inscription at Susa. ”

“ Slaves are presented as vivaciously as they are in comedy. Plangon, the maid of Dionysius, is a shrewd, cunning opportunist, ready to serve her master’s interests but not without kindness to the distraught Callirhoe in her plight of pregnancy. 26 Artaxates, the eunuch of Artaxerxes, is venal, wily, complaisant and low-minded. As the confidant of Artaxerxes he takes his cues from his master’s words, and solicits his favor by an attempt to seduce Callirhoe’s heart for him. ”

“ Artaxerxes, the brother of Cyrus, being overthrown in battle, was constrained in his flight to sit down with dry figs and barley-bread which upon proof he found so good, as he seriously lamented his misfortune, in having,—through the continual cloying of artificial dainties, wherewith he had been bred up,—been so long time a stranger to that great pleasure and delight, which natural and simple food yields, when it meets with true hunger. ”

“ Most of the later victories of Artaxerxes were due to the valor of his Greek auxiliaries, or to the treachery or incapacity of his opponents. After the reëstablishment of his government, he abandoned himself to the pleasures of his palace, while the control of affairs rested exclusively with Bago ́as, his minister, and Mentor, his general. The people were only reminded from time to time of his existence by some unusually bloody mandate. Whatever hope might have been inspired by his really great abilities, was disappointed at once by his unscrupulous violence and indolent self-indulgence. ”

“ First appeared a long train of the most distinguished Magii from all parts of the empire, led by their chief in scarlet robes, carrying the sacred fire upon a silver furnace. Next appeared an empty chariot consecrated to Oromasdes, decorated with garlands, and drawn by white steeds harnessed with gold. This was followed by a magnificent large horse, his forehead flaming with gems, in honour of Mithras. Then came the Band of Immortals, and the royal kindred, their Median vests blazing with embroidery and gold. Artaxerxes rode in an ivory chariot, richly inlaid with precious stones. ”

“ Artaxerxes represents himself as receiving the Persian diadem from the hands of Ormazd; both he and the god are mounted upon chargers of a stout breed, which are spiritedly portrayed; Artabanus lies prostrate under the feet of the king’s steed, while under those of the deity’s we observe the form of Ahriman, also prostrate, and indeed seemingly dead. Though the tablet has not really any great artistic merit, it is far better than anything that remains to us of the Parthians; it has energy and vigor ”

“ PELOPIDAS AND EPAMINONDAS When Sparta heard that Artaxerxes had been able neither to force the ten thousand to surrender nor to slay them, she thought that his army could not be very powerful. So, confident in her own strength she went to war against the great king, dreaming that she would conquer Persia and add it to her dominions. ”

“ Parysatis, therefore, having from the first entertained a secret hatred and jealousy against Statira, seeing that the power she herself had with Artaxerxes was founded upon feelings of honor and respect for her, but that Statira's influence was firmly and strongly based upon love and confidence, was resolved to contrive her ruin, playing at hazard, as she thought, for the greatest stake in the world. ”

“ Ctesias, however, declares that the king, of his own accord, deputed him to this service. Artaxerxes, however, defeating the Lacedaemonians in a sea-fight at Cnidos, under the conduct of Pharnabazus and Conon, after he had stripped them of their sovereignty by sea, at the same time, brought, so to say, the whole of Greece over to him, so that upon his own terms he dictated the celebrated peace among them, styled the peace of Antalcidas. ”

“ Callisthenes the historian began his Grecian memoirs from this year, wherein the peace was made between the Grecians and Artaxerxes, and ended them with the year the temple of Delphos was taken and rifled by Philomelus the Phocian, comprehending an account of affairs for the space of thirty years in ten books. And now, being come to the peace between Artaxerxes and the Greeks, and the danger threatened to Rome by the Gauls, according to our purpose at the beginning, we shall put an end to this book. ”

“ Themistocles soon grew very rich, and lived on the fat of the land; and a traveler said that he once exclaimed, "How much we should have lost, my children and I, had we not been ruined by the Athenians!"
Artaxerxes, having thus provided for all Themistocles' wants, and helped him to pile up riches, fancied that his gratitude would lead him to perform any service the king might ask. He therefore sent for Themistocles one day, and bade him lead a Persian army against the Greeks. ”

“ As he well knew that Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he should have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at one extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the left—a contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred to him beforehand—he should have deployed his line in that direction, instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they had fought at Marathon ”

“ Artaxerxes is in old Persian Artakhshatra, or the Fire Protector, and Darius means the Possessor. Although all these names—Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and Darius—have a royal significance, they were personal names, and not titles like Pharaoh.
It is often difficult to believe that translators can have taken the trouble to read their own work, or they surely would not let pass some of the blunders we meet with. In a translation of Lamartine's Girondins some courtly people are described as figuring ``under the vaults'' of the Tuileries instead of beneath the arched galleries (sous ses voutes) . ”

“ The Persians, relieved from a war which for a quarter of a century had consumed their battalions and squadrons, drained their finances, and excited their subjects to revolt, were now free to regain their former wealth and perhaps their vigour, could they only find generals to command their troops and guide their politics. Artaxerxes was incapable of directing this revival, and his inveterate weakness exposed him perpetually to the plotting of his satraps or to the intrigues of the women of his harem. ”

“ Though he had fought well at Nisibis, he had not given any indications of remarkable military talent. Artaxerxes, having taken the measure of his antagonist during the course of the Roman war, having estimated his resources and formed a decided opinion on the relative strength of Persia and Parthia, deliberately resolved, a few years after the Roman war had come to an end, to revolt and accept the consequences. He was no doubt convinced that his nation would throw itself enthusiastically into the struggle, and he believed that he could conduct it to a successful issue. ”

“ Artaxerxes, now being an old man, perceived that his sons were in controversy about his kingdom, and that they made parties among his favorites and peers. Those that were equitable among them thought it fit, that as he had received it, so he should bequeath it, by right of age, to Darius. The younger brother, Ochus, who was hot and violent, had indeed a considerable number of the courtiers that espoused his interest, but his chief hope was that by Atossa's means he should win his father. ”

“ One of them in particular discovers a deep insight into the constitution of government. “The authority of the prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force; that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of justice and moderation.” 55 Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great father ”

“ Every one should be content with keeping what belonged to him. Artaxerxes would find war with Rome a very different thing from the contests in which he had been hitherto engaged with barbarous races like his own. He should call to mind the successes of Augustus and Trajan, and the trophies carried off from the East by Lucius Verus and by Septimius Severus. ”

“ It is an evil necessity, I confess, that makes free-born Greeks court the favor of their slaves; but a necessity it is. And the time favors us for using it. Cyrus covets the throne of Persia which he claims against his elder brother Artaxerxes as having been born after his father’s accession whereas Artaxerxes was born before it. As Lysander, then, has used Cyrus against [Pg 154] us, so we must use Artaxerxes against Cyrus. ‘How,’ you will ask, ‘is Artaxerxes to be approached?’ Through Pharnabazus, the Satrap, with whom I have a warm friendship of now some years’ standing. ”