Cyaxares

“ Now when the hour came for the banquet, Cyaxares sent to Cyrus and begged him to share it: it was so long, he said, since they had met. But Cyrus answered, "Bid me not to the feast, good uncle. Do you not see that all these soldiers of ours have been raised by us to the pitch of expectation? And it were ill on my part if I seemed to neglect them for the sake of my private pleasure. If soldiers feel themselves neglected even the good become faint-hearted, and the bad grow insolent. ”

“ And now when the march had brought them into Media, Cyrus turned aside to visit Cyaxares. After they had met and embraced, Cyrus began by telling Cyaxares that a palace in Babylon, and an estate, had been set aside for him so that he might have a residence of his own whenever he came there, and he offered him other gifts, most rich and beautiful. (18) And Cyaxares was glad to take them from his nephew, and then he sent for his daughter, and she came, carrying a golden crown, and bracelets, and a necklace of wrought gold, and a most beautiful Median robe, as splendid as could be. ”

“ The Scythian invasion forced him to abandon the siege, and the Scythians burnt the Assyrian palace and plundered the ruins. But Cyaxares succeeded in intoxicating and murdering the Scythian leaders at a banquet, and bribed the army to withdraw. Then Cyaxares, with the aid of the Babylonians under Nabopolassar their rebel viceroy, besieged and took Nineveh—probably about b.c. 608—while its last king and his captains were revelling at a banquet. [685]
The fall of Nineveh was not astonishing. The empire had long been "slowly bleeding to death" in consequence of its incessant wars. ”

“ The invincible hero, however, subdues at once the rebel and the destroying element; captures the Assyrian, who is not only his enemy and that of his master Cyaxares, but his Rival (the word has immense importance in these romances, and is always honoured with a capital there) , and learns that the escaping galley carried with it his beloved Mandane, daughter of Cyaxares, of whom he is [Pg 180] in quest, and who has been abducted from her abductor and lover by another, Prince Mazare of Sacia. ”

“ So we find, “after Gobryas the governor of the country of Ararat and the soldiers of Cyrus, without fighting entered Babylon,” the country became submissive and attention could be directed elsewhere; that “when in the course of their march they arrived in the Median territory Cyrus turned off to visit Cyaxares; and after they had embraced each other, Cyrus first told Cyaxares that there were domestics and palaces set apart for him in Babylon, that when he came thither he might have what was his own to come to.” ”

“ Astyages felt there was much in what the boy said, and thinking all the while what wonderful sense he showed and how wide-awake he was, gave orders for his son to take a squadron of horse and charge the raiders. "If the main body move to attack," he added, "I will charge myself and give them enough to do here." Accordingly Cyaxares took a detachment of horse and galloped to the field. Cyrus seeing the charge, darted forward himself, and swept to the van, leading it with Cyaxares close at his heels and the rest close behind them. ”

“ His successor was Nabopolassar, between whom and the last king of Assyria war broke out. The Scythian king of Ecbatana, the Cyaxares of the Greeks, came to the help of the Babylonians. Nineveh was captured and destroyed by the Scythian army, along with those cities of northern Babylonia which had sided with Babylonia, and the Assyrian empire was at an end. ”

“ Madyes, the Scythian leader, obtained the victory, Cyaxares was defeated, and compelled to make terms with the invader. Retaining his royal name, and the actual government of his country, he admitted the suzerainty of the Scyths, and agreed to pay them an annual tribute. Whether Media suffered very seriously from their ravages, we cannot say. Neither its wealth nor its fertility was such as to tempt marauders to remain in it very long. ”

“ As for men who are utterly undisciplined, I should be astonished if any speech, however splendid, did one whit more to encourage valour in their hearts than a song well sung could do to make a musician of a man who had no music in his soul."
(56) But while they were speaking, Cyaxares sent again, saying that Cyrus did ill to loiter instead of advancing against the enemy with all speed. ”

“ All the Mediterranean dependencies of Assyria, such as Mesopotamia, Syria, and Judæ, fell naturally within the sphere of Babylon rather than that of Media, and, indeed, Cyaxares never troubled himself about them ”

“ This rather resembles what the contemptuous French early Romantics called une boxade than a formal duel, and Artamène stuns his man with a blow of the flat. Cyaxares [165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yet realising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamène, who in prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phébus," of Mandane. ”

“ You will tell us whether we ought to pursue the campaign further or whether the time has now come to disband our army."
(44) Thereupon Cyaxares betook himself to the banquet and Cyrus called a council of his friends, the shrewdest and the best fitted to act with him, and spoke to them as follows:
"My friends, thanks to the gods, our first prayers are granted. Wherever we set foot now we are the masters of the country: we see our enemies brought low and ourselves increasing day by day in numbers and in strength. ”

“ Such, in its broad and general outlines, was the empire of the Assyrians. It embodied the earliest, simplest, and most crude conception which the human mind forms of a widely extended dominion. It was a “kingdom-empire,” like the empires of Solomon, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Chedor-laomer, and probably of Cyaxares, and it the best specimen of its class, being the largest, the longest in duration, and the best known of all such governments that has existed. ”

“ Cyaxares, arriving at Sinope, does not find his daughter, but does discover that Artamène, whom he does not yet know to be Cyrus and heir to Persia, is in love with her. Owing chiefly to the wiles of a villain, Métrobate, he arrests the Prince, and is on the point of having him executed, despite the protests of the allied kings. But the whole army, with the Persian contingent at its head, assaults the castle, and rescues Cyrus, after the traitor Métrobate has tried to double his treachery and get Cyaxares assassinated. ”

“ The Medes must have made strong resistance to the Scythians more than once. [23] Cyaxares attacked the Assyrian empire when it was shaken by the inroad of these Scythians. The Medes appeared before the gates of Nineveh and conquered the town. It may be true that the Babylonians, whose king, Nabopolassar, had procured for his son the hand of the daughter of the Median king, aided the Medes in this siege. Berossus mentions this, but Herodotus does not. Herodotus correctly states that Cyaxares conquered Nineveh, while Berossus and his excerptists refer this conquest to Astyages. ”

“ After Cyrus entered Babylon and pacified its inhabitants he started on other expeditions and temporarily placed on the throne his uncle Cyaxares, king of the Medes, who was known as Darius among his new subjects, a name less liable to be confused with that of his illustrious nephew. It is a well known fact, that expediency often determines the choice of an official name for the sovereign. ”

“ A band of Scythian nomads, who had left their own land on occasion of some disturbance, had taken refuge in Media. Cyaxares, son of Phraortes, and grandson of Deioces, was at that time king of the country. Recognising them as suppliants, he began by treating them with kindness, and coming presently to esteem them highly, he intrusted to their care a number of boys, whom they were to teach their language and to instruct in the use of the bow. Time passed, and the Scythians employed themselves, day after day, in hunting, and always brought home some game ”

“ In the second half of the 7th century the Medians gained their independence and were united by a dynasty, which, if we may trust Herodotus, derived its origin from Deioces (q.v.) , a Median chieftain in the Zagros, who was, with his kinsmen, transported by Sargon to Hamath (Hamah) in Syria in 715 B.C. The kings, who created the Median Empire, were Phraortes and his son Cyaxares. ”

“ She has learnt, she tells him, that his feelings towards her are changed, requests that she may no longer serve as a pretext for his ambition, and—rather straining the prerogatives assumed even by her nearest ancestresses in literature, the Polisardas and Miraguardas of the Amadis group, but scarcely dreamt of by the heroines of ancient Greek Romance—desires that he will send back to her father Cyaxares all the troops that he is, as she implies, commanding on false pretences. ”

“ If this monarch was prevented from waging war in the east by trouble in the other provinces of his kingdom, and especially in Babylon, he would have no exploits to record in Media and in other eastern provinces. We need not suppose, as Winckler does, that Phraortes is an unhistorical character.
Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes according to Herodotus, is called, in the Behistan inscription, a legitimate Median king. Says Darius the king: " There was a man Fravartish by name, a Mede; he rose up in Media: thus he said to the people: c I am Khshathrita, of the family of Uvakhshtra' (Cyaxares) . ”

“ Scarcely had he laid siege to the town when the Scythians, under their king, Madyes, fell upon the Median kingdom, and in a battle the Mecles were defeated and " their supremacy over Asia was lost." The Scythians ruled over Western Asia for twenty-eight years, but were treacherously robbed of their power in the following manner. Cyaxares invited them to a banquet, and, when they were drunk, the Medes fell upon them and slew them. In this way the Medes recovered their former power, and conquered the Assyrian empire, with the exception of Babylonia. ”

“ Cuneiform accounts are entirely wanting. Herodotus simply states (I., 106) that the Medes, after they had thrown off the yoke of Scythian dominion, marched against Ninos under the leadership of Cyaxares, conquered it, and subdued Syria, except Babylon and its vicinity. Herodotus promises to give us a further account in his Assyrian history. The other Greek writers bring contradictory reports. According to Berossus, Astyages was that Median king who conquered Nineveh with the aid of the Babylonians. ”

“ While Cyaxares took to his own share the land of the conquered people, Assyria Proper, and the countries dependent on Assyria towards the north and north-west, Nabopolassar was allowed, not merely Babylonia, Chaldaea, and Susiana, but the valley of the Euphrates and the countries to which that valley conducted. Thus two considerable empires arose at the same time cut of the ashes of Assyria—the Babylonian towards the south and the south-west, stretching from Luristan to the borders of Egypt, the Median towards the north, reaching from the salt desert of Iran to Amanus and the Upper Euphrates. ”

“ We infer from the statement of Herodotus that the Medes, under Cyaxares, threw off the Scythian yoke; and that Astyages, as son of his predecessor, is a national Median king. But in the cuneiform inscriptions we find Astyages residing in Ecbatana, [27] and designated king of the Scythians. [28] We cannot assume, in order to justify the statements of Herodotus, that the Babylonian writer, after the Scythians had invaded Media, reckoned the Median king among the Scythians (Umman-manda) . ”

“ It is the victor who preserves his own possessions and wins the property of those whom he overcomes: the conquered lose themselves and all they call their own."
(46) Thus spoke the king of Assyria.
But meanwhile Cyaxares sent to Cyrus saying that the moment for attack had come. "Although," he added, "there are as yet but few of them outside the trenches, by the time we have advanced there will be quite enough. Let us not wait until they outnumber us, but charge at once while we are satisfied we can master them easily." ”

“ When Cyrus was about fifteen or sixteen years old, his uncle Cyaxares was married, and in celebrating his nuptials, he formed a great hunting party, to go to the frontiers between Media and Assyria to hunt there, where it was said that game of all kinds was very plentiful, as it usually was, in fact, in those [Pg 95] days, in the neighborhood of disturbed and unsettled frontiers. ”

“ After this, seeing that Alyattes would not give up the Scythians to Cyaxares at his demand, there was war between the Lydians and the Medes for five years; each won many victories over the other, and once they fought a battle by night. They were still warring with equal success, when it chanced, at an encounter which happened in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen. ”

“ While no former palace may have exceeded this in actual outlay of wealth, others may have been more artistic, for the Medes reached no special architectural skill.
After the Assyrian conquest, the Median nation soon became weak and degenerate. The people affected a life of luxury and idleness. The king lived amidst pomp and ostentatious seclusion; his courtiers and nobles gave themselves up to immoderate indulgences and amusements. While under Cyaxares and his father, Media had become a power in Asia, upon the death of this king, his son Astyages succeeded to the throne. ”