Megabyzus

“ Megabyzus marched upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a great battle, relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and recovered the rest of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called Prosopitis, which was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by two branch streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen months, till Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two streams, whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops were able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with their numbers. ”

“ They worship only Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis; but their kings also specially worship Hermes from whom they claim to be descended. Of this territory Megabyzus subjugated the whole strip, which lay on the sea, to Darius." The Paeonians, who were settled on the Strymon and round Lake Prasias, assembled on their coast to await the attack. But Megabyzus turned into the inland region to the north of Mount Pangaeum, and from that direction fell unexpectedly upon the cities of the Paeonians, which were undefended. ”

“ Disgusted by this violation of his honor, Megabyzus stirred up a revolt in his province of Syria. He was the greatest general in the empire, and the success of his operations against the forces sent to subdue him, so alarmed his master that he was permitted to dictate his own terms of peace. The intercessions of his wife, Am ́ytis, sister of the king, aided much in his reconciliation; but the example was ruinous to the strict organization of the provinces which Darius had introduced. The tendencies to decay now acted with greater and greater rapidity. ”

“ After a few years of success, this revolt was crushed and Egypt again subjugated, by the energy of the Persian general Megabyzus, with severe loss to the Athenian forces engaged. After the peace of Kallias, erroneously called the Kimonian peace, between the Athenians and the king of Persia, war had not been since resumed. We read in Ktesias, amidst various anecdotes seemingly collected at the court of Susa, romantic adventures ascribed to Megabyzus, his [p. 363] wife Amytis, his mother Amestris, and a Greek physician of Kos, named Apollonides. ”

“ Megabyzus discovers Histiæus's city.
Darius immediately determined to make the whole people slaves. He accordingly dispatched a courier with the orders. The courier crossed the Hellespont, and proceeded to the encampment of Megabyzus in Thrace. He delivered his dispatches to the Persian general, commanding him to proceed immediately to Pæonia, and there to take the whole community prisoners, and bring them to Darius in Sardis. Megabyzus, until this time, had known nothing of the people whom he was thus commanded to seize. ”

“ Megabyzus did not interfere with the work; but, as soon as he arrived at Sardis with his captives, and had delivered them to the king, he introduced the subject of Histiæus's city, and represented to Darius that it would be dangerous to the Persian interests to allow such an enterprise to go on. "He will establish a strong post there," said Megabyzus, "by means of which he will exercise a great ascendency over all the neighboring seas. ”

“ Five days after the death of the Magian the seven took counsel together, as Herodotus relates, on the state of affairs. Otanes was of opinion that the government should be handed over to the whole body of the Persians, that it was not well that one should rule over them. Megabyzus represented oligarchy; the best men should form the best resolutions. ”

“ He had drawn up a plan of action with great military skill, and succeeded in gaining not only Cambyses' approval, but that of the old general Megabyzus and the best tacticians among the Achaemenidae. His local knowledge was especially valuable on account of the marshes which intersected the Pelusian plain, and might, unless carefully avoided, have proved fatal to the Persian enterprise. ”

“ When Megabyzus had completed his speech, Darius expressed his opinion. He said that the arguments of those who had already spoken appeared plausible, but that the speakers had not dealt quite fairly by the different systems whose merits they had discussed, since they had compared a good administration of one form of government with a bad administration of another. Every thing human was, he admitted, subject to imperfection and liable to abuse ”

“ His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother, Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis, his sister, and Amestris, his mother—both persons of ill-regulated lives—are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in a monarch. ”

“ And such was the alarm of the Persian king Artaxerxes at the presence of the Athenians in Egypt, that he sent Megabazus with a large sum of money to Sparta, in order to induce the Lacedæmonians to invade Attica. This envoy however failed, and an augmented Persian force, being sent to Egypt under Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, drove the Athenians and their allies, after an obstinate struggle, out of Memphis into the island of the Nile called Prosopitis. ”

“ On his return from Scythia, Darius brought back the whole of his army over the Danube, thus abandoning entirely the country of the Scythians; but he did not transport the whole body across the Bosporus. He left a considerable detachment of troops, under the command of one of his generals, named Megabyzus, in Thrace, on the European side, ordering Megabyzus to establish himself there, and to reduce [Pg 212] all the countries in that neighborhood to his sway. Darius then proceeded to Sardis, which was the most powerful and wealthy of his capitals in that quarter of the world. ”

“ Perinthus and the cities on the northern shore of the Propontis were reduced and punished, and then Darius gave orders, according to Herodotus, for the reduction of Thrace. "And Megabyzus marched through Thrace, and reduced every nation and every city into submission to the king. The nation of the Thracians is the greatest after the Indians, and if it were united or governed by one man, it would be invincible, and in my opinion the strongest of all nations. But as this [Pg 309] is impossible, and can never be brought about, they are weak. ”

“ This proceeding led to two rebellions, probably in 484 and 479; in the Babylonian documents occur the names of two ephemeral kings, Shamash-irbā and Tarziya, who belong to this time. One of these rebellions was suppressed by Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, the satrap whom the Babylonians had slain. ”

“ In the whole course of his long reign he seems never once to have adventured himself in the field against an enemy. He made not a single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no evidence that he patronized either literature or the arts. His peace with Athens was necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The disorders of the Court increased under his reign, from the license (especially) which he allowed the Queen-mother, who sported with the lives of his subjects. The decay of the Empire received a fatal impulse from the impunity which he permitted to Megabyzus. ”

“ Herodotus (iv, 144) , the nearest to the events (c. 450 B.C.) , makes the plain statement that the Persian general Megabyzus said the Chalcedonians must have been blind when they overlooked the site of Byzantium.
[14] The remains of a “cyclopean” wall (Paspates, Βυζαντινὰ Ανάκτορα, p. 24) , built with blocks of stone (some ten feet long?) probably belonged to old Byzantium, respecting which it is only certainly known that it stood at the north-east extremity of the promontory (Zosimus, ii, 30; Codinus, p. 24; with Mordtmann’s Map, etc.) . ”

“ Here they were resisted by a few eunuchs, headed by Boges, but these were overpowered and killed to a man. Darius became furious on seeing Boges, and killed him at once. Hearing the dying cries of these eunuchs, the Magi rushed to the spot and prepared to defend themselves. Oropastes snatched a lance from the fallen Boges, thrust out one of Intaphernes' eyes and wounded Aspatines in the thigh, but was stabbed by Megabyzus. Gaumata fled into another apartment and tried to bar the door, but was followed too soon by Darius and Gobryas ”

“ I hear that the daughters of the dethroned king and of the high- priest Neithotep have to carry water for the baths of the noble Phanes."
The Athenian answered with a smile: "Cambyses has allowed me to employ these aristocratic female attendants, my lord, at my own request."
"But has forbidden you to touch the life of one member of the royal house," added Cambyses. "None but a king has the right to punish kings."
Phanes bowed. The king turned to Megabyzus and ordered him to have the prisoners executed the very next day, as an example. He would decide the fate of the young prince later ”

“ See: Andromeda. Some suppose that the Gorgons were a nation of women, whom Perseus conquered. See: Gorgones. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Hesiod, Theogony.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 618.—Lucan, bk. 9, li. 624.—Apollonius, bk. 4.—Hyginus fable 151.――A daughter of Priam.――A daughter of Sthenelus. Apollodorus.
Megabizi, certain priests in Diana’s temple at Ephesus. They were all eunuchs. Quintilian, bk. 5, ch. 12.
Megabyzus, one of the noble Persians who conspired against the usurper Smerdis. He was set over an army in Europe by king Darius, where he took Perinthus and conquered all Thrace. ”

“ Megabazus was now commissioned to transport bodily to Persia the whole tribe of the Pæonians, who lived to the north of Macedonia, of whose industry Darius had conceived an exaggerated notion, by seeing one of their women at Sardis bearing a pitcher on her head, leading a horse, and spinning flax all at the same time. He effected this task with no great difficulty; but other tribes resisted his arms with success, and especially those who inhabited the Lake Prasias. These must have been a relic of the most ancient population of Europe. ”

“ Darius was disposed to reward Histiæus by allowing him to build a city for himself in Thrace, but Megabazus had a different opinion of the trustworthiness of Histiæus, and prevailed upon the king to take him to Susa, and, under the title of councillor, to keep him a prisoner there. Histiæus was at first flattered by this court position, and then realized its true meaning. The Persian court bored him, and he grew homesick for Miletus. He set himself to make mischief, and was able to stir up a revolt against the Persians among the Ionian Greeks on the mainland. ”

“ It may be observed that in this tale the Indian cannot explain to his wife what he nevertheless perfectly understands; that is, the exact nature of a Megumoowessoo. The giant, by speaking of his own kingdom, gives the true key of the whole mystery. He has attained magic power so far as one can exercise it in this life. Like Glooskap he can be, or unlike him prefers, to be habitually, a giant. He has battled with the Chenoo and Kookwess ”

“ The child was nursed by Semistra, who gave her name to the hill in question, and in whose honour an altar anciently stood at the meeting-place of the rivers. Keroessa became in turn the mother of Byzas, founder of Byzantium. The father of Byzas was no less a personage than Poseidon, god of the sea, and the son married Phidalia, daughter of the river Barbyses. How it happened that Byzas also came from so far away as Megara I do not pretend to know; but in the name Keroessa, which seems to be connected with the metamorphosis of Io, we have the mythic origin of the name of the Golden Horn. ”

“ So they told him all this; and the king asked them if all the women of their country were as notable workers. To this too they very readily answered (for it was for this very purpose that they had come) , that it was indeed so.
14. Then Darius wrote a letter to Megabazus, whom he had left as his general in Thrace, bidding him take the Paeonians from their houses, and bring them to him, men, women, and children. Immediately a horseman sped with this message to the Hellespont, and crossing it gave the letter to Megabazus; who, having read it, took guides from Thrace and led his army to Paeonia. ”

“ This was to all appearance against his vassal Amasis, who, like Zedekiah, had revolted against the power which had raised him to the throne. The rebellion was suppressed, but the ultimate fate of Amasis is not stated.
According to Megasthenes, who lived in the time of Seleucus Nicator, Nebuchadnezzar conquered North [pg 402] Africa, crossing afterwards into Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar, returning to Babylonia through Europe and Asia Minor. ”

“ Where is this Serbraxos?"—"Why, says she, here, on a hill just by; the Begemder people have a prophecy, that one of their governors is to fight a king at Serbraxos, to defeat him, and slay him there: in his place is to succeed another king, whose name is Theodorus, and in whose reign all Abyssinia is to be free from war, or from any trouble, sickness, or famine; that the Galla, Shangalla, and Mahometans are all to be destroyed, and the empire of Abyssinia to be extended as far as Jerusalem."—"All this destruction and conquest without war! ”

“ Mukusa, the god of the Nyanza, becomes occasionally incarnate in a wizard or a witch, announcing through this medium rain or drought, peace or war, triumphs or disasters. Another dreaded god, he who lets loose the scourge of small-pox, seems to be the spirit of an ancient king, dwelling on the west of Mount Gambaragara above the region of the clouds. All the kings have their apotheosis, and after becoming demi-gods continue to govern the people, massacring or doning as they did before their death. ”