ed mortal: nor is it surprising that at his age he should not have strength enough to support so great an affliction. * He sunk under it into his tomb, after a reign of 43 years, which might have been called happy, if not interrupted by many revolts. That of his successor will be no less disturbed with them.

SECTION XII.

CAUSES OF THE FREQUENT INSURRECTIONS AND REVOLTS IN THE PER

SIAN EMPIRE.

I HAVE taken care, in relating the seditions that happened in the Persian empire, to observe from time to time the abuses which occasioned them. But as these revolts were more frequent than ever in the latter years, and will be more so, especially in the succeeding reign, I thought it would be proper to unite here, under the same point of view, the dif ferent causes of such insurrections, which foretel the approaching decline of the Persian empire.

I. After the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the kings of Persia abandoned themselves more and more to the charms of voluptuousness and luxury, and the delights of an indolent and inactive life. Shut up generally in their palaces amongst women, and a crowd of flatterers, they contented themselves with enjoying, in soft effeminate ease and idleness, the pleasure of universal command, and made their grandeur consist in the splendid glare of riches, and an expensive magnificence.

II. They were besides princes of no great talents for the conduct of affairs, of small capacity to govern, and void of taste for glory. Not having a sufficient extent of mind to animate all the parts of so vast an empire, nor ability to support the weight of it, they transferred to their officers the cares of public business, the fatigues of commanding armies, and the dangers which attend the execution of great enterprises: confining their ambition to bearing alone the lofty title of the great king, and the king of kings.

III. The great officers of the crown, the government of the provinces, the command of armies, were generally bestowed upon people without either service or merit. It was the credit of the favourites, the secret intrigues of the court, the solicitation of the women of the palace, which determined the choice of the persons who were to fill the most important posts of the empire; and appropriated the rewards due to the officers who had done the state real service to their own creatures.

IV. These courtiers, often out of a base mean jealousy of the merit that gave them umbrage, and reproached their small abilities, removed their rivals from public employments, and rendered their talents useless to the state. Sometimes they would even cause their fidelity to be suspected by false informations, bring them to trial as criminals against the state, and force the king's most faithful servants, for their defence against their calumniators, to seek their safety in revolting, and in turning those arms against their prince, which they had so often made triumph for his glory, and the service of the empire.

V. The ministers to hold the generals in dependance, restrained them under such limited orders, as obliged them to let slip the occasions of

* A. M. 3643. Ant. J. C. 361.

+ Pharnabasus, Tiribasus, Datames, &c.

conquering, and prevented them, by attending new orders, from pushing their advantages. They also often made them responsible for their bad success, after having let them want every thing necessary for the service. VI. The kings of Persia had extremely degenerated from the frugality of Cyrus, and the ancient Persians, who contented themselves with cresses and sallads for their food, and water for their drink. The whole nobility had been infected with the contagion of this example. In retaining the single meal of their ancestors, they made it last during the greatest part of the day, and prolonged it far into the night by drinking to excess; and far from being ashamed of drunkenness, they made it their glory, as we have seen in the example of young Cyrus.

VII. The extreme remoteness of the provinces, which extended from the Caspian and Euxine to the Red Sea, and Ethiopia, and from the rivers Ganges and Indus to the Egean sea, was a great obstacle to the fidelity and affection of the people, who never had the satisfaction to enjoy the presence of their masters; who knew them only by the weight of their taxations, and by the pride and avarice of their satraps, or governours; and who, in transporting themselves to the court, to make their demands and complaints there, could not hope to find access to princes, who believed it contributed to the majesty of their persons to make themselves inaccessible and invisible.

VIII. The multitude of the provinces in subjection to Persia, did not compose an uniform empire, nor the regular body of a state, whose members were united by the common ties of interest, manners, language, and religion, and animated with the same spirit of government, under the guidance of the same laws. It was rather a confused, disjointed, tumultuous, and even forced assemblage of different nations, formerly free and independent, of whom some who were torn from their native countries, and the sepulchres of their forefathers, saw themselves with pain transported into unknown regions, or among enemies, where they persevered to retain their own laws and customs, and a form of government peculiar to themselves. These different nations, who not only lived without any common tie or relation among them, but with a diversity of manners and worship, and often with antipathy of characters and inclinations, desired nothing so ardently as their liberty, and re-establishment in their own countries. All these people therefore were unconcerned for the preservation of an empire, which was the sole obstacle to their so warm and just desires, and could not affect a government that treated them always as strangers and subjected nations, and never gave them any share in its authority or privileges.

IX. The extent of the empire, and its remoteness from the court, made it necessary to give the viceroys of the frontier provinces a very great authority in every branch of government; to raise and pay armies; to impose tribute; to adjudge the differences of cities, provinces, and vassal kings; and to make treaties with the neighbouring states. A power so extensive and almost independent, in which they continued many years without being changed, and without colleagues or council to deliberate upon the affairs of their provinces, accustomed them to the pleasure of commanding absolutely, and of reigning. In consequence of which, it was with great repugnance they submitted to be removed from their governments, and often endeavoured to support themselves in them by force of arms.

X. The governours of provinces, the generals of armies, and all the other officers and ministers, thought it for their honour to imitate in their

equipages, tables, moveables, and habits, the pomp and splendour of the court in which they had been educated. To support so destructive a pride, and to furnish out expences so much above the fortunes of private persons, they were reduced to oppress the subjects under their jurisdiction, with exorbitant taxes, flagrant extortions, and the shameful traffic of a public venality, that set those offices to sale for money, which ought to have been granted only to merit. All that vanity lavished, or luxury exhausted, was made good by mean arts, and the violent rapaciousness of an insatiable avarice.

These gross irregularities, and abundance of others, which remained without remedy, and which were daily augmented by impunity, tired the people's patience, and occasioned a general discontent amongst them, the usual forerunner of the ruin of states. Their just complaints, long time despised, were followed by an open rebellion of several nations, who endeavoured to do themselves that justice by force, which was refused to their remonstrances. In such a conduct, they failed in the submission and fidelity which subjects owe to their sovereigns; but paganism did not carry its lights so far, and was not capable of so sublime a perfection, which was reserved for a religion that teaches, that no pretext, no injustice, no vexation, can ever authorize the rebellion of a people against their prince.

BOOK XIII.

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

PERSIANS AND GRECIANS.

SECTION I.

OCHUS ASCends the THRONE OF PERSIA.-HIS CRUELTIES.-REVOLT OF SEVERAL NATIONS.

THE more the memory of Artaxerxes Mnemon was honoured and re

vered throughout the whole empire, the more Ochus believed he had reason to fear for himself; convinced, that in succeeding to him, he should not find the same favourable dispositions in the people and nobility, of whom he had made himself the borror by the murder of his two brothers. To prevent that aversion from occasioning his exclusion, he prevailed upon the eunuchs, and others about the king's person, to conceal his death from the public. He began by taking upon himself the administration of affairs, giving orders, and sealing decrees in the name of Artaxerxes, as if he had been still alive; and by one of those decrees, he caused himself to be proclaimed king throughout the whole empire, always by the order of Artaxerxes. After having governed in this manner almost ten months, believing himself sufficiently established, he at length declared the death of his father, and ascended the throne, † taking upon himself the name of Artaxerxes. Authors, however, most fre quently gave him that of Ochus, by which name I shall generally call him in the sequel of this history.

Ochus was the most cruel and wicked of all the princes of his race, as his actions soon explained. In a very short time the palace and the whole empire were filled with his murders. To remove from the revolted provinces all means of setting some other of the royal family upon the throne, and to rid himself at once of all trouble that the princes and princesses of the blood might occasion him, he put them all to death, without regard to sex, age, or proximity of blood. He caused his own sister Ocha, whose daughter he had married, to be buried alive; || and having shut up one of his uncles, with 100 of his sons and grandsons, in a court of the palace, he ordered them all to be shot to death with arrows, on

* Polyæn. Stratag. vii.

Justin. 1. x. c. 3.

† A. M. 3644. Ant. J. C. 360. Val. Max. 1. ix. c. 2.

ly because those princes were much esteemed by the Persians for their probity and valour. That uncle is apparently the father of Sisygambis, the mother of Darius Codomanus: * for Quintus Curtius tells us, that Ochus had caused 80 of her brothers with her father to be massacred in one day. He treated with the same barbarity, throughout the whole empire, all those who gave him any umbrage, sparing none of the nobility whom he suspected of the least discontent whatsoever.

The cruelties exercised by Ochus did not deliver him from inquietude. Artabasus, governour of one of the Asiatic provinces, engaged Chares the Athenian, who commanded a fleet and a body of troops in those parts, to assist him, and with his aid defeated an army of 70,000 men, sent by the king to reduce him. Artabasus, in reward of so great a service, made Chares a present of money to defray the whole expences of his armament. The king of Persia resented exceedingly this conduct of the Athenians in regard to him. They were at that time employed in the war of the allies. The king's menace to join their enemies with a numerous army obliged them to recal Chares.

Artabasus, being abandoned by them, had recourse to the Thebans, of whom he obtained 5000 men, whom he took into his pay, with Pamenes to command them. This reinforcement put him into a condition to acquire two other victories over the king's troops. Those two actions did the Theban troops and their commander great honour. Thebes must have been extremely incensed against the king of Persia, to send so powerful a succour to his enemies, at a time when that republic was engaged in a war with the Phocæans. It was perhaps an effect of their policy, to render themselves more formidable, and to enhance the price of their alliance. || It is certain that soon after they made their peace with the king, who paid them 300 talents, that is to say, 300,000 crowns. tabasus, destitute of all support, was overcome at last, and obliged to take refuge with Philip of Macedon.

Ar

Ochus being delivered at length from so dangerous an enemy, turned all his thoughts on the side of Egypt, which had revolted long before. About the same time, several considerable events happened in Greece, which have little or no relation with the affairs of Persia. I shall insert them here, after which I shall return to the reign of Ochus, not to interrupt the series of this history.

SECTION II.

WAR OF THE ALLIES AGAINST THE ATHENIANS.

SOME few years after the revolt of Asia Minor, of which I have been speaking, in the third year of the 150th Olympiad, Chio, Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium, took up arms against Athens, upon which till then they had depended. To reduce them they employed both great forces and great captains, Chabrias, Iphicrates, and Timotheus. They were the

* Quint. Curt. 1. x. c. 5.

A. M. 3648. Ant. J. C. 356. Diod. l. xvi. p. 433, 454.

1 A. M. 3651.

Ant. J. C. 353. || Diod. I. xvi. p. 438.

A. M. 3646. Ant. J. C. $53.

Hæc extrema fuit fuit ætas imperatorum Atheniensium, Iphicrates, Chabria, Timothei: neque post illorum obitum quisquam dux in illa urbe fuit dignus memoria. Cor Nep. in Timoth. c. 4.