Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/609

 EMPIRE.] PERSIA 581 Athenian Phocion, 1 and with him was a pretender Evagoras, of the family of the famous Cyprian prince of that name. Thus by force and policy the old state of the monarchy was restored in all the western lands. Mentor, the real conqueror of Egypt, was splendidly rewarded. He received the satrapy of the west coast of Asia Minor, and quickly removed by cunning and treachery Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus and the friend of Aristotle, who had concluded treaties like an independent prince 2 and stood in suspicious relations to King Philip of Macedonia. It has been already mentioned that Mentor procured the pardon of his brother- in-law Artabazus and his brother Memnon. It is not im- Jontact probable that the bestowal of this province on the skilful on C; a&quot; ^ k* s nere ditary satrapy, may be connected with the attention which the king paid to the plans of the Mace donian, which were gradually disclosing themselves more and more. Of course no one thought of danger to Asia Minor, much less to the whole empire, but Philip s efforts to secure the mastery of the Bosphorus and Hellespont were enough in themselves to excite grave anxiety. As early as 350 the story went that Philip had sent an embassy to the king, 3 and it is definitely stated that he concluded a treaty with Ochus. 4 The pacific intentions of the Persians, at least for the moment, were no doubt sincere ; not so those of Philip, who had to subdue Greece before he could put into execution his designs on Asia Minor, a circumstance overlooked by the honest but politically short-sighted Isocrates in his exhortation to Philip to attack Persia (347/346). Probably Demosthenes was not alone in perceiving that the safety of Greece now- lay in an alliance with the Persians against Philip. Negotia tions went on busily between Athens and the king, who at all events sent subsidies repeatedly for the conflict with Macedonia. In the year 340 Persia interfered actively by rescuing, in conjunction with Athens, the town of Perinthus on the Propontis (and therefore close to Persian territory), which was besieged by Philip ; and the Macedonians could perhaps with some right assert that with this step the war between the Persians and them had begun. 5 But the Persians did not see, what to us is obvious from the result, that it was necessary for them to prevent the subjugation of Greece ; or, if they saw it, they lacked the energy to act. Artaxerxes probably did not reach the battle of Chae- ronea (August 338), which made Philip master of Greece. So far as we can judge, however, it was a great misfor tune for the empire that this king, the first since Darius I. who had in person energetically conducted a great ex pedition and restored the empire, died just at this critical moment. Probably he was murdered by Bagoas, who placed Arses, the youngest of the sons of Artaxerxes, on the Arses, throne. 6 But, when Arses was preparing (so it is said) to punish Bagoas, the latter put him and his children to death (335). We know nothing further of this king. Under his reign (spring 336) a Macedonian army first crossed into Asia, after Philip had previously caused himself to be nominated general of the Greeks against the Persians. The Macedonians gained some not unimportant successes, but the undertaking was checked in the very same year by the assassination of Philip. The commander Parmenio re turned to Europe, and Memnon, who after Mentor s death commanded in these regions, probably won back from the 1 Diod., xvi. 42 ; the sources from which our biographers of Phocion (Plutarch and Nepos) draw did not mention this fact, which does not accord very well with the pattern of philosophic virtue which they made out Phocion to be. 2 Cp. the treaty with Erythrse, Le Bas and Waddington, No. 1535. 3 Demosth., Phil. I., p. 54. 4 Arrian, ii. 14, 2. 5 Arrian, ii. 14, 5. 6 InPlut., Defort. Alex., p. 336 s^. , he is called Oarses. The Persian form of the name is not known. Macedonians nearly all their conquests in Asia, though it 344-333, is likely that Abydus, commanding the passage of the Hellespont, and perhaps one or two more strong places, remained in their hands. In order to rule securely Bagoas placed on the throne, not Darius a near relation of the murdered man, 7 but Codomannus, 8 ^I- who reigned as Darius (III.), a great-grandson of Darius II., and a man of about forty-five years of age. 9 But the king-maker was caught in his own snare, for Darius soon put him out of the way. Over the last of the Achasmenians misfortune has thrown a halo of romance, but sober criticism can see in him only an incapable despot like so many whom the East has pro duced. It may be true that in earlier life, under Artaxerxes III., he once proved his personal bravery in the war against the Cadusians, and was rewarded with the satrapy of Armenia ; 10 as a king he always behaved like a coward in the moment of danger. Vast attempts and a shameful flight, feeble or rather effeminate behaviour combined with braggart pride, lack of intelligence, especially in the con duct of war, these are features which fully justify Grote in comparing him with Xerxes. It is no reproach that he was not a match for perhaps the greatest general in history, but an Ochus would doubtless have made the task a some what harder one, and would scarcely have been guilty of the folly of beheading, in a fit of bad temper, so useful a man as the old condottiere Charidemus, who thoroughly under stood the mode of fighting the Macedonians. The history of Alexander the Great is given under the Alex- articles ALEXANDER THE GREAT and MACEDONIAN EMPIRE ; ander s here we can only enumerate the chief steps in the down- m fall of the Persian empire. We see how great is the force of cohesion in such an empire, even after all the shocks it has received, and under an incapable ruler. What the giant powers of Alexander achieved in a few years might never have been accomplished at all by the qualities and resources of an Agesilaus. After placing a terrible curb on the Greek love of freedom by the destruction of Thebes, Alexander crossed the Hellespont in the beginning of spring 334. A few weeks later, on the Granicus, he annihilated the great Persian army which should have barred his onward march. Sardis, the capital, at once fell into his hands. Here, for the first time, we see the miserable spectacle of a high Persian officer going over to the enemy and surrendering to him the town or district committed by his king to his charge. At the beginning of winter the whole coast as far as Pamphylia was Alexander s ; Miletus and Halicarnassus were the only places which he had had seriously to besiege, and it was only the narrowly-enclosed citadel of the latter town which yet withstood all attacks. But there was still a great danger. The Rhodian Memnon, who had been joint-commander at the Granicus, undertook with all his might to kindle a conflagration in Alexander s rear, and to force the king to cross over to Greece. The Persian fleet, which he commanded, ruled the sea ; several of the most important islands were occupied ; and from the Greek mainland thousands of patriots were looking for Memnon s arrival in order tp rise against the Macedonians. But Memnon died suddenly. The death of this man, his only worthy adversary, is perhaps the greatest of those pieces of luck which so highly favoured the great Alexander. His successor Pharnabazus, son of Artabazus, continued, it is true, the naval operations, but he was not able to carry out Memnon s plans. Meanwhile Alexander secured 7 We read of a son of Ochus in 330 (Arrian, iii. 19, 4). We had above a grandson of Artaxerxes II. Thus Bagoas had not killed all &quot; the brothers &quot; of Arses, and the king s family was not extinct, as Diodorus asserts (xvii. 5). 8 The name is given only by Justin (from Dinon), x. 3. 9 Arrian, iii. 22, 6. 10 Justin, I.e. ; Diod., xvii. 6.
 * it h general and diplomatist, and the restoration of Artabazus