Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/290

 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. ritoiy around Sardis. He carried his ravages to the very gates of that city, plundering the gardens and ornamented ground, pro- claiming liberty to those within, and defying Tissaphernes to come out and fight. 1 The career of that timid and treacherous satrap now approached its close. The Persians in or near Sardis loudly complained of him as leaving them undefended, from cowardice and anxiety for his own residence hi Karia ; while the court of Susa was now aware that the powerful reinforcement which had been sent to him last year, intended to drive Agesilaus out of Asia, had been made to achieve absolutely nothing. To these grounds of just dissatis- faction was added J court intrigue -, to which, and to the agency of a person yet mon; worthless and cruel than himself, Tissapher- nes fell a victim. The queen mother, Parysatis, had never forgiven him for having been one of the principal agents hi the defeat and death of her son Cyrus. Her influence being now reestablished over the mind of Artaxerxes, she took advantage of the existing discredit of the satrap to get an order sent down for his deposition and death. Tithraustes, the bearer of this order, seized him by stratagem at Kolossse in Phrygia, while he was in the bath, and caused him to be beheaded. 3 The mission of Tithraustes to Asia Minor was accompanied by increased efforts on the part of Persia for prosecuting the war against Sparta with vigor, by sea as well as by land ; and also for fomenting the anti- Spartan movement which burst out into hostili- ties this year in Greece. At first, however, immediately after the death of Tissaphernes, Tithraustes endeavored to open negotia- tions with Agesilaus, who was in military possession of the country around Sardis, while that city itself appears to have been occupied by Ariaeus, probably the same Persian who had formerly been 1 Xen. Hellen. iii, 4, 21-24 ; Xen. AgesiL i, 32, 33 ; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 10. Diodorus (xiv, 80) professes to describe this battle ; but his description is hardly to be reconciled with that of Xenophon, which is better authority. Among other points of difference, Diodorus affirms that the Persians had fifty thousand infantry; and Pausanias also states (iii, 9, 3) that the num- ber of Persian infantry in this battle was greater than had ever been got together since the times of Darius and Xerxes. Whereas, Xenophon ex- - pressly states that the Persian infantry had not coine up, and took no part in the battle.
 * Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 23 ; Diodor. xiv. 80 ; Xen. Hellen. iii. 4, 25.