Translation:Lives of the Eminent Commanders/Datames

I. Datames was born to a Carian father, Camisares, and a Scythian mother and was the foremost of the soldiers at the court of Artaxerxes who protected the kingdom. His father Camisares had been discovered to be strong-handed, restless in war, and loyal to the king on many occasions, and had therefore received the part of Cilicia next to Cappadocia, which the Leucosyrians inhabit, as a province. Datames first performed military service and showed what sort of man he was in the war which the king waged against the Cadusians. For, though several thousand of the king's men had been killed, his service was that of a great man. As a result, when Camisares died, his father's province was passed on to him.

II. Subsequently, he showed equal valour when Autophradates made war by order of the king on those who had rebelled. Through his efforts, the enemies, who had entered a fortification, were overwhelmed and the rest of the king's army was preserved. Because of this, he began to receive command of greater things. At this time, there was a man called Thuys, who was the dynast of Paphlagonia, of an old family, descended from that Pylaemenes who Homer says was killed by Patroclus in the Trojan War. He was not listening to the word of the king. For this reason, the king decided to make war against him and he put Datames in charge of this matter although he was a relative of the Paphlagonian (since their parents were brother and sister). For this reason, Datames wanted to try to return him to his duty without fighting first. When he came to meet him without a bodyguard, fearing no treachery from his friend, he nearly died because Thuys wanted to kill him secretly. Datames' mother, who was the Paphlagonian's aunt, was with him. She realised what was planned and warned her son. He escaped the danger by flight and declared war on Thuys. In this war he was abandoned by Ariobarzanes, the prefect of Lydia, Ionia, and all Phrygia, but continued nevertheless and captured Thuys alive with his wife and children.

III. He took care that report of his deed reached the king no sooner than he himself did. Thus, he came to the place where the king was without anyone being aware of it, and the next day he took Thuys, who was a man with a massive body and a terrifying appearance, because he was black with long hair and a full beard, and he clothed him in the best clothes, which royal satraps customarily wore and then he decorated him with a torc and golden bracelets and other royal equipment. Datames himself put on a rustic double cloak and a rough tunic, wearing a hunting cap on his head, with a club in his right hand and a rope in his left, with which he led the defeated Thuys before him, as if he was leading a wild beast which he had captured. When everyone saw him, a great crowd gathered because of his novel outfit and his unrecognisable form, there was someone who recognised Thuys and announced it to the king. At first he did not believe it, so he sent Pharnabazus to investigate. When he learnt from him what had happened, he ordered him to be admitted immediately, exceptionally delighted at the deed and the presentation, especially since a noble king had come into his power unexpectedly. So he rewarded Datames splendidly and sent him to the army which was being assembled at that time by the generals Pharnabazus and Tithraustes for war against Egypt and he ordered that he would have the same authority as them. Subsequently in fact the king recalled Pharnabazus and supreme command was entrusted to Datames.

IV. When he had prepared the army with the greatest care and was ready to set out for Egypt, suddenly he received letters from the king, ordering him to march on Aspis, who held Cataonia (these people are located above Cilicia, on the Cappadocian border). For Aspis, who dwelt in a wooded region, fortified with strongholds, not only ignored the king's commands, but even raided the bordering regions and stole what was being taken to the king. Although Datames was far from these regions and was being pulled away from a greater task by the king, he thought that the will of the king must be done voluntarily. So, he boarded a ship with a few men, but brave ones, thinking (correctly, as it turned out) that he would more easily crush a surprised enemy with a small force than a prepared enemy however large his army might be. He landed this force in Cilica, set out from there, and crossed the Taurus in a journey of a day and a night, and arrived in the place which he had set his sights on. He inquired where Aspis was. He learnt that he was not far away and had set out on a hunt. While he was waiting for him, the sign of his approach was recognised. The Pisidians in the force which he had with him, prepared to withstand Aspis. When Datames heard this, he put on his armour, he ordered his men to follow, he himself spurred his horse and rode towards the enemy. When Aspis noticed him in the distance, he was terrified that he was coming for him, was deterred from attempting to resist, and surrendered. Datames had him bound and entrusted Mithridates with taking him to the king.

V. While he was doing this, Artaxerxes realised that he had sent his foremost commander from such a great war to such a small matter and regretted his decision, so he sent Aces as a messenger to the army to say that Datames should not set out to do what he had said and should not leave the army. Before he had reached the place he had been sent, he ran into the man who was bringing Aspis to the king. When Datames received great gifts from the king for this speed, he became the object of a great deal of emnity among the courtiers because they saw that he alone had achieved more than all of them. For this reason, they all agreed to crush him. Pandantes, who was keeper of the royal treasury and a friend of Datames, sent an account of this to him, in which he informed him that he would be in great danger, if anything happened to go badly in Egypt while he was in command. For he said that royal practice was to attribute adverse events to men and successful ones to their own good fortune, as a result of which they were easily spurred to the destruction of those under whose command unsuccessful ventures happened to be reported, but that he would be in a greater danger than this, since his greatest enemies were the men the king listened to the most. Once he had read such letters and then met with the worried Aces, he heeded these correct statements and decided to depart from the king. But he did not do anything unworthy of his trust. For he put Mandrocles the Magnesian in commande of his army; he himself departed to Cappadocia with his men and seized the part of Paphlagonia bordering this, hiding the reason why he was going against the king. Secretly he formed a friendship with Ariobarzanes, prepared a troop, assigned fortified cities to his men to protect.

VI. But this proceeded with limited success because of the wintery weather. He heard that the Pisidians had equipped themselves as hostile forces. He sent his son Arsideus with an army; the boy fell in battle. His father marched forth with a rather small force, hiding the scale of the injury he had suffered, because he wanted to reach the enemy before rumour of the failure reached his men, in case his soldiers' resolve was weakened by knowledge of his son's death. He reached the place he had set out for and placed his camp in such a place that he could not be surrounded by a large number of enemies or prevented from keeping his force ready for battle. There was a man with him, Mithrobarzanes, his father-in-law and commander of the cavalry. Since his son-in-law's situation was hopeless, he fled to the enemy. When Datames heard this, he realised that if it got out that he had been abandoned by such an essential man, other advisors would follow. To the masses he proclaimed that Mithrobarzanes had set out on his command, as if fleeing, so that he might be taken in more easily and kill the enemies. Therefore, he said that it would not be right to abandon him; all should follow at once, and if they did this with a vigourous spirit, the adversaries would not be able to resist when they were attacked both inside their palisade and outside it. When they approved this, he led the army out and followed right after Mithrobarzanes. When he reached the enemy, Datames gave the order to attack. The Pisidians were shaken by this sudden event and led to believe that the defectors had acted in bad faith and duplicitously, in order to bring a greater disaster upon them once they had been admitted. They attacked the defectors first. Since they were unaware of what had been done or why it had happened, they were forced to fight with those to whom they had defected and to stand with those they had abandoned. Since neither side spared them, they were quickly cut down. Datames charges the remaining Pisidian resistors. He strikes with the first blow, he chases them down, he kills many, he takes the camp of the enemy. So, through this plan he simultaneously thwarted the traitors and crushed the enemy, and transformed an event that had been thought to be his doom into his salvation. We have read of no act of any other commander that was ever planned more cleverly or executed more quickly than this.

VII. But Sysinas, his oldest son, separated from him, went to the king and accused his father of rebellion. When this was announced, Artaxerxes was shaken and sent Autophrodates into Cappadocia because he understood that this was serious business with a strong and clever man, who acted boldly when he had made a plan and was accustomed to plan before he acted. To prevent him from entering the pass where the Cilician Gates are located, Datames was eager to occupy them first. But he could not assemble his forces so rapidly. As a result he was pushed back, with the force which he had assembled, and chose a place that could not be surrounded by enemies and that an enemy could not pass without being pressed on both sides, where, if he chose to fight, a large number of enemies could not harm his small force much.

VIII. Although Autophrodates saw this, he decided to attack, rather than fleeing with such a big force or stay put for too long in the same place. He had twenty thousand barbarian cavalry, a hundred thousand infantry, which they called Cardacae, three thousand slingers of the same race, as well as eight thousand Cappadocians, ten thousand Armenians, five thousand Paphlagonians, ten thousand Phrygians, five thousand Lydians, around three thousand Aspendians and Pisidians, two thousand Cilicians, the same number of Captiani, and three thousand hirelings from Greece - mostly lightly armed. Against these forces, Datames' only hope lay in himself and his location; for he had not a twentieth part of these soldiers. Relying on these things, he joined battle and slew many thousands of his opponents, while in his own army he had lost not more than a thousand men. For this reason, he erected a trophy the next day at the place where the fighting had taken place the previous day. He had moved his camp from this spot and he had always come out inferior in numbers but superior in every battle, because he never engaged a contingent unless he had trapped his opponents in constricted places, which often happened to him because he was familiar with the region and planned cunningly. Therefore, since he seemed to have made war more to the ruin of the king than the enemies, Autophrodates encouraged him to return to the king's grace. Although he did not think that this would prove trustworthy, he accepted the terms and said that he would send envoys to Artaxerxes. Thus the war which the king had undertaken against Datames was settled. Autophrodates withdrew to Phrygia.

IX. Yet, because the king had developed an implacable hatred of Datames, since he realised that he could not be crushed by war, he sought to kill him using schemes - many of which he thwarted. Thus, when it was announced to him that some men were scheming against him, who included a number of his friends (which he though he must neither believe nor ignore, since enemies had reported this to him), he wanted to determine whether what was reported to him was true or false. So he proceeded along the route on which they said he would be ambushed. But he chose a man who was similar in build and height to him, gave him his clothes, and ordered him to go to the place where he had determined, while he himself began the journey among his bodyguards in the clothes and insignia of a soldier. Yet when the column came to the place, the plotters were tricked by the arrangement and the clothing and made an attack against him - against the substitute, that is. But Datames had told the men with whom he was making the journey to be prepared to the same thing that they saw him do. When he realised that the plotters were attacking in a group, he cast arrows into their midst. Since everyone did this same thing, the men who sought to attack him were struck and killed before they reached him.

X. Yet although he was so clever, he was at last caught in a trap by Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes. For this man promised the king that he would kill him, if the king allowed him to do whatever he wanted with impunity and he gave surety of this thing by offering his right hand, as is Persian custom. As he received this from the king, he prepared a force and made friends with Datames from a distance, raided the provinces of the king, conquered strongholds, took a lot of booty, some of which he distributed to his men and some of which he sent to Datames. In the same way, he handed over plenty of strongholds to him. By doing this for a long time, he persuaded the man that he had undertaken an unending war against the king, with nothing more and in order that he not give any grounds for suspecting a trap, he did not ask to speak with him or seek to come into his sight. Thus he forged a friendship with him from far away, since they seemed to be held together not by mutual favours, but by shared hatred, since they had undertaken to oppose the king.

XI. When Mithridates considered that he had proved himself sufficiently, he made Datames more sure that it was time for greater armies to be prepared and war to be undertaken against the king himself, and said that if it seemed good to him, he would come to discuss this matter, in whatever location he chose. After considering the matter, a time for the discussion was selected and a place where they would meet. Mithridates came there with one man, whom he had the greatest faith in, a few days early and buried swords in a number of different places and carefully noted their locations. So on the day of the conference itself, both of them sent men who explored the location and carefully examined their persons; then they approached one another. They had had a discussion for quite a long time, left in different directions, and Datames was already quite a way off, but before he had reached his army, in order that he not develop some suspicion, Mithridates returned to the same place and sat down again in a spot where an arrow was buried as if he wanted to rest as a result of tiredness. Then he called Datames back, pretending that he had forgotten something when they were discussing. In the meanwhile, he pulled up the arrow which he had hidden and clothed the naked blade with a cloth scabbard. As Datames approached, he said that he had noticed a spot as he was going away, which was within sight, which was suitable for the installation of a camp. He pointed to it with his finger and when Datames turned to look, he stabbed him with the blade and killed him before anyone could come to the rescue. So this man, who had captured many men through planning and an enemy through treachery, was himself captured by a faked friendship.