A General History for Colleges and High Schools

other members of the Aryan family, sought new abodes on the plateau of Iran. The tribes that settled in the south bec

ersians; but notwithstanding this, the names of the two peoples were always very closely as

ans, still the Medes were at first the leading people. Cyaxares (625-585 B.C.) was their first prominent leader and king. We

, whom Cyaxares had brought into at least partial subjection to the Median crown, revolte

had yet been swayed by an Oriental monarch, or indeed, so far as we know, by any ruler before his time. It stretched from the Indus to the farthest limits of Asia Minor, and from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, thus embracing not only the

S OF LYDIA, MEDIA, AND

nland, slope gently to the island-dotted Aegean. The Pactolus, and other tributaries of the streams we have named, rolled down "golden sands," while the mountains were rich in the precious metals. The

ling, in prehistoric times, of Aryan tribes that crossed the Aegean

ates of Asia Minor west of the Halys, save Lycia. The tribute Croesus collected from the Greek cities, which he subjugated, and the revenues

pon Cyrus, told him that he "would destroy a great kingdom." Interpreting this favorably, he sent again to inquire whether the empire he should establish would prove permanent, and received this oracle: "Flee and tarry not when a mule [Footnote: The

e strength and activity of his enemy. Cyrus marched across the Halys, defeated the Lydian army in the

OF CYRUS THE GREAT.

lon. Seeking the meaning of this, he was told that Croesus in his prosperous years was visited by the Greek sage Solon, who, in answer to the inquiry of Croesus as to whether he did not deem him a

ought the Persian empire into contact with the Greek cities of Asia, and thus led on dir

, the old Persian capital, and there his tomb stands to-day, surrounded by the ruins of the magnificent buildings with which he adorned t

a kindly and generous disposition. Almost universal testimony has ascrib

rmer, as the oldest, inherited the sceptre, and the title of king. He began a despotic and un

d the country of Africa to the vast inheritance received from his father. Upon some slight pretext, he invaded Egypt, captured Memphis, and ascended the Nile to Thebes. From here he sent an army of fifty thousand men to subdue the oasis of Am

ch taught the simple worship of God under the name of Ormazd; and Magianism, a less pure faith, whose professors were fire-worshippers. The former was the religion of the Aryans; the latter, that of the non-Aryan portion of the population. The usurpation which placed Smerdis on t

e false Smerdis, and their leader, Darius, took the throne. The first act of Darius was to punish,

DARIUS. Beneath his foot is the Magus Gomates, th

g changes that he has been called "the second founder of the Persian empire"; established post-roads, instituted a coinage for the realm, and upon the great rock of Behistun, a lofty smooth-faced cliff on the western frontier of Persia, caused to be inscribed a record of all

h, whose shifting sands within a period yet fresh in memory had been the grave of a Persian army, seemed to be the barriers which Nature herself had set for the limits of empire in these directions. But on the eastern flank of the kingdom the rich and crowded plains of India invite

he eastern limits of the empire pushed out so as to include one of the richest countries of Asia-one which henceforth returned to the Great

assing the Danube by means of a similar bridge, penetrated far into what is now Russia, which was then occupied by Scythian hordes. The results of the expedition were the

rdis was sacked and burned by the insurgents. With the revolt crushed and punished with great severity, Darius determined to chastise the European Greeks, and particularly the Athenians, for their insole

law of Darius. The land forces suffered severe losses at the hands of the barbarians of Thrace, and

The details of the significant encounter that there took place between the Persians and the Athenians will be given when we come to narrate th

and near, resolved upon leading in person such an army into Greece that the insolent Athenians should be crushed at a single blow, and the tarnishe

o indulge in the ease and luxury of the palace than to subject himself to the hardship and discipl

caused to be thrown across the Hellespont, crushed the Spartan guards at the Pass of Thermopyl?, pushed on into Attica, and laid Athens in ruins. But there fortune forsook him. At the naval battle of Salamis, his fleet was cut to pieces by the Grecian ships; and

was a time of weakness and anarchy. This period was spanned by the reigns of eight kings. It was in the reign of Artaxerxes II., called Mnemon for his remarkable memory, that took p

empire. Marathon and Salamis had shown the immense superiority of the free soldiery of Greece over the splendid but servile armies of Pe

pont. Three great battles-that of the Granicus, that of Issus, and that of Arbela-decided the fate of the Persian Empire. Darius III., the last

-lived Macedonian monarchy upon the ruins of the Persian state, are matters that