The Greatest Historical Novels of Georg Ebers. Georg Ebers
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who gives himself out for the son of Cyrus, sent me hither; he promised me rich rewards if I would deceive you by declaring him to be Bartja, the son of the Achaemenidae. But I scorn his promises and swear by Mithras and the Feruers of the kings, the most solemn oaths I am acquainted with, that the man who is now ruling you is none other than the Magian Gaumata, he who was deprived of his ears, the brother of the king’s vicegerent and high-priest, Oropastes, whom ye all know. If it be your will to forget all the glory ye owe to the Achaemenidae, if to this ingratitude ye choose to add your own degradation, then acknowledge these creatures and call them your kings; but if ye despise a lie and are ashamed to obey worthless impostors, drive the Magi from the throne before Mithras has left the heavens, and proclaim the noblest of the Achaemenidae, Darius, the exalted son of Hystaspes, who promises to become a second Cyrus, as your king. And now, in order that ye may believe my words and not suspect that Darius sent me hither to win you over to his side, I will commit a deed, which must destroy every doubt and prove that the truth and glory of the Achaemenidae are clearer to me, than life itself. Blessed be ye if ye follow my counsels, but curses rest upon you, if ye neglect to reconquer the throne from the Magi and revenge yourselves upon them.—Behold, I die a true and honorable man!”
With these words he ascended the highest pinnacle of the tower and cast himself down head foremost, thus expiating the one crime of his life by an honorable death.
The dead silence with which the people in the court below had listened to him, was now broken by shrieks of rage and cries for vengeance. They burst open the gates of the palace and were pressing in with cries of “Death to the Magi,” when the seven princes of the Persians appeared in front of the raging crowd to resist their entrance.
At sight of the Achaemenidae the citizens broke into shouts of joy, and cried more impetuously than ever, “Down with the Magi! Victory to King Darius!”
The son of Hystaspes was then carried by the crowd to a rising ground, from which he told the people that the Magi had been slain by the Achaemenidae, as liars and usurpers. Fresh cries of joy arose in answer to these words, and when at last the bleeding heads of Oropastes and Gaumata were shown to the crowd, they rushed with horrid yells through the streets of the city, murdering every Magian they could lay hold of. The darkness of night alone was able to stop this awful massacre.
Four days later, Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was chosen as king by the heads of the Achaemenidae, in consideration of his high birth and noble character, and received by the Persian nation with enthusiasm. Darius had killed Gaumata with his own hand, and the highpriest had received his death-thrust from the hand of Megabyzus, the father of Zopyrus. While Prexaspes was haranguing the people, the seven conspiring Persian princes, Otanes, Intaphernes, Gobryas, Megabyzus, Aspatines, Hydarnes and Darius, (as representative of his aged father Hystaspes), had entered the palace by a carelessly-guarded gate, sought out the part of the building occupied by the Magi, and then, assisted by their own knowledge of the palace, and the fact that most of the guards had been sent to keep watch over the crowd assembled to hear Prexaspes easily penetrated to the apartments in which at that moment they were to be found. Here they were resisted by a few eunuchs, headed by Boges, but these were overpowered and killed to a man. Darius became furious on seeing Boges, and killed him at once. Hearing the dying cries of these eunuchs, the Magi rushed to the spot and prepared to defend themselves. Oropastes snatched a lance from the fallen Boges, thrust out one of Intaphernes’ eyes and wounded Aspatines in the thigh, but was stabbed by Megabyzus. Gaumata fled into another apartment and tried to bar the door, but was followed too soon by Darius and Gobryas; the latter seized, threw him, and kept him down by the weight of his own body, crying to Darius, who was afraid of making a false stroke in the half-light, and so wounding his companion instead of Gaumata, “Strike boldly, even if you should stab us both.” Darius obeyed, and fortunately only hit the Magian.
Thus died Oropastes, the high-priest, and his brother Gaumata, better known under the name of the “pseudo” or “pretended Smerdis.”
A few weeks after Darius’ election to the throne, which the people said had been marvellously influenced by divine miracles and the clever cunning of a groom, he celebrated his coronation brilliantly at Pasargadae, and with still more splendor, his marriage with his beloved Atossa. The trials of her life had ripened her character, and she proved a faithful, beloved and respected companion to her husband through the whole of that active and glorious life, which, as Prexaspes had foretold, made him worthy of the names by which he was afterwards known—Darius the Great, and a second Cyrus.
[Atossa is constantly mentioned as the favorite wife of Darius, and
be appointed her son Xerxes to be his successor, though he had three
elder sons by the daughter of Gobryas. Herodotus (VII. 3.) speaks
with emphasis of the respect and consideration in which Atossa was
held, and Aeschylus, in his Persians, mentions her in her old age,
as the much-revered and noble matron.]
As a general he was circumspect and brave, and at the same time understood so thoroughly how to divide his enormous realm, and to administer its affairs, that he must be classed with the greatest organizers of all times and countries. That his feeble successors were able to keep this Asiatic Colossus of different countries together for two hundred years after his death, was entirely owing to Darius. He was liberal of his own, but sparing of his subjects’ treasures, and made truly royal gifts without demanding more than was his due. He introduced a regular system of taxation, in place of the arbitrary exactions practised under Cyrus and Cambyses, and never allowed himself to be led astray in the carrying out of what seemed to him right, either by difficulties or by the ridicule of the Achaemenidae, who nicknamed him the “shopkeeper,” on account of what seemed, to their exclusively military tastes, his petty financial measures. It is by no means one of his smallest merits, that he introduced one system of coinage through his entire empire, and consequently through half the then known world.
Darius respected the religions and customs of other nations. When the writing of Cyrus, of the existence of which Cambyses had known nothing, was found in the archives of Ecbatana, he allowed the Jews to carry on the building of their temple to Jehovah; he also left the Ionian cities free to govern their own communities independently. Indeed, he would hardly have sent his army against Greece, if the Athenians had not insulted him.
In Egypt he had learnt much; among other things, the art of managing the exchequer of his kingdom wisely; for this reason he held the Egyptians in high esteem, and granted them many privileges, amongst others a canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, which was greatly to the advantage of their commerce.
[Traces of this canal can be found as early as the days of Setos I;
his son Rameses II. caused the works to be continued. Under Necho
they were recommenced, and possibly finished by Darius. In the time
of the Ptolemies, at all events, the canal was already completed.
Herod. II. 158. Diod. I. 33. The French, in undertaking to
reconstruct the Suez canal, have had much to encounter from the
unfriendly commercial policy of the English and their influence over
the internal affairs of Egypt, but the unwearied energy and great
talent of Monsr. de Lesseps and the patriotism of the French nation
have at last succeeded in bringing their great work to a successful
close. Whether it will pay is another question. See G. Ebers, Der
Kanal von Suez. Nordische Revue, October 1864. The maritime canal
connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea has also been
completed since 1869. We were among those, who attended the
brilliant inauguration ceremonies, and now willingly recall many of
the doubts expressed in our work ‘Durch Gosen zum Sinai’. The
number of ships passing through the canal is constantly increasing.]
During the whole of his reign,