41 Cyrus’s War with the Massagetae (§§201-214)

Babylon conquered, Cyrus desires to subdue the Massagetae, a great race, perhaps Scythian, living east of the Caspian Sea (201).^[1] No motive whatsoever is established for Cyrus’s desire; it simply arises. It is as if for him a life of continual conquest is the natural course. The description of the area and the people’s customs (202-03) makes the desire to possess the territory of the Massagetae hard to understand. To reach the Massagetae, one must travel beyond the Araxes River, in which there are some islands as large as Lesbos on which the people eat roots in the summer and stored berries in the winter. They grow drunk from another fruit when they throw it on fires and breathe in the intoxicating fumes. The Araxes, which flows from the same source as the Gyndes, the river (Herodotus is careful to remind us) that Cyrus had diverted into 360 channels, generally empties through swamps and marshes where live men who eat raw fish. One channel of the Araxes empties into the Caspian Sea, a large body of water that is not connected to the Atlantic. The Caucasus Mountains, just to the west of the Caspian Sea, have trees with leaves that when crushed make a good paint for decorating clothes with animal figures. The people who live there copulate in the open, like animals in flocks.

This description of the land into which Cyrus is marching promises no Eldorado, no Eden, no Hesperia with opulence and splendor to be found in lush glades and fabulous cities. Nay, the people are primitive, their food unappealing, their land isolated. Their custom of copulating in the open was particularly distasteful to the Greeks.^[2] The natural question to ask is why anyone would wish to conquer such a place. After the description, Herodotus enumerates Cyrus’s private inducements (204):

First, his own birth, in respect to which he appeared to be something more than human, and second, his good luck in his wars. For wherever Cyrus directed his attack, that people could in no way escape.

The significance of these inducements will become apparent as the story unfolds. But it should be observed here that they are all in Cyrus’s psyche—that is, they have nothing to do with the actual land he wishes to attack. He wants to attack because he has a special birth, because he has good luck in wars. Neither justice nor even simple greed motivates him.

The Massagetae are ruled by a widow, Queen Tomyris, whom Cyrus tries to woo with gifts and a message declaring his ardent desire to marry her gift only that he might more easily acquire her kingdom.^[3] When the queen sees through his gold-digging ruse and refuses to marry him, Cyrus builds bridges and rafts to cross the Araxes River and campaign openly against her (205). During his preparations, Tomyris gives him a choice through a herald: either the Massagetae will retreat three days from the Araxes so that he might cross and carry the war into her territory, or he should retreat three days from the river and she will cross over into his territory.

Tomyris’s offer seems strange enough on first reading. The common element in the two parts of the offer is that one side or the other be allowed to cross the river Araxes in peace, at leisure, without the need for bridges. In view of Cyrus’s willingness to bridge rivers or divert them or destroy them, we are to see here Tomyris’s piety and respect for the sacredness of rivers in contrast to Cyrus. That the Massagetae worship only the sun and, unlike the Persians, do not value rivers most of all things only makes the reverence towards rivers the nobler.

Cyrus discusses the matter with the Persian chiefs, who urge him to admit Tomyris and her army into Persian territory for the battle. At this point, the symbol of vicissitude, Croesus—now adviser to Cyrus—re­enters the story. He reminds Cyrus of the goodwill he bears him and recalls how he has learned many things from his own suffering. Then, just before giving advice to Cyrus, he says (207):

If it is an immortal that you deem yourself, and an immortal army that you govern, there would be no ground for me to give you advice. But if you know that you too are a man and that even such are those you rule, learn this first of all: that all human matters are a wheel, and as it turns, it never suffers the same men to be happy forever.^[4]

We should recall one last bit of information, for it is echoed in Croesus’s words here. When Croesus was taken off the Persian pyre, after he had explained his reasons for invoking Solon and had also explained the brevity of his and human happiness generally, Cyrus, debating within himself what to do, was portrayed thus (86):

Then Cyrus, after hearing from the interpreters what Croesus had said, relented, thinking that he too was a man, and that it was a fellow man, one who had once been as blessed by fortune as himself, that he was burning alive; he was afraid, too, of retribution, and was full of the thought that whatever is human is insecure.

Cyrus’s “inducements” for attacking the Massagetae are his birth and his good luck in war; Croesus says his advice should be followed only if Cyrus is a mere mortal.^[5] Cyrus knew that he was mortal when he freed Croesus from the pyre, yet his very reason for following Croesus’s advice, that he is a mere mortal and that fortune changes, would undercut his inducement to attack the Massagetae (his birth and unchanging good luck in war).^[6] In other words, if Cyrus agrees to follow Croesus’s advice—advice predicated on Cyrus’s being a mortal man subject to the vagaries of fortune-then his motives for the attack disintegrate. If, in fact, Cyrus is a god or in possession of unchanging good fortune, then he need not and should not follow Croesus’s advice: to follow the advice (advice predicated on Cyrus’s mortality) and to go on with his planned campaign (a campaign predicated on Cyrus’s divinity) are contradictory. Cyrus must believe that he is both mortal and immortal simultaneously: he violates the law of non­contradiction—he is irrational. His attack on the Massagetae, prompted by no motive other than desire, induced by fancy, is wholly irrational.^[7]

Croesus advises that, contrary to the opinion of the Persian chiefs, the battle take place in the territory of Tomyris. The risks, he says, are slighter, the rewards greater.^[8] Moreover, he says, it would be a shame to give ground to a woman. Apparently Croesus does not think it a shame to defeat a woman by trickery, for he suggests a trick: The Massagetae do not know what it is to eat well, the way the Persians do (is this a hint, since the Massagetae have nothing worth conquering, of the bankruptcy of the desire to conquer them?), so prepare a sumptuous banquet in the camp including plenty of undiluted wine. Leave the worst Persian soldiers in the camp; then, when the Massagetae have conquered the camp and have eaten the good foods and drunk the wine, display glorious deeds. There are many notable features to Croesus’s advice: first, the resort to trickery, to conquering the Massagetae when they are made sluggish by food and drink, a trick that recalls the perfidy of Levi and Simeon on Hamor and Shechem, when they slaughter the enemy weakened by trickery (Genesis 34:13-31); second, the repetition of the shame involved in confronting a woman and yielding in any way to her, which recalls Cyrus’s insult to the Gyndes River, when he said that he would so weaken it that a woman could cross it without wetting her knees; third, the contrast between the wealth of the conquerors and the poverty of the intended victims, which points up the absence of even greed as a motive; fourth, the willingness to sacrifice a part of the army, to use it as bait for an ambush;^[9] and, finally, the reference (which perhaps shows the depravity of Persian values) to an ambush as “glorious deeds.” This type of trick the Persians will repeat­ with greater success-in the second conquest of Babylon (3.155-160).

Cyrus decides to follow the advice of Croesus and tells Tomyris to retreat; she retreats as she had promised. Cyrus entrusts Croesus to his son Cambyses, bidding the prince honor the Lydian should the campaign against the Massagetae should go badly (208). The historian is laying the background for Cambyses’s insane act, when he will try to kill Croesus for cautioning against impulsive behavior (3.36).

During the night after he has crossed the Araxes, Cyrus dreams that Darius, son of Hystaspses, appeared with wings on his shoulders, one wing covering Europe and the other Asia. When the king awakens, he reflects within himself on the dream, then summons Hystaspes. He says that the gods protect him and tell him the future, then explains his own interpreta­tion, that Darius is plotting against him. He orders Hystaspes to return to Persia to arrange an interview for Darius with Cyrus on Cyrus’s return from conquering the Massagetae (209).

Herodotus interrupts the narrative (210) to observe that although Cyrus thought Darius was plotting against him, in fact the gods were warning him that he should die where he was. We may note that Herodotus, armed with hindsight, was in a better position to understand the omen than Cyrus. Nevertheless, the historian includes a reminder of Cyrus’s own belief in the special protection he enjoys from the gods. It is yet another reminder that although Cyrus seems to acknowledge his humanity by following Croesus’s advice, he really thinks himself divine. His self- confidence is such that he considers within himself the dream rather than taking it to his dream interpreters: he presumes to have a direct link with the gods. He alone is responsible for his interpretation.^[10] Herodotus prepares his readers to see Cyrus’s death in the context of the king’s mistakes and irrationality.

Hystaspes’s response to Cyrus is also remarkable. He first quotes the Greek saying attributed to Sophocles that the best thing is never to be born, next best to die immediately (Oedipus at Colonus 1225 ff.). Hystaspes says, “May the Persian who will plot against you never be born; if he already lives, may he die immediately.” His second comments recall the closing speech of the entire History, when Cyrus says and the Persians agree that it is better to live in a wretched land and rule than to sow level plains (the kind the Massagetae live on) and be ruled. Hystaspes says, ‘‘You have made the Persians from slaves to being free men and instead of being ruled, to rule all others.” He then promises to turn over his son Darius. But Herodotus adds that Hystaspes returned to Asia to guard his son against Cyrus (211). Herodotus is, I think, showing the “canned” response that a Persian subject would naturally give his monarch—the invocation against anyone who would harm the king, the recitation of the king’s accomplishments, and the promise to do the king’s bidding. The fact that all Hystaspes’s comments are formulaic repetitions of commonplaces suggests that the conversation is no real conversation, as are very few conversations with the king.^[11] Indeed, this is made obvious by the discrepancy between what Hystaspes says and what he truly intends. Thus, while conveying yet another condemnation of the Persian regime Herodotus introduces Darius as a future participant.

Cyrus proceeds to carry out Croesus’s plan (211).^[12] One third of the Massagetae army slaughter Cyrus’s troops and enjoy the feast. While the victors are resting, the Persians sneak up upon them, kill many, and take many prisoners, among whom is Spargapises, the son of Tomyris. So far Croesus’s plan has worked perfectly. Then Tomyris sends a message to Cyrus chiding him for the trick by which he won his victory and urging him to return her son and leave her territory (212). If Cyrus does not, she swears by the sun to give him, for all his unlimited desire for it, his fill of blood. The reader can see an irony here. He recalls another parent who loved a son and tried to protect him, and we see that Croesus’s plan will be foiled by a more successful parent than the Lydian. Cyrus ignores Tomyris’s message (213). As for Spargapises, when he sobers up and learns what has happened, he commits suicide, the second suicide in the History and one that cannot but help to recall the first, that of Adrastus, who killed Atys, Croesus’s son. Here too thematic links connect the two parents.

The ensuing battle, Herodotus twice affirms, was the fiercest battle ever fought among the barbarians. The warriors first exhausted all their missiles, then fought for a long time in hand-to-hand combat, until the Massagetae finally won, destroying most of the Persian army including Cyrus himself. Tomyris sought out the corpse, filled a skin with human blood, and placed Cyrus’s head in the skin, exulting that she has conquered him, though he destroyed her by depriving her of her son. Now, she says, he has his fill of blood. The historian claims that there are many stories about Cyrus’s death, but this is the one he finds most convincing (214).^[13] His version also confirms the principle of vicissitude.

We see, then, the various parts of the Cyrus story coming together, with all its ironies. As the Persian king drank only waters from the purest of rivers, the Choaspes, now he drinks human blood; as wine is a symbol of the Persians (1.133) and of Cyrus in particular (1.108), now it and its trickery have induced the motives for Cyrus’s destruction;^[14] as Cyrus thought his luck in war beyond vicissitude, now that luck has ended in disaster; as the Persians represented the height of culture and military strength, now a primitive people has defeated them; as Cyrus taunted the Gyndes with its womanly feebleness, now a woman, and no feeble one at that, has humiliated him.

In addition, in the story of the Massagetan Campaign we have been introduced to Cambyses, who will in turn be succeeded, after some consid­erable intrigue, by Darius, to whom we have also been introduced. Moreover, the account of the war with the unimpressive Massagetae was preceded by the account of the conquest of mighty Babylon with its impregnable wall and defenses. Who would have expected this outcome? Cyrus, then, represents another exemplary victim of the principle of vicissitude.