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τίνες ἐόντες. For the con<*>ous question cf. v. 73. 2 (Artaphrenes), v. 105 (Darius after the burning of Sardis); it is most appropriate here. The words put into Cyrus' month bring out dramatically the contrast between the town life of the Greeks and the village life, feudal in its arrangements, of Persia; the rich Persians lived on presents or the produce of their land. Cf. Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 3-4 for a fancy picture of the ἐλευθέρα <*> (i.e. ‘free’ from trade) in Persia. Aristotle (Pol. i. 9, p. 1257) analyses the prejudice against τὸ καπηλικόν in his day, when the Greek attitude to trade had changed greatly from that of H.
This passage is the best instance of the division of power among the officers of the Persian Empire (cf. Xen. Cyr. viii. 6. 1 and App. VI, § 7). Tabalus commands the garrison (cf. Mithrines at Sardis in Arr. Anab. i. 17. 3), Mazares (cc. 156-7) the field forces, while Pactyas has civil authority. If κομίζειν = ‘manage’, this sense is common in Homer, e.g. Il. vi. 490 “τὰ σ᾽ αὐτῆς ἔργα κόμιζε”, but rare later; Pactyas would then be a satrap with limited powers. But κομίζειν may have its ordinary sense, ‘bring,’ i.e. to Ecbatana. In any case the position and behaviour of Pactyas resemble those of Harpalus under Alexander.
Justin (i. 7) makes the Babylonian War, Ctesias (2. 3, p. 64), the wars with the Bactrians and Sacae, precede the attack on Sardis; the order of events in H. (73. 1 n.) is more probable. Justin (ib.) has an absurd story that all Greece was coming to attack Cyrus, had he not spared Croesus. For the subsequent conquests of Cyrus cf. c. 177 n.
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