Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
The Greeks gained a most complete and brilliant victory, for they only lost forty ships, while the enemy lost two hundred, or according to Ctesias, even five hundred. Very soon after the victory was decided, Xerxes with the remains of the fleet left the Attic coast and sailed toward the Hellespont. The battles of Artemisium and Salamis occurred in the same year, B.C. 480.
Read the account given by Plutarch, on the authority of Ctesias, of the murderous and perfidious intrigues that stained the palace of Susa in the time of Artaxerxes-Mnemon.
At this moment Ctesias, the Cnidian Greek, was his court physician and no friend either to Cyrus or to Spartans; he was even then in correspondence with the Athenian Conon who would presently be made a Persian admiral and smash the Spartan fleet. Of his history of Persia some few fragments and some epitomized extracts relating to this time have survived.
Plutarch, who drew material for his life of Artaxerxes not only from Ctesias, but also from authorities now lost to us, leaves us with much the same impression of the lords of the East at the close of the fifth century B.C. Corrupt and treacherous central rule, largely directed by harem intrigue; an unenthusiastic body of subjects, abandoned to the schemes of satraps; inefficient and casually collected armies in which foreign mercenaries were almost the only genuine soldiers such was Persia now.
Neither Herodotus, Xenophon, nor Ctesias satisfy us as to the real life and character of Cyrus. This renowned name represents, however, the Persian power, the last of the great monarchies that ruled the Oriental world until its conquest by the Greeks. Persia came suddenly into prominence in the middle of the seventh century before Christ.
It perhaps need scarcely be added, unless to meet the argument drawn from Diodorus, that the four sites in question are not so placed as to form the "oblong square" of his description, but mark the angles of a rhombus very munch slanted from the perpendicular. The argument derived from the book of Jonah deserves more attention than that which rests upon the authority of Diodorus and Ctesias.
He hath been so bold as to tax the true critics of ignorance and malice, telling us openly, for I think nothing can be plainer, that in the western part of Libya there were asses with horns, upon which relation Ctesias yet refines, mentioning the very same animal about India; adding, that whereas all other asses wanted a gall, these horned ones were so redundant in that part that their flesh was not to be eaten because of its extreme bitterness.
There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which was only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive writing for common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal archives were written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that writing was an art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian.
According to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the throne, when he led an expedition to the far north-east against the renowned Bactrians and Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or no and most probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences it is certain that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with scarcely a pause on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life to the carrying out of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion of his schemes, which were too extensive for one life to realize, as a legacy to his successor.
As is well known, the lists of Ctesias have fallen into utter discredit by the side of the ever-growing confidence in the native traditions as reported by Berosus. The loss of the latter's history of Babylon is deplorable indeed; its value would have been greater than the history of Herodotus, because it was based, as we know, on the records and documents preserved in Babylonian temples.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking