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The satraps of Cyrus were like the satraps of Nebuchadnezzar, members or friends of the imperial house, who ruled the various provinces in the name of the king of Babylon, or Persia, without much interference with the manners, or language, or customs, or laws, or religion of the conquered, contented to receive tribute merely, and troops in case of war.
He attacked his critics not for being satraps and reactionaries, but because they had dared to talk second-rate Western politics in connection with India. "Have you lived for forty years with your eyes shut," he cried, "that you cannot see the difference between a Bengali, married at fifteen and worshipping a pantheon of savage gods, and the university-extension Young Radical at home?
To oppress or to plunder their native land as the absolute satraps of an absolute lord was a more powerful allurement for the avarice and ambition of the great, than in the general assembly of the state to share with the monarch a hundredth part of the supreme power. A large portion, moreover, of the nobility were deeply sunk in poverty and debt.
His armies at once entered their territory and carried everything before them. Chosroes seems to have had no son of sufficient age to succeed him, and the defence of the country fell upon the satraps, or governors of the several provinces.
But it may be true for Xenophon states it expressly, and with detail that Cyrus, from the very time of his triumph, became an Eastern despot, a sultan or a shah, living apart from his people in mysterious splendour, in the vast fortified palace which he built for himself; and imitating and causing his nobles and satraps to imitate, in all but vice and effeminacy, the very Medes whom he had conquered.
In the cafés, satraps and burghers eating amid a suppressed clamor of whispers, plans. The foolishness was almost over. The armies of General Hoffmann were coming ... Twenty kilometers out.... Arrive at night. The corps students themselves would saber the swine out of the city.... Night. Darkened streets. Tattered patrols hurrying through mysteriously emptied highways, shouting, "Indoors!
The discovery of his flight agitated with terror and tumult the palace, the city, and the camp of Dastagerd: the satraps hesitated whether they had most to fear from their sovereign or the enemy; and the females of the harem were astonished and pleased by the sight of mankind, till the jealous husband of three thousand wives again confined them to a more distant castle.
But the Senate overstepped all bounds of decency when it thus addressed him: "You are founding a new era: but you ought to make it last for ever: splendour is nothing without duration." The Greeks who fawned on Persian satraps did not more unman themselves than these pensioned sycophants, who had lived through the days of 1789 but knew them not.
It was most fortunate that he had gone, and that I had found him. He recommended himself to me as the best cook within ten thousand miles of Pekin. For almost three months we had journeyed; Chiu-Ming and I and the two ponies that carried my impedimenta. We had traversed mountain roads which had echoed to the marching feet of the hosts of Darius, to the hordes of the Satraps.
Methinks I am Xerxes, the nucleus of the martial neigh of all the Persian studs. Like gilded damask-flies, thick clustering on some lofty bough, my satraps swarm around me. But now the pageant passes, and I droop; while Carlo taps his ivory knobs; and plays some flute-like saraband soft, dulcet, dropping sounds, like silver cans in bubbling brooks.
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