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Xenophon's romantic tales. Panthea a Susian captive. Valuable spoil. Its division. Share of Cyrus. Panthea given to Cyrus. Araspes. Abradates. Account of Panthea's capture. Her great loveliness. Attempts at consolation. Panthea's renewed grief. Cyrus declines to see Panthea. His reasons. Araspes's self-confidence. Panthea's patience and gentleness. Araspes's kindness to Panthea.
The characters of the texts stamped upon bricks recovered from buildings erected by him, have, as all Assyriologists know, a peculiar physiognomy of their own. Ourkam is the Menes of Chaldæa, and his date is put long before that Susian conquest of which we have spoken above. The name of the latter occurs almost as often as that of his father among the ruins of Southern Chaldæa.
We have, then, no reason to doubt the figure named by Assurbanipal, and his chronicle may be taken to give the oldest date in the history of Chaldæa, B.C. 2,295, as the year of the Susian conquest. The Elamite dynasty was succeeded, according to Berosus, by a native Chaldæan dynasty.
We relate the story here in our own language, but as to the facts, we follow faithfully the course of Xenophon's narration. Panthea was a Susian captive. She was taken, together with a great many other captives and much plunder, after one of the great battles which Cyrus fought with the Assyrians. Her husband was an Assyrian general, though he himself was not captured at this time with his wife.
The second style of cuneiform, generally known as Median or Susian, is again only a slight modification of the "Persian." A fifth variety, found on tablets from Cappadocia, represents again a modification of the ordinary writing met with in Babylonia.
Among the prizes assigned to Cyrus were two singing women of great fame, and this Susian lady. Cyrus thanked the distributors for the share of booty which they had thus assigned to him, but said that if any of his friends wished for either of these captives, they could have them. An officer asked for one of the singers.
The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams, consisted of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate of the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior buildings. It stood at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral mass of unburnt brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the residence of the old Susian kings.
The Murgab and Istakr ruins were carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the Susian edifice. The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia, comprise, besides the well-known "Tomb of Cyrus," two principal buildings.
In a word, Araspes advocated, on the subject of love, a sort of new school philosophy, while that of Cyrus leaned very seriously toward the old. In conclusion, Cyrus jocosely counseled Araspes to beware lest he should prove that love was stronger than the will by becoming himself enamored of the beautiful Susian queen. Araspes said that Cyrus need not fear; there was no danger.
In these upper strata of the mound are found remains of the Arab, Sassanian, Parthian, Seleucian, and Persian periods, mixed indiscriminately with one another and with Elamite objects and materials of all ages, from that of the earliest patesis down to that of the Susian kings of the seventh century B.C.
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