Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 3)

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1781, to 1779.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1778 (July). The Wyoming Massacre.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JULY).

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1779-1786. Final settlement of boundaries with Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1779–1786.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1780. Emancipation of Slaves.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1688-1780.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1780-1783. The treason of Arnold. The war in the south. Surrender of Cornwallis. Peace with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780, to 1783.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1781. Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781 (JANUARY).

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1787. Formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; and 1787-1780.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1794. The Whiskey Insurrection.

"In every part of the United States except Pennsylvania, and in by far the larger number of the counties of that state, the officers of the Federal Government had been able to carry the excise law [passed in March, 1791, on the recommendation of Hamilton], unpopular as it generally was, into execution; but resistance having been made in a few of the western counties, and their defiance of law increasing with the forbearance of the Government in that State, prosecutions had been ordered against the offenders. In July, the Marshal of the District, Lenox, who, was serving the process, and General Neville, the Inspector, were attacked by a body of armed men, and compelled to desist from the execution of their official duties. The next day, a much larger number, amounting to 500 men, assembled, and endeavored to seize the person of General Neyille. Failing in that, they exacted a promise from the Marshal that he would serve no more process on the west side of the Alleghany; and attacking the Inspector's house, they set fire to it, and destroyed it with its contents. On this occasion, the leader of the assailants was killed, and several of them wounded. Both the Inspector and Marshal were required to resign; but they refused, and sought safety in flight. {2507} A meeting was held a few days later, at Mingo Creek meeting-house, which recommended to all the townships in the four western counties of Pennsylvania, and the neighboring counties of Virginia, to meet, by their delegates, at Parkinson's ferry, on the Monongahela, on the 14th of August, 'to take into consideration the situation of the western country.' Three days after this meeting, a party of the malcontents seized the mail, carried it to Canonsburg, seven miles distant, and there opened the letters from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, to discover who were hostile to them. They then addressed a circular letter to the officers of the militia in the disaffected counties, informing them of the intercepted letters, and calling on them to rendezvous at Braddock's Field on the 1st of August, with arms in good order, and four days' provision. … This circular was signed by seven persons, but the prime mover was David Bradford, a lawyer, who was the prosecuting attorney of Washington County. In consequence of this summons, a large body of men, which has been estimated at from five to seven thousand, assembled at Braddock's Field on the day appointed. … Bradford took upon himself the military command, which was readily yielded to him. … Bradford proposed the expulsion from Pittsburg of several persons whose hostility had been discovered by the letters they had intercepted; but his motion was carried only as to two persons, Gibson and Neville, son of the Inspector. They then decided to proceed to Pittsburg. Some assented to this, to prevent the mischief which others meditated. But for this, and the liberal refreshments furnished by the people of Pittsburg, it was thought that the town would have been burnt. … The President issued a proclamation reciting the acts of treason, commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning others against abetting them. He, at the same time, wishing to try lenient measures, appointed three Commissioners to repair to the scene of the insurrection, to confer with the insurgents, and to offer them pardon on condition of a satisfactory assurance of their future obedience to the laws. … Governor Mifflin followed the example of the President in appointing Commissioners to confer with the insurgents, with power to grant pardons, and he issued an admonitory proclamation, after which he convened the Legislature to meet on the 3d of November. The Federal and the State Commissioners reached the insurgent district while the convention at Parkinson's ferry was in session. It assembled on the 14th of August, and consisted of 226 delegates, all from the western counties of Pennsylvania, except six from Ohio County in Virginia. They appointed Cook their Chairman, and Albert Gallatin, Secretary, though he at first declined the appointment. … The Commissioners required … an explicit assurance of submission to the laws; a recommendation to their associates of a like submission; and meetings of the citizens to be held to confirm these assurances. All public prosecutions were to be suspended until the following July, when, if there had been no violation of the law in the interval, there should be a general amnesty. These terms were deemed reasonable by the subcommittee: but before the meeting of sixty took place, a body of armed men entered Brownsville, the place appointed for the meeting, and so alarmed the friends of accommodation, that they seemed to be driven from their purpose. Gallatin, however, was an exception; and the next day, he addressed the committee of sixty in favor of acceding to the proposals of the Commissioners; but nothing more could be effected than to pass a resolution that it would be to the interest of the people to accept those terms, without any promise or pledge of submission. … On the whole, it was the opinion of the well–disposed part of the population, that the inspection laws could not be executed in that part of the State; and that the interposition of the militia was indispensable. The Commissioners returned to Philadelphia, and on their report the President issued a second proclamation, on the 25th of September, in which he announced, the march of the militia, and again commanded obedience to the laws. The order requiring the militia to march was promptly obeyed in all the States except Pennsylvania, in which some pleaded defects in the militia law; but even in that State, after the Legislature met, the Governor was authorised to accept the services of volunteers. … The news that the militia were on the march increased the numbers of the moderate party. … Bradford, who was foremost in urging resistance to the law, was the first to seek safety in flight. He sought refuge in New Orleans. A second convention was called to meet at Parkinson's ferry on the second of October. A resolution of submission was passed, and a committee of two was appointed to convey it to the President at Carlisle. … On the return of the committee, the Parkinson ferry convention met for the third time, and resolutions were passed, declaring the sufficiency of the civil authorities to execute the laws; affirming that the excise duties would be paid, and recommending all delinquents to surrender themselves. … Lee, then, as Commander-in-chief, issued a proclamation granting an amnesty to all who had submitted to the laws; and calling upon the inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Orders were issued and executed to seize those offenders who had not signed the declaration of submission, and send them to Philadelphia; and thus was this purpose of resisting the execution of the excise law completely defeated, and entire order restored in less than four months from the time of the burning of Neville's house, which was the first overt act of resistance. It was, however, deemed prudent to retain a force of 2,500 militia during the winter, under General Morgan, to prevent a return of that spirit of disaffection which had so long prevailed in Pennsylvania."

George Tucker, History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. T. Morse, Life of Hamilton, volume 2, chapter 4.

T. Ward, The Insurrection of 1794 (Memoirs of Pennsylvania Historical Society, volume 6).

J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, chapter 9 (volume 2).

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1861. First troops sent to Washington.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1863. Lee's invasion. Battle of Gettysburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1864. Early's invasion. Burning of Chambersburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY: VIRGINIA-MARYLAND).

—————PENNSYLVANIA: End————

{2508}

PENNY POSTAGE.

See POST.

PENSACOLA: Unauthorized capture by General Jackson (1818).

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

PENTACOSIOMEDIMNI, The.

See ATHENS: B. C. 594.

PENTAPOLIS IN AFRICA.

See CYRENE.

PENTATHLON, The.

The five exercises of running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the diskos, and throwing the spear, formed what the Greeks called the pentathlon. "At the four great national festivals all these had to be gone through on one and the same day, and the prize was awarded to him only who had been victorious in all of them."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 52.

PEORIAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

PEPIN.

See PIPPIN.

PEPLUM, The.

"The peplum constituted the outermost covering of the body. Among the Greeks it was worn in common by both sexes, but was chiefly reserved for occasions of ceremony or of public appearance, and, as well in its texture as in its shape, seemed to answer to our shawl. When very long and ample, so as to admit of being wound twice round the body—first under the arms, and the second time over the shoulders—it assumed the name of diplax. In rainy or cold weather it was drawn over the head. At other times this peculiar mode of wearing it was expressive of humility or of grief."

T. Hope, Costume of the Ancients, volume 1.

PEPPERELL, Sir William, and the expedition against Louisburg.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745.

PEQUOTS. PEQUOT WAR.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SHAWANESE: also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.

PERA, The Genoese established at.

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

PERCEVAL MINISTRY, The.

See: ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1812.

PERDICCAS, and the wars of the Diadochi.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316.

PERDUELLIO, The Crime of.

"'Perduellis,' derived from 'duellum' e. q. 'bellum,' properly speaking signifies 'a public enemy,' and hence Perduellio was employed [among the Romans] in legal phraseology to denote the crime of hostility to one's native country, and is usually represented as corresponding, in a general sense, to our term High Treason."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 9.

See MAJESTAS.

PERED, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

PEREGRINI.

"The term 'Peregrinus,' with which in early times 'Hostis' (i. e. stranger) was synonymous, embraced, in its widest acceptation, everyone possessed of personal freedom who was not a Civis Romanus. Generally, however, Peregrinus was not applied to all foreigners indiscriminately, but to those persons only, who, although not Cives, were connected with Rome."

w. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 3.

See, also, CIVES ROMANI.

—————PERGAMUM: Start————

PERGAMUM, PERGAMUS.

This ancient city in northwestern Asia Minor, within the province of Mysia, on the north of the river Caïcus, became, during the troubled century that followed the death of Alexander, first the seat of an important principality, and then the capital of a rich and flourishing kingdom, to which it gave its name. It seems to have owed its fortunes to a great deposit of treasures—part of the plunder of Asia—which Lysimachus, one of the generals and successors of Alexander, left for safe keeping within its walls, under the care of an eunuch, named Philetærus. This Philetærus found excuses, after a time, for renouncing allegiance to Lysimachus, appropriating the treasures and using them to make himself lord of Pergamum. He was succeeded by a nephew, Eumenes, and he in turn by his cousin Attalus. The latter, "who had succeeded to the possession of Pergamum in 241 [B. C.], met and vanquished the Galatians in a great battle, which gave him such popularity that he was able to assume the title of king, and extend his influence far beyond his inherited dominion. … The court of Pergamum continued to flourish till it controlled the larger part of Asia Minor. In his long reign this king represented almost as much as the King of Egypt the art and culture of Hellenism. His great victory over the Galatians was celebrated by the dedication of so many splendid offerings to various shrines, that the Pergamene school made a distinct impression upon the world's taste. Critics have enumerated seventeen remaining types, which appear to have come from statues of that time—the best known is the so–called 'Dying Gladiator,' who is really a dying Galatian. … Perhaps the literature of the court was even more remarkable. Starting on the model of Alexandria, with a great library, Attalus was far more fortunate than the Ptolemies in making his university the home of Stoic philosophy."

J. P. Mahaffy, Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 20.

_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul_

From the assumption of the crown by Attalus I. the kingdom of Pergamus existed about a century. Its last king bequeathed it to the Romans in 133 B. C. and it became a Roman province. Its splendid library of 200,000 volumes was given to Cleopatra a century later by Antony, and was added to that of Alexandria. The name of the city is perpetuated in the word parchment, which is derived therefrom. Its ruins are found at a place called Bergamah.

See, also, SELEUCIDÆ; B. C. 224-187; ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246; and ROME: B. C. 47-46.

PERGAMUM: A. D. 1336. Conquest by the Ottoman Turks.

See TURKS (OTTOMAN): A. D. 1326-1359.

—————PERGAMUM: End————

PERGAMUS, Citadel of.

See TROJA.

PERICLES, Age of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454; and 445-429.

PERINTHUS: B. C. 340. Siege by Philip of Macedon.

See GREECE: B. C. 340.

PERIOECI, The.

See SPARTA: THE CITY.

PERIPLUS.

The term periplus, in the usage of Greek and Roman writers, signified a voyage round the coast of some sea. Example: "The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea."

PERIZZITES, The.

"The name 'Perizzites,' where mentioned in the Bible, is not meant to designate any particular race, but country people, in contradistinction to those dwelling in towns."

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History, book 6, chapter 1.

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT OF BENGAL LAND REVENUE.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.

PERONNE, The Treaty of.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468.

{2509}

PERPETUAL EDICT, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

PERPIGNAN: A. D. 1642. Siege and capture by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1640-1642.

PERRHÆBIANS, The.

"There had dwelt in the valley of the Peneus [Thessaly] from the earliest times a Pelasgic nation, which offered up thanks to the gods for the possession of so fruitful a territory at the festival of Peloria. … Larissa was the ancient capital of this nation. But at a very early time the primitive inhabitants were either expelled or reduced to subjection by more northern tribes. Those who had retired into the mountains became the Perrhæbian nation, and always retained a certain degree of independence. In the Homeric catalogue the Perrhæbians are mentioned as dwelling on the hill Cyphus, under Olympus."

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, book 1, chapter 1.

Dr. Curtius is of the opinion that the Dorians were a subdivision of the Perrhæbians.

E. Curtius History of Greece, book 1, chapter 4.

PERRY, Commodore Matthew C.: Expedition to Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888.

PERRY, Commodore Oliver H.: Victory on Lake Erie.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

PERRYVILLE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

PERSARGADÆ.

See PERSIA., ANCIENT PEOPLE, &c.

PERSARMENIA.

While the Persians possessed Armenia Major, east of the Euphrates, and the Romans held Armenia Minor, west of that river, the former region was sometimes called Persarmenia.

PERSECUTIONS, Religious. Of Albigenses.

See ALBIGENSES.

Of Christians under the Roman Empire.

See ROME: A. D. 64-68; 96-138; 192-284; 303-305; and CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 100-312.

Of Hussites in Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434, and after.

Of Jews.

See JEWS.

Of Lollards.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414.

Of Protestants in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.

Of Protestants in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547; 1559-1561 to 1598-1599; 1661-1680; 1681-1698.

Of Protestants in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A.D. 1521-1555 to 1594-1609.

Of Roman Catholics in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603; 1585-1587; 1587-1588; 1678-1679.

Of Roman Catholics in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D.1691-1782.

Of Christians in Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1549-1686.

Of the Waldenses.

See WALDENSES.

See, also, INQUISITION.

PERSEIDÆ, The.

See ARGOS.—ARGOLIS.

—————PERSEPOLIS: Start————

PERSEPOLIS: Origin.

See PERSIA, ANCIENT PEOPLE.

PERSEPOLIS: B. C. 330. Destruction by Alexander.

Although Persepolis was surrendered to him on his approach to it (B. C. 331), Alexander the Great determined to destroy the city. "In this their home the Persian kings had accumulated their national edifices, their regal sepulchres, the inscriptions commemorative of their religious or legendary sentiment, with many trophies and acquisitions arising out of their conquests. For the purposes of the Great King's empire, Babylon, or Susa, or Ekbatana, were more central and convenient residences; but Persepolis was still regarded as the heart of Persian nationality. It was the chief magazine, though not the only one, of those annual accumulations from the imperial revenue, which each king successively increased, and which none seems to have ever diminished. … After appropriating the regal treasure—to the alleged amount of 120,000 talents in gold and silver (=£27,600,000 sterling) —Alexander set fire to the citadel. … The persons and property of the inhabitants were abandoned to the licence of the soldiers, who obtained an immense booty, not merely in gold and silver, but also in rich clothing, furniture, and ostentatious ornaments of every kind. The male inhabitants were slain, the females dragged into servitude; except such as obtained safety by flight, or burned themselves with their property in their own houses."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 93.

—————PERSIA: Start————

PERSIA: Ancient people and country.

"Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the modern Iran which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being called Farsistan or Fars. … Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has given name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point where the gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by Susiana, on the north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on the south by the sea. Its length seems to have been about 450, and its average width about 250 miles. … The earliest known capital of the region was Pasargadæ, or Persagadæ, as the name is sometimes written, of which the ruins still exist near Murgab, in latitude 30° 15', longitude 53° 17'. Here is the famous tomb of Cyrus. … At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadæ, or of more than forty by the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis. … The Empire, which, commencing from Persia Proper, spread itself, toward the close of the sixth century before Christ, over the surrounding tracts, [extended from the Caspian Sea and the Indian Desert to the Mediterranean and the Propontis]. … The earliest appearance of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century, B. C. At this time Shalmanezer II. [the Assyrian king] found them in south-western Armenia, where they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem to have been wholly independent. … It is not until the reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of their re-appearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east of Susiana. … It is probable that they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of Nineveh. … The history of the Persian 'Empire' dates from the conquest of Astyages [the Median king] by Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B. C. 558 [or, according to Sayce, B. C. 549 —see below]."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapters 1 and 7.

ALSO IN: A. R. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 5.

See, also, ARIANS; IRAN; and ACHÆMENIDS.

PERSIA: The ancient religion.

See ZOROASTRIANS.

{2510}

PERSIA: B. C. 549-521. The founding of the empire by Cyrus the Great, King of Elam. His conquest of Media, Persia, Lydia, and Babylonia. The restoration of the Jews. Conquest of Egypt by Kambyses.

"It was in B. C. 549 that Astyages was overthrown [see MEDIA]. On his march against Kyros [Cyrus] his own soldiers, drawn probably from his Aryan subjects, revolted against him and gave him into the hands of his enemy. 'The land of Ekbatana and the royal city' were ravaged and plundered by the conqueror; the Aryan Medes at once acknowledged the supremacy of Kyros, and the empire of Kyaxares was destroyed. Some time, however, was still needed to complete the conquest; the older Medic population still held out in the more distant regions of the empire, and probably received encouragement and promises of help from Babylonia. In B. C. 546, however, Kyros marched from Arbela, crossed the Tigris, and destroyed the last relics of Median independence. … The following year saw the opening of the campaign against Babylonia [see BABYLONIA: B. C. 625-539]. But the Babylonian army, encamped near Sippara, formed a barrier which the Persians were unable to overcome; and trusting, therefore, to undermine the power of Nabonidos by secret intrigues with his subjects, Kyros proceeded against Krœsos. A single campaign sufficed to capture Sardes and its monarch, and to add Asia Minor to the Persian dominions [see LYDIANS, and ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539]. The Persian conqueror was now free to attack Babylonia. Here his intrigues were already bearing fruit. The Jewish exiles were anxiously expecting him to redeem them from captivity, and the tribes on the sea coast were ready to welcome a new master. In B. C. 538 the blow was struck. The Persian army entered Babylonia from the south. The army of Nabonidos was defeated at Rata in June; on the 14th of that month Sippara opened its gates, and two days later Gobryas, the Persian general, marched into Babylon itself 'without battle and fighting.' … In October Kyros himself entered his new capital in triumph."

A. H. Sayee, The Ancient Empires of the East: Herodotus 1-3. Appendix 5.

"The history of the downfall of the great Babylonian Empire, and of the causes, humanly speaking, which brought about a restoration of the Jews, has recently been revealed to us by the progress of Assyrian discovery. We now possess the account given by Cyrus himself, of the overthrow of Nabonidos, the Babylonian king, and of the conqueror's permission to the captives in Babylonia to return to their homes. The account is contained in two documents, written, like most other Assyrian and Babylonian records, upon clay, and lately brought from Babylonia to England by Mr. Rassam. One of these documents is a tablet which chronicles the events of each year in the reign of Nabonidos, the last Babylonian monarch, and continues the history into the first year of Cyrus, as king of Babylon. The other is a cylinder, on which Cyrus glorifies himself and his son Kambyses, and professes his adherence to the worship of Bel-Merodach, the patron-god of Babylon. The tablet-inscription is, unfortunately, somewhat mutilated, especially at the beginning and the end, and little can be made out of the annals of the first five years of Nabonidos, except that he was occupied with disturbances in Syria. In the sixth year the record becomes clear and continuous. … The inscriptions … present us with an account of the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire, which is in many important respects very different from that handed down to us by classical writers. We possess in them the contemporaneous account of one who was the chief actor in the events he records, and have ceased to be dependent upon Greek and Latin writers, who could not read a single cuneiform character, and were separated by a long lapse of time from the age of Nabonidos and Cyrus. Perhaps the first fact which will strike the mind of the reader with astonishment is that Cyrus does not call himself and his ancestors kings of Persia, but of Elam. The word used is Anzan or Ansan, which an old Babylonian geographical tablet explains as the native name of the country which the Assyrians and Hebrews called Elam. This statement is verified by early inscriptions found at Susa and other places in the neighbourhood, and belonging to the ancient monarchs of Elam, who contended on equal terms with Babylonia and Assyria until they were at last conquered by the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal, and their country made an Assyrian province. In these inscriptions they take the imperial title of 'king of Anzan.' The annalistic tablet lets us see when Cyrus first became king of Persia. In the sixth year of Nabonidos (B. C. 549) Cyrus is still king of Elam; in the ninth year he has become king of Persia. Between these two years, therefore, he must have gained possession of Persia either by conquest or in some peaceable way. When he overthrew Astyages his rule did not as yet extend so far. At the same time Cyrus must have been of Persian descent, since he traces his ancestry back to Teispes, whom Darius, the son of Hystaspes, in his great inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, claims as his own forefather. … The fact that Susa or Shushan was the original capital of Cyrus explains why it remained the leading city of the Persian Empire; and we can also now understand why it is that in Isaiah xxi. 2, the prophet bids Elam and Media, and not Persia and Media, 'go up' against Babylon. That Cyrus was an Elamite, however, is not the only startling revelation which the newly-discovered inscriptions have made to us. We learn from them that he was a polytheist who worshipped Bel-Merodach and Nebo, and paid public homage to the deities of Babylon. We have learned a similar fact in regard to his son Kambyses from the Egyptian monuments. These have shown us that the account of the murder of the sacred bull Apis by Kambyses given by Herodotus is a fiction; a tablet accompanying the huge granite sarcophagus of the very bull he was supposed to have wounded has been found with the image of Kambyses sculptured upon it kneeling before the Egyptian god. The belief that Cyrus was a monotheist grew out of the belief that he was a Persian, and, like other Persians, a follower of the Zoroastrian faith; there is nothing in Scripture to warrant it. Cyrus was God's shepherd only because he was His chosen instrument in bringing about the restoration of Israel. … The first work of Cyrus was to ingratiate himself with the conquered population by affecting a show of zeal and piety towards their gods, and with the nations which had been kept in captivity in Babylonia, by sending them and their deities back to their homes. {2511} Among these nations were the Jews, who had perhaps assisted the king of Elam in his attack upon Nabonidos. Experience had taught Cyrus the danger of allowing a disaffected people to live in the country of their conquerors. He therefore reversed the old policy of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings, which consisted in transporting the larger portion of a conquered population to another country, and sought instead to win their gratitude and affection by allowing them to return to their native lands. He saw, moreover, that the Jews, if restored from exile, would not only protect the southwestern corner of his empire from the Egyptians, but would form a base for his intended invasion of Egypt itself. … The number of exiles who took advantage of the edict of Cyrus, and accompanied Zerubbabel to Jerusalem, amounted to 42,360. It is probable, however, that this means only the heads of families; if so, the whole body of those who left Babylon, including women and children, would have been about 200,000. … The conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus took place in the year 538 B. C. He was already master of Persia, Media, and Lydia; and the overthrow of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar extended his dominions from the mountains of the Hindu Kush on the east to the shores of the Mediterranean on the west. Egypt alone of the older empires of the Oriental world remained independent, but its doom could not be long delayed. The career of Cyrus had indeed been marvellous. He had begun as the king only of Anzan or Elam, whose power seemed but 'small' and contemptible to his neighbour the great Babylonian monarch. But his victory over the Median king Astyages and the destruction of the Median Empire made him at once one of the most formidable princes in Western Asia. Henceforth the seat of his power was moved from Susa or Shushan to Ekbatana, called Achmetha in Scripture, Hagmatan in Persian, the capital of Media. … The conquest of Media was quickly followed by that of Persia, which appears to have been under the government of a collateral branch of the family of Cyrus. Henceforward the king of Elam becomes also the king of Persia. The empire of Lydia, which extended over the greater part of Asia Minor, fell before the army of Cyrus about B. C. 540. … The latter years of the life of Cyrus were spent in extending and consolidating his power among the wild tribes and unknown regions of the Far East. When he died, all was ready for the threatened invasion of Egypt. This was carried out by his son and successor Kambyses, who had been made 'king of Babylon' three years before his father's death, Cyrus reserving to himself the imperial title of 'King of the world.' … As soon as Kambyses became sole sovereign, Babylon necessarily took rank with Shushan and Ekbatana. It was the third centre of the great empire, and in later days the Persian monarchs were accustomed to make it their official residence during the winter season. … Kambyses was so fascinated by his new province that he refused to leave it. The greater part of his reign was spent in Egypt, where he so thoroughly established his power and influence that it was the only part of the empire which did not rise in revolt at his death. … Soon after his father's death he stained his hands with the blood of his brother Bardes, called Smerdis by Herodotus, to whom Cyrus had assigned the eastern part of his empire. Bardes was put to death secretly at Susa, it is said. … A Magian, Gaumata or Gomates by name, who resembled Bardes in appearance, came forward to personate the murdered prince, and Persia, Media, and other provinces at once broke into rebellion against their long-absent king. When the news of this revolt reached Kambyses he appointed Aryandes' satrap of Egypt, and, if we may believe the Greek accounts, set out to oppose the usurper. He had not proceeded far, however, before he fell by his own hand. The false Bardes was now master of the empire. Darius, in his inscription on the rock of Behistun, tells us that 'he put to death many people who had known Bardes, to prevent its being known that he was not Bardes, son of Cyrus.' At the same time he remitted the taxes paid by the provinces, and proclaimed freedom for three years from military service. But he had not reigned more than seven months before a conspiracy was formed against him. Darius, son of Hystaspes, attacked him at the head of the conspirators, in the land of Nisæa in Media, and there slew him, on the 10th day of April, B. C. 521. Darius, like Kambyses, belonged to the royal Persian race of Akhæmenes."

A. H. Sayce, Introduction to the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, chapters 1 and 3.

ALSO IN: A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 7.

Z. A. Ragozin, The Story of Media, Babylon and Persia, chapter 10-12.

PERSIA: B. C. 521-493. The reign of Darius I. His Indian and Scythian expeditions. The Ionian revolt and its suppression. Aid given to the insurgents by Athens.

"Darius I., the son of Hystaspes, is rightly regarded as the second founder of the Persian empire. His reign is dated from the first day of the year answering to B. C. 521; and it lasted 36 years, to December 23, B. C. 486. … Throughout the Behistun Inscription Darius represents himself as the hereditary champion of the Achaemenids, against Gomates and all other rebels. … It is 'by the grace of Ormazd' that he does everything. … This restoration of the Zoroastrian worship, and the putting down of several rebellions, are the matters recorded in the great trilingual inscription at Behistun, which Sir Henry Rawlinson dates, from internal evidence, in the sixth year of Darius (B. C. 516). … The empire of which Darius became king embraced, as he says, the following provinces: 'Persia, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt; those which are of the sea (the islands), Saparda, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Zarangia, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Gandaria, the Sacae, Sattagydia, Arachotia, and Mecia: in all twenty-three provinces.' … All the central provinces constituting the original empire, from the mountains of Armenia to the head of the Persian Gulf, as well as several of those of the Iranian table-land, had to be reconquered. … Having thus restored the empire, Darius pursued new military expeditions and conquests in the true spirit of its founder. To the energy of youth was added the fear that quiet might breed new revolts; and by such motives, if we may believe Herodotus, he was urged by Queen Atossa —at the instigation of the Greek physician, Democedes—to the conquest of Greece; while he himself was minded to construct a bridge which should join Asia to Europe, and so to carry war into Scythia. {2512} It seems to have been according to an Oriental idea of right, and not as a mere pretext, that he claimed to punish the Scythians for their invasion of Media in the time of Cyaxares. So he contented himself, for the present, with sending spies to Greece under the guidance of Democedes, and with the reduction of Samos. The Scythian expedition, however, appears to have been preceded by the extension of the empire eastward from the mountains of Afghanistan—the limit reached by Cyrus— over the valley of the Indus. … The part of India thus added to the empire, including the Punjab and apparently Scinde, yielded a tribute exceeding that of any other province. … The Scythian Expedition of Darius occupies the greater part of the Fourth Book of Herodotus. … The great result of the expedition, in which the king and his army narrowly escaped destruction, was the gaining of a permanent footing in Europe by the conquest of Thrace and the submission of Macedonia. … It was probably in B. C. 508 that Darius, having collected a fleet of 600 ships from the Greeks of Asia, and an army of 700,000 or 800,000 men from an the nations of his empire, crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats, and marched to the Danube, conquering on his way the Thracians within, and the Getæ beyond, the Great Balkan. The Danube was crossed by a bridge formed of the vessels of the Ionians, just above the apex of its Delta. The confusion in the geography of Herodotus makes it as difficult as it is unprofitable to trace the direction and extent of the march, which Herodotus carries beyond the Tanais (Don), and probably as far north as 50° lat. The Scythians retreated before Darius, avoiding a pitched battle, and using every stratagem to detain the Persians in the country till they should perish from famine." Darius retreated in time to save his army. "Leaving his sick behind, with the campfires lighted and the asses tethered, to make the enemy believe that he was still in their front, he retreated in the night. The pursuing Scythians missed his line of march, and came first to the place where the Ionian ships bridged the Danube. Failing to persuade the Greek generals to break by the same act both the bridge and the yoke of Darius, they marched back to encounter the Persian army. But their own previous destruction of the wells led them into a different route; and Darius got safe, but with difficulty, to the Danube. … The Hellespont was crossed by means of the fleet with which the strait had been guarded by Megabazus, or, more probably, Megabyzus; and the second opportunity was barred against a rising of the Greek colonies. … He left Megabazus in Europe with 80,000 troops to complete the reduction of all Thrace." Megabazus not only executed this commission, but reduced the kingdom of Macedonia to vassalage before returning to his master, in B. C. 506.

P. Smith, Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 27.

"Darius returned to Susa, leaving the western provinces in profound peace under the government of his brother Artaphernes. A trifling incident lighted the flame of rebellion. One of those political conflicts, which we have seen occurring throughout Greece, broke out in Naxos, an island of the Cyclades (B. C. 502). The exiles of the oligarchical party applied for aid to Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, who persuaded Artaphernes to send an expedition against Naxos. The Persian commander, incensed by the interference of Aristagoras on a point of discipline, warned the Naxians, and so caused the failure of the expedition and ruined the credit of Aristagoras, who saw no course open to him but revolt. … With the consent of the Milesian citizens, Aristagoras seized the tyrants who were on board of the fleet that had returned from Naxos; he laid down his own power; popular governments were proclaimed in all the cities and islands; and Ionia revolted from Darius (B. C. 501). Aristagoras went to Sparta … and tried to tempt the king, Cleomenes, by displaying the greatness of the Persian empire; but his admission that Susa was three months' journey from the sea ruined his cause. He had better success at Athens; for the Athenians knew that Artaphernes had been made their enemy by Hippias. They voted twenty ships in aid of the Ionians, and the squadron was increased by five ships of the Eretrians. Having united with the Ionian fleet, they disembarked at Ephesus, marched up the country, and surprised Sardis, which was accidentally burnt during the pillage. Their forces were utterly inadequate to hold the city; and their return was not effected without a severe defeat by the pursuing army. The Athenians reembarked and sailed home, while the Ionians dispersed to their cities to make those preparations which should have preceded the attack. Their powerful fleet gained for them the adhesion of the Hellespontine cities as far as Byzantium, of Caria, Caunus, and Cyprus; but this island was recovered by the Persians within a year. The Ionians protracted the insurrection for six years. Their cause was early abandoned by Aristagoras, who fled to the coast of Thrace and there perished. … The fate of the revolt turned at last on the siege of Miletus. The city was protected by the Ionian fleet, for which the Phoenician navy of Artaphernes was no match. But there was fatal disunion and want of discipline on board, and the defection of the Samians gave the Persians an easy victory off Lade (B. C. 495). Miletus suffered the worst horrors of a storm, and the other cities and islands were treated with scarcely less severity. This third subjugation of Ionia inflicted the most lasting blow on the prosperity of the colonies (B. C. 493). Throughout his narrative of these events, Herodotus declares his opinion of the impolicy of the interference of the Athenians. The ships they voted, he says, were the beginning of evils both to the Greeks and the barbarians. When the news of the burning of Sardis was brought to Darius, he called for his bow, and shot an arrow towards the sky, with a prayer to Auramazda for help to revenge himself on the Athenians. Then he bade one of his servants repeat to him thrice, as he sat down to dinner, the words, 'Master, remember the Athenians.' Upon the suppression of the Ionian revolt, he appointed his son-in-law Mardonius to succeed Artaphernes, enjoining him to bring these insolent Athenians and Eretrians to Susa."

P. Smith, History of the World: Ancient, chapter 13 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 33-35 (volume 4).

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 14 (volume 2).

PERSIA: B. C. 509. Alliance solicited, but subjection refused by the Athenians.

See ATHENS: B. C. 509-506.

{2513}

PERSIA: B. C. 492-491. First expedition against Greece and its failure. Wrathful preparations of the king for subjugation of the Greeks.

See GREECE: B. C. 492-491.

PERSIA: B. C. 490-479. Wars with the Greeks.

See GREECE: B. C. 490, to B. C. 479.

PERSIA: B. C. 486-405. From Xerxes I. to Artaxerxes II. The disastrous invasion of Greece. Loss of Egypt. Recovery of Asia Minor. Decay of the empire.

"Xerxes I, who succeeded Darius, B. C. 486, commenced his reign by the reduction of Egypt, B. C. 485, which he entrusted to his brother, Achæmenes. He then provoked and chastised a rebellion of the Babylonians, enriching himself with the plunder of their temples. After this he turned his attention to the invasion of Greece [where he experienced the disastrous defeats of Salamis, Platæa and Mycale.

See GREECE: B. C. 480, to B. C. 479.

… It was now the turn of the Greeks to retaliate on their prostrate foe. First under the lead of Sparta and then under that of Athens they freed the islands of the Ægean from the Persian yoke, expelled the Persian garrisons from Europe, and even ravaged the Asiatic coast and made descents on it at their pleasure. For twelve years no Persian fleet ventured to dispute with them the sovereignty of the seas; and when at last, in B. C. 466, a naval force was collected to protect Cilicia and Cyprus, it was defeated and destroyed by Cimon at the Eurymedon.

See ATHENS: B. C. 470-466.

Soon after this Xerxes' reign came to an end. This weak prince, … on his return to Asia, found consolation for his military failure in the delights of the seraglio, and ceased to trouble himself much about affairs of State. … The bloody and licentious deeds which stain the whole of the later Persian history commence with Xerxes, who suffered the natural penalty of his follies and his crimes when, after reigning twenty years, he was murdered by the captain of his guard, Artabanus, and Aspamitres, his chamberlain. … Artabanus placed on the throne the youngest son of Xerxes, Artaxerxes I [B. C. 465]. … The eldest son, Darius, accused by Artabanus of his father's assassination, was executed; the second, Hystaspes, who was satrap of Bactria, claimed the crown; and, attempting to enforce his claim, was defeated and slain in battle. About the same time the crimes of Artabanus were discovered, and he was put to death. Artaxerxes then reigned quietly for nearly forty years. He was a mild prince, possessed of several good qualities; but the weakness of his character caused a rapid declension of the empire under his sway. The revolt of Egypt [B. C. 460-455] was indeed suppressed after a while, through the vigorous measures of the satrap of Syria, Megabyzus; and the Athenians, who had fomented it, were punished by the complete destruction of their fleet, and the loss of almost all their men.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

… Bent on recovering her prestige, Athens, in B. C. 449, despatched a fleet to the Levant, under Cimon, which sailed to Cyprus and laid siege to Citium. There Cimon died; but the fleet, which had been under his orders, attacked and completely defeated a large Persian armament off Salamis, besides detaching a squadron to assist Amyrtæus, who still held out in the Delta. Persia, dreading the loss of Cyprus and Egypt, consented to an inglorious peace [the much disputed 'Peace of Cimon,' or 'Peace of Callias'

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

… Scarcely less damaging to Persia was the revolt of Megabyzus, which followed. This powerful noble … excited a rebellion in Syria [B. C. 447], and so alarmed Artaxerxes that he was allowed to dictate the terms on which he would consent to be reconciled to his sovereign. An example was thus set of successful rebellion on the part of a satrap, which could not but have disastrous consequences. … The disorders of the court continued, and indeed increased, under Artaxerxes I, who allowed his mother Amestris, and his sister Amytis, who was married to Megabyzus, to indulge freely the cruelty and licentiousness of their dispositions. Artaxerxes died B. C. 425, and left his crown to his only legitimate son, Xerxes II. Revolutions in the government now succeeded each other with great rapidity. Xerxes. II, after reigning forty-five days, was assassinated by his half-brother, Secydianus, or Sogdianus, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who seized the throne, but was murdered in his turn, after a reign of six months and a half, by another brother, Ochus. Ochus, on ascending the throne, took the name of Darius, and is known in history as Darius Nothus. He was married to Parysatis, his aunt, a daughter of Xerxes I., and reigned nineteen years, B. C. 424-405, under her tutelage. His reign … was on the whole disastrous. Revolt succeeded to revolt; and, though most of the insurrections were quelled, it was at the cost of what remained of Persian honour and self-respect. Corruption was used instead of force against the rebellious armies. … The revolts of satraps were followed by national outbreaks, which, though sometimes quelled, were in other instances successful. In B. C. 408, the Medes, who had patiently acquiesced in Persian rule for more than a century, made an effort to shake off the yoke, but were defeated and reduced to subjection. Three years later, B. C. 405, Egypt once more rebelled, under Nepherites, and succeeded in establishing its independence. The Persians were expelled from Africa, and a native prince seated himself on the throne of the Pharaohs. It was some compensation for this loss, and perhaps for others towards the north and north-east of the empire, that in Asia Minor the authority of the Great King was once more established over the Greek cities. It was the Peloponnesian War, rather than the Peace of Callias, which had prevented any collision between the great powers of Europe and Asia for 37 years. Both Athens and Sparta had their hands full; and though it might have been expected that Persia would have at once taken advantage of the quarrel to reclaim at least her lost continental dominion, yet she seems to have refrained, through moderation or fear, until the Athenian disasters in Sicily encouraged her to make an effort. She then invited the Spartans to Asia, and by the treaties which she concluded with them, and the aid which she gave them, reacquired without a struggle all the Greek cities of the coast [B. C. 412]. … Darius Nothus died B. C. 405, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Arsaces, who on his accession took the name of Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes II, called by the Greeks Mnemon, on account of the excellence of his memory, had from the very first a rival in his brother Cyrus."

G. Rawlinson, Manual of Ancient History, book 2, sections 24-39.

{2514}

ALSO IN: G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, volume 3: Persia, chapter 7.

PERSIA: B. C. 413. Tribute again demanded from the Greek cities in Asia Minor. Hostility to Athens. Subsidies to her enemies.

See GREECE: B. C. 413.

PERSIA: B. C. 401-400. The expedition of Cyrus the Younger, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Cyrus the Younger, so called to distinguish him from the great founder of the Persian empire, was the second son of Darius Nothus, king of Persia, and expected to succeed his father on the throne through the influence of his mother, Parysatis. During his father's life he was appointed satrap of Lydia, Phrygia and Cappadocia, with supreme military command in all Asia Minor. On the death of Darius, B. C. 404, Cyrus found himself thwarted in his hopes of the succession, and laid plans at once for overthrowing the elder brother, Artaxerxes, who had heen placed on the throne. He had acquired an extensive acquaintance with the Greeks and had had much to do with them, in his administration of Asia Minor, during the Peloponnesian War. That acquaintance had produced in his mind a great opinion of their invincible qualities in war, and had shown him the practicability of forming, with the means which he commanded, a compact army of Greek mercenaries which no Persian force could withstand. He executed his plan of gathering such a column of Greek soldiers, without awakening his brother's suspicions, and set out upon his expedition from Sardes to Susa, in March B. C. 401. As he advanced, finding himself unopposed, the troops of Artaxerxes retreating before him, he and his Asiatic followers grew rash in their confidence, and careless of discipline and order. Hence it happened that when the threatened Persian monarch did confront them, with a great army, at Cunaxa, on the Euphrates, in Babylonia, they were taken by surprise and routed, and the pretender, Cyrus, was slain on the field. The Greeks—who numbered about 13,000, but whose ranks were soon thinned and who are famous in history as the Ten Thousand,—stood unshaken, and felt still equal to the conquest of the Persian capital, if any object in advancing upon it had remained to them. But the death of Cyrus left them in a strange situation,—deserted by every Asiatic ally, without supplies, without knowledge of the country, in the midst of a hostile population. Their own commander, moreover, had been slain, and no one held authority over them. But they possessed what no other people of their time could claim—the capacity for self-control. They chose from their ranks a general, the Athenian Xenophon, and endowed him with all necessary powers. Then they set their faces homewards, in a long retreat from the lower Euphrates to the Euxine, from the Euxine to the Bosporus, and so into Greece. "Although this eight months' military expedition possesses no immediate significance for political history, yet it is of high importance, not only for our knowledge of the East, but also for that of the Greek character; and the accurate description which we owe to Xenophon is therefore one of the most valuable documents of antiquity. … This army is a typical chart, in many colours, of the Greek population—a picture, on a small scale, of the whole people, with all its virtues and faults, its qualities of strength and its qualities of weakness, a wandering political community which, according to home usage, holds its assemblies and passes its resolutions, and at the same time a wild and not easily manageable hand of free–lances. … And how very remarkable it is, that in this mixed multitude of Greeks it is an Athenian who by his qualities towers above all the rest, and becomes the real preserver of the entire army! The Athenian Xenophon had only accompanied the expedition as a volunteer, having been introduced by Proxenus to Cyrus, and thereupon moved by his sense of honour to abide with the man whose great talents he admired. … The Athenian alone possessed that superiority of culture which was necessary for giving order and self-control to the band of warriors, barbarized by their selfish life, and for enabling him to serve them in the greatest variety of situations as spokesman, as general, and as negotiator; and to him it was essentially due that, in spite of their unspeakable trials, through hostile tribes and desolate snow-ranges, 8,000 Greeks after all, by wanderings many and devious, in the end reached the coast. They fancied themselves safe when, at the beginning of March, they had reached the sea at Trapezus. But their greatest difficulties were only to begin here, where they first again came into contact with Greeks." Sparta, then supreme in Greece, feared to offend the Great King by showing any friendliness to this fugitive remnant of the unfortunate expedition of Cyrus. The gates of her cities were coldly shut against them, and they were driven to enter the service of a Thracian prince, in order to obtain subsistence. But another year found Sparta involved in war with Persia, and the surviving Cyreans, as they came to be called, were then summoned to Asia Minor for a new campaign against the enemy they hated most.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 5, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, chapters 69-71.

Xenophon, Anabasis.

PERSIA: B. C. 399-387. War with Sparta. Alliance with Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Argos. The Peace of Antalcidas. Recovery of Ionian cities.

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

PERSIA: B. C. 366. Intervention in Greece solicited by Thebes. The Great King's rescript.

See GREECE: B. C. 371-362.

PERSIA: B. C. 337-336. Preparations for invasion by Philip of Macedonia.

See GREECE: B. C. 357-336.

PERSIA: B. C. 334-330. Conquest by Alexander the Great.

See MACEDONIA &c.: B. C. 334-330.

PERSIA: B. C. 323-150. Under the Successors of Alexander. In the empire of the Seleucidæ.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316; and SELEUCIDÆ.

PERSIA: B. C. 150-A. D. 226. Embraced in the Parthian empire. Recovery of national independence. Rise of the Sassanian monarchy.

"About B. C. 163, an energetic [Parthian] prince, Mithridates I., commenced a series of conquests towards the West, which terminated (about B. C. 150) in the transference from the Syro-Macedonian to the Parthian rule of Media Magna, Susiana, Persia, Babylonia, and Assyria Proper. It would seem that the Persians offered no resistance to the progress of the new conqueror. … The treatment of the Persians by their Parthian lords seems, on the whole, to have been marked by moderation. … It was a principle of the Parthian governmental system to allow the subject peoples, to a large extent, to govern themselves. {2515} These people generally, and notably the Persians, were ruled by native kings, who succeeded to the throne by hereditary right, had the full power of life and death, and ruled very much as they pleased, so long as they paid regularly the tribute imposed upon them by the 'King of Kings,' and sent him a respectable contingent when he was about to engage in a military expedition."

G. Rawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 1.

"The formidable power of the Parthians … was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or Artaxerxes, the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name of Sassanides [see SASSANIAN DYNASTY], governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus [A. D. 226]. … Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of Artaban, the last king of the Parthians; and it appears that he was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure, and the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies and the flattery of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner's wife with a common soldier. The latter represents him as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persia. … As the lineal heir of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under which they groaned above five centuries, since the death of Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. In the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of the nation was for ever broken. The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balkh in Khorasun."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1).

PERSIA: A. D. 226-627. Wars with the Romans.

The revolution in Asia which subverted the Parthian empire and brought into existence a new Persian monarchy—the monarchy of the Sassanides—occurred A. D. 226. The founder of the new throne, Artaxerxes, no sooner felt firm in his seat than he sent an imposing embassy to bear to the Roman emperor—then Alexander Severus —his haughty demand that all Asia should be yielded to him and that Roman arms and Roman authority should be withdrawn to the western shores of the Ægean and the Propontis. This was the beginning of a series of wars, extending through four centuries and ending only with the Mahometan conquests which swept Roman and Persian power, alike, out of the contested field. The first campaigns of the Romans against Artaxerxes were of doubtful result. In the reign of Sapor, son of Artaxerxes, the war was renewed, with unprecedented humiliation and disaster to the Roman arms. Valerian, the emperor, was surrounded and taken prisoner, after a bloody battle fought near Edessa (A. D. 260),—remaining until his death a captive in the hands of his insolent conqueror and subjected to every indignity.

See ROME: A. D. 192-284.

Syria was overrun by the Persian armies, and its splendid capital, Antioch, surprised, pillaged, and savagely wrecked, while the inhabitants were mostly slain or reduced to slavery. Cilicia and Cappadocia were next devastated in like manner. Cæsarea, the Cappadocian capital, being taken after an obstinate siege, suffered pillage and unmerciful massacre. The victorious career of Sapor, which Rome failed to arrest, was cheeked by the rising power of Palmyra (see PALMYRA). Fifteen years later, Aurelian, who had destroyed Palmyra, was marching to attack Persia when he fell by the hands of domestic enemies and traitors. It was not until A. D. 283, in the reign of Carus, that Rome and Persia crossed swords again. Carus ravaged Mesopotamia, captured Seleucia and Ctesiphon and passed beyond the Tigris, when he met with a mysterious death and his victorious army retreated. A dozen years passed before the quarrel was taken up again, by Diocletian.

See ROME: A. D. 284-305).

That vigorous monarch sent one of his Cæsars—Galerius—into the field, while he stationed himself at Antioch to direct the war. In his first campaign (A. D. 297), Galerius was defeated, on the old fatal field of Carrhæ. In his second campaign (A. D. 297-298) he won a decisive victory and forced on the Persian king, Narses, a humiliating treaty, which renounced Mesopotamia, ceded five provinces beyond the Tigris, made the Araxes, or Aboras, the boundary between the two empires, and gave other advantages to the Romans. There was peace, then, for forty years, until another Sapor, grandson of Narses, had mounted the Persian throne. Constantine the Great was dead and his divided empire seemed less formidable to the neighboring power. "During the long period of the reign of Constantius [A. D. 337-361] the provinces of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war. … The armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person. The event of the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans." In the great battle of Singara, fought A. D. 348, the Romans were victors at first, but allowed themselves to be surprised at night, while plundering the enemy's camp, and were routed with great slaughter. Three sieges of Nisibis, in Mesopotamia—the bulwark of Roman power in the East—were among the memorable incidents of these wars. In 338, in 346, and again in 350, it repulsed the Persian king with shame and loss. Less fortunate was the city of Amida [modern Diarbekir], in Armenia, besieged by Sapor, in 350. It was taken, at the last, by storm, and the inhabitants put to the sword. On the accession of Julian, the Persian war was welcomed by the ambitious young emperor as an opportunity for emulating the glory of Alexander, after rivalling that of Cæsar in Gaul. In the early spring of 363, he led forth a great army from Antioch, and traversed the sandy plains of Mesopotamia to the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, reducing and destroying the strong cities of Perisabor and Maogamalcha on his march. Finding Ctesiphon too strong in its fortifications to encourage a siege, he crossed the Tigris, burned his fleet and advanced boldly into the hostile country beyond. It was a fatal expedition. Led astray by perfidious guides, harassed by a swarm of enemies, and scantily supplied with provisions, the Romans were soon forced to an almost desperate retreat. If Julian had lived, he might possibly have sustained the courage of his men and rescued them from their situation; but he fell, mortally wounded, in repelling one of the incessant attacks of the Persian cavalry. {2516} An officer named Jovian was then hastily proclaimed emperor, and by his agency an ignominious treaty was arranged with the Persian king. It gave up all the conquests of Galerius, together with Nisibis, Singara and other Roman strongholds in Mesopotamia; on which hard terms the Roman army was permitted to recross the Tigris and find a refuge in regions of its own. The peace thus shamefully purchased endured for more than half-a-century. Religious fanaticism kindled war afresh, A. D. 422, between Persia and the eastern empire; but the events are little known. It seems to have resulted, practically, in the division of Armenia which gave Lesser Armenia to the Romans as a province and made the Greater Armenia, soon afterwards, a Persian satrapy, called Persarmenia. The truce which ensued was respected for eighty years. In the year 502, while Anastasius reigned at Constantinople and Kobad was king of Persia, there was a recurrence of war, which ended, however, in 505, without any territorial changes. The unhappy city of Amida was again captured in this war, after a siege of three months, and 80,000 of its inhabitants perished under the Persian swords. Preparatory to future conflicts, Anastasius now founded and Justinian afterwards strengthened the powerfully fortified city of Dara, near Nisibis. The value of the new outpost was put to the proof in 526, when hostilities again broke out. The last great Roman general, Belisarius, was in command at Dam during the first years of this war, and finally held the general command. In 529 he fought a great battle in front of Dara and won a decisive victory. The next year he suffered a defeat at Sura and in 532 the two powers arranged a treaty of peace which they vauntingly called "The Endless Peace"; but Justinian (who was now emperor) paid 11,000 pounds of gold for it. "The Endless Peace" was so quickly ended that the year 540 found the Persian king Chosroes, or Nushirvan, at the head of an army in Syria ravaging the country and despoiling the cities. Antioch, just restored by Justinian, after an earthquake which, in 526, had nearly levelled it with the ground, was stormed, pillaged, half burned, and its streets drenched with blood. The seat of war was soon transferred to the Caucasian region of Colchis, or Lazica (modern Mingrelia), and became what is known in history as the Lazic War [see LAZICA], which was protracted until 561, when Justinian consented to a treaty which pledged the empire to pay 30,000 pieces of gold annually to the Persian king, while the latter surrendered his claim to Colchis. But war broke out afresh in 572 and continued till 591, when the armies of the Romans restored to the Persian throne another Chosroes, grandson of the first, who had fled to them from a rebellion which deposed and destroyed his unworthy father. Twelve years later this Chosroes became the most formidable enemy to the empire that it had encountered in the East. In successive campaigns he stripped from it Syria and Palestine, Egypt, Cyrenaica, and the greater part of Asia Minor, even to the shores of the Bosphorus. Taking the city of Chalcedon in 616, after a lengthy siege, he established a camp and army at that post, within sight of Constantinople, and held it for ten years, insulting and threatening the imperial capital. But he found a worthy antagonist in Heraclius, who became emperor of the Roman East in 610, and who proved himself to be one of the greatest of soldiers. It was twelve years after the beginning of his reign before Heraclius could gather in hand, from the shrunken and exhausted empire, such resources as would enable him to turn aggressively upon the Persian enemy. Then, in three campaigns, between 622 and 627, he completely reversed the situation. After a decisive battle, fought December 1, A. D. 627, on the very site of ancient Nineveh, the royal city of Dastagerd was taken and spoiled, and the king, stripped of all his conquests and his glory, was a fugitive.

See ROME: A. D. 565-628.

A conspiracy and an assassination soon ended his career and his son made peace. It was a lasting peace, as between Romans and Persians; for eight years afterwards the Persians were in their death struggle with the warriors of Mahomet.

G. Rawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapters 18, 24-25, 40, 42, 46.

PERSIA: A. D. 632-651. Mahometan Conquest.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.

PERSIA: A. D. 901-998. The Samanide and Bouide dynasties.

See SAMANIDES; and MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 815-945.

PERSIA: A. D. 999-1038. Under the Gaznevides.

See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.

PERSIA: A. D. 1050-1193. Under the Seljuk Turks.

See TURKS (SELJUK): 1004-1063, and after.

PERSIA: A. D. 1150-1250. The period of the Atabegs.

See ATABEGS.

PERSIA: A. D. 1193. Conquest by the Khuarezmians.

See KHUAREZM: 12TH CENTURY.

PERSIA: A. D. 1220-1226. Conquest by Jingiz Khan.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227; and KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.

PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393. The Mongol empire of the Ilkhans.

Khulagu, or Houlagou, grandson of Jingis Khan, who extinguished the caliphate at Bagdad, A. D. 1258, and completed the Mongol conquest of Persia and Mesopotamia (see BAGDAD: A. D. 1258), "received the investiture of his conquests and of the country south of the Oxus. He founded an empire there, known as that of the Ilkhans. Like the Khans of the Golden Horde, the successors of Batu, they for a long time acknowledged the suzerainty of the Khakan of the Mongols in the East."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, page 211.

Khulagu "fixed his residence at Maragha, in Aderbijan, a beautiful town, situated on a fine plain watered by a small but pure stream, which, rising in the high mountains of Sahund, flows past the walls of the city, and empties itself in the neighbouring lake of Oormia. … At this delightful spot Hulakoo [or Khulagu] appears to have employed his last years in a manner worthy of a great monarch. Philosophers and astronomers were assembled from every part of his dominions, who laboured in works of science under the direction of his favourite, Nasser-u-deen." The title of the Ilkhans, given to Khulagu and his successors, signified simply the lords or chiefs (the Khans). Their empire was extinguished in 1393 by the conquests of Timour.

Sir J. Malcolm, History of Persia, chapter 10 (volume 1).

{2517}

"It was under Sultan Ghazan, who reigned from 1294 to 1303, that Mahometanism again became the established religion of Persia. In the second year of his reign, Ghazan Khan publicly declared his conversion to the faith of the Koran. … After Sultan Ghazan the power of the Mongolian dynasty in Persia rapidly declined. The empire soon began to break in pieces. … The royal house became extinct, while another branch of the descendants of Hulaku established themselves at Bagdad. At last Persia became a mere scene of anarchy and confusion, utterly incapable of offering any serious resistance to the greatest of Mussulman conquerors, the invincible and merciless Timour."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquest of the Saracens, lecture 6.

PERSIA: A. D. 1386-1393. Conquest by Timour.

See TIMOUR.

PERSIA: A. D. 1499-1887. The founding of the Sefavean dynasty. Triumph of the Sheahs. Subjugation by the Afghans. Deliverance by Nadir Shah. The Khajar dynasty.

"At an early period in the rise of Islamism, the followers of Mohammed became divided on the question of the succession to the caliphate, or leadership, vacated by the death of Mohammed. Some, who were in majority, believed that it lay with the descendants of the caliph, Moawiyeh, while others as firmly clung to the opinion that the succession lay with the sons of Alee and Fatimeh, the daughter of the prophet, Hassan and Houssein, and their descendants. In a desperate conflict on the banks of the Euphrates, nearly al the male descendants of the prophet were slain [see MAHOMETAN CONQUEST &c.: A. D. 680], and almost the entire Mohammedan peoples, from India to Spain, thenceforward became Sunnees—that is, they embraced belief in the succession of the line of the house of Moawiyeh, called the Ommiades. But there was an exception to this uniformity of belief. The Persians, as has been seen, were a people deeply given to religious beliefs and mystical speculations to the point of fanaticism. Without any apparent reason many of them became Sheahs [or Shiahs], or believers in the claims of the house of Alee and Fatimeh [see ISLAM]. … Naturally for centuries the Sheahs suffered much persecution from the Sunnees, as the rulers of Persia, until the 15th century, were generally Sunnees. But this only stimulated the burning zeal of the Sheahs, and in the end resulted in bringing about the independence of Persia under a dynasty of her own race. In the 14th century there resided at Ardebil a priest named the Sheikh Saifus, who was held in the highest repute for his holy life. He was a lineal descendant of Musa, the seventh Holy Imam. His son, Sadr-ud-Deen, not only enjoyed a similar fame for piety, but used it to such good account as to become chieftain of the province where he lived. Junaid, the grandson of Sadr-ud–Deen, had three sons, of whom the youngest, named Ismail, was born about the year 1480. When only eighteen years of age, the young Ismail entered the province of Ghilan, on the shores of the Caspian, and by the sheer force of genius raised a small army, with which he captured Baku. His success brought recruits to his standard, and at the head of 16,000 men he defeated the chieftain of Alamut, the general sent against him, and, marching on Tabreez, seized it without a blow. In 1499 Ismail, the founder of the Sefavean dynasty, was proclaimed Shah of Persia. Since that period, with the exception of the brief invasion of Mahmood the Afghan, Persia has been an independent and at times a very powerful nation. The establishment of the Sefavean dynasty also brought about the existence of a Sheah government, and gave great strength to that sect of the Mohammedans, between whom and other Islamites there was always great bitterness and much bloodshed. Ismail speedily carried his sway as far as the Tigris in the southwest and to Kharism and Candahar in the north and east. He lost one great battle with the Turks under Selim II. at Tabreez [or Chaldiran—see TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520], but with honor, as the Persians were outnumbered; but it is said he was so cast down by that event he never was seen to smile again. He died in 1524, leaving the record of a glorious reign. His three immediate successors, Tahmasp, Ismail II., and Mohammed Khudabenda, did little to sustain the fame and power of their country, and the new empire must soon have yielded to the attacks of its enemies at home and abroad, if a prince of extraordinary ability had not succeeded to the throne when the new dynasty seemed on the verge of ruin. Shah Abbass, called the Great, was crowned in the year 1586, and died in 1628, at the age of seventy, after a reign of forty-two years [see TURKS: A. D. 1623-1640]. This monarch was one of the greatest sovereigns who ever sat on the throne of Persia. … It was the misfortune of Persia that the Sefavean line rapidly degenerated after the death of Shah Abbass. … Taking advantage of the low state of the Sefavean dynasty, Mahmood, an Afghan chieftain, invaded Persia in 1722 with an army of 50,000 men. Such was the condition of the empire that he had little difficulty in capturing Ispahan, although it had a population of 600,000. He slaughtered every male member of the royal family except Houssein the weak sovereign, his son Tahmasp, and two grandchildren; all the artists of Ispahan and scores of thousands besides were slain. That magnificent capital has never recovered from the blow. Mahmood died in 1725, and was succeeded by his cousin Ashraf. But the brief rule of the Afghans terminated in 1727. Nadir Kuli, a Persian soldier of fortune, or in other words a brigand of extraordinary ability, joined Tahmasp II., who had escaped and collected a small force in the north of Persia. Nadir marched on Ispahan and defeated the Afghans in several battles; Ashraf was slain and Tahmasp II. was crowned. But Nadir dethroned Tahmasp II. in 1732, being a man of vast ambition as well as desire to increase the renown of Persia; and he caused that unfortunate sovereign to be made way with some years later. Soon after Nadir Kuli proclaimed himself king of Persia with the title of Nadir Kuli Khan. Nadir was a man of ability equal to his ambition. He not only beat the Turks with comparative ease, but he organized an expedition that conquered Afghanistan and proceeded eastward until Delhi fell into his hands, with immense slaughter. …

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748.

He was assassinated in 1747. Nadir Kuli Khan was a man of great genius, but he died too soon to establish an enduring dynasty, and after his death civil wars rapidly succeeded each other until the rise of the present or Khajar dynasty, which succeeded the reign of the good Kerim Khan the Zend, who reigned twenty years at Shiraz. Aga Mohammed Khan, the founder of the Khajar dynasty, succeeded in 1794 in crushing the last pretender to the throne, after a terrible civil war, and once more reunited the provinces of Persia under one sceptre. … {2518} Aga Mohammed Khan was succeeded, after his assassination, by his nephew Feth Alee Shah, a monarch of good disposition and some ability. It was his misfortune to be drawn into two wars with Russia, who stripped Persia of her Circassian provinces, notwithstanding the stout resistance made by the Persian armies. Feth Alec Shah was succeeded by his grandson Mohammed Shah, a sovereign of moderate talents. No events of unusual interest mark his reign, excepting the siege of Herat which was captured in the present reign from the Afghans. He died in 1848, and was succeeded by his son Nasr-ed-Deen Shah, the present (1887), sovereign of Persia."

S. G. W. Benjamin, The Story of Persia, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, General Sketch of the History of Persia, chapters 10-20.

Sir J. Malcolm, History of Persia, chapters 12-20 (volume 1-2).

R. G. Watson, History of Persia, 1800-1858.

PERSIA: A. D. 1894. The reigning Shah.

Nasr-ed-Deen is still, in 1894, the reigning sovereign. He is blessed with a family of four sons and fifteen daughters.

—————PERSIA: End————

PERSIAN SIBYL.

See SIBYLS.

PERSIANS, Education of the ancient.

See EDUCATION, ANCIENT.

PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (DECEMBER) PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'S SURRENDER.

—————PERTH: Start————

PERTH: A. D. 1559. The Reformation Riot.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1558-1560.

PERTH: A. D. 1715. Headquarters of the Jacobite Rebellion.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.

—————PERTH: End————

PERTH, The Five Articles of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1618.

PERTINAX, Roman Emperor, A. D. 193.

—————PERU: Start————

PERU: Origin of the name.

"There was a chief in the territory to the south of the Gulf of San Miguel, on the Pacific coast" named Biru, and this country was visited by Gaspar de Morales and Francisco Pizarro in 1515. For the next ten years Biru was the most southern land known to the Spaniards; and the consequence was that the unknown regions farther south, including the rumored empire abounding in gold, came to be designated as Biru, or Peru. It was thus that the land of the Yncas got the name of Peru from the Spaniards, some years before it was actually discovered."

C. H. Markham, Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, book 6, chapter 2.

PERU: The aboriginal inhabitants and their civilization. The extraordinary paternal despotism of the Incas.

"The bulk of the population [of Peru] is composed of the aboriginal Indians, the natives who had been there from time immemorial when America was discovered. The central tribe of these Indians was that of the Yncas, inhabiting the region in the Sierra which has already been described as the Cuzco section. Such a country was well adapted for the cradle of an imperial tribe. … The Ynca race was originally divided into six tribes, whose lands are indicated by the rivers which formed their limits. Of these tribes the Yncas themselves had their original seat between the rivers Apurimac and Paucartampu, with the lovely valley of the Vilcamayu bisecting it. The Canas dwelt in the upper part of that valley up to the Vilcañota Pass, and on the mountains on either side. The Quichuas were in the valleys round the head waters of the Apurimac and Abancay. The Chancas extended from the neighbourhood of Ayacucho (Guamanga) to the Apurimac. The Huancas occupied the valley of the Xauxa up to the saddle of the Cerro Pasco, and the Rucanas were in the mountainous region between the central and western cordilleras. These six tribes eventually formed the conquering Ynca race. Their language was introduced into every conquered province, and was carefully taught to the people, so that the Spaniards correctly called it the 'Lengua General' of Peru. This language was called Quichua, after the tribe inhabiting the upper part of the valleys of the Pachachaca and Apurimac. Their territory consisted chiefly of uplands covered with long grass, and the name has been derived from the abundance of straw in this region. 'Quehuani' is to twist; 'quehuasca' is the participle; and 'ychu' is straw. Together, 'Quehuasca-Ychu,' or twisted straw, abbreviated into Quichua. The name was given to the language by Friar San Tomas in his grammar published in 1500, who perhaps first collected words among the Quichuas and so gave it their name, which was adopted by all subsequent grammarians. But the proper name would have been the Ynca language. The aboriginal people in the basin of Lake Titicaca were called Collas, and they spoke a language which is closely allied to the Quichua. … The Collas were conquered by the Yncas in very remote times, and their language, now incorrectly called Aymara, received many Quichua additions; for it originally contained few words to express abstract ideas, and none for many things which are indispensable in the first beginnings of civilized life. One branch of the Collas (now called Aymaras) was a savage tribe inhabiting the shores and islands of Lake Titicaca, called Urus. … The Ynca and Colla (Aymara) tribes eventually combined to form the great armies which spread the rule of Ynca sovereigns over a much larger extent of country. … In the happy days of the Yncas they cultivated many of the arts, and had some practical knowledge of astronomy. They had domesticated all the animals in their country capable of domestication, understood mining and the working of metals, excelled as masons, weavers, dyers, and potters, and were good farmers. They brought the science of administration to a high pitch of perfection, and composed imaginative songs and dramas of considerable merit. … The coast of Peru was inhabited by a people entirely different from the Indians of the Sierra. There are some slight indications of the aborigines having been a diminutive race of fishermen who were driven out by the more civilized people, called Yuncas. … The Yncas conquered the coast valleys about a century before the discovery of America, and the Spaniards completed the destruction of the Yunca people."

C. R. Markham, Peru, chapter 3.

{2519}

"In the minuter mechanical arts, both [the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru] showed considerable skill; but in the construction of important public works, of roads, aqueducts, canals, and in agriculture in all its details, the Peruvians were much superior. Strange that they should have fallen so far below their rivals in their efforts after a higher intellectual culture, in astronomical science, more especially, and in the art of communicating thought by visible symbols. … We shall look in vain in the history of the East for a parallel to the absolute control exercised by the Incas over their subjects. … It was a theocracy more potent in its operation than that of the Jews; for, though the sanction of the law might be as great among the latter, the law was expounded by a human lawgiver, the servant and representative of Divinity. But the Inca was both the lawgiver and the law. He was not merely the representative of Divinity, or, like the Pope, its vicegerent, but he was Divinity itself. The violation of his ordinance was sacrilege. Never was there a scheme of government enforced by such terrible sanctions, or which bore so oppressively on the subjects of it. For it reached not only to the visible acts, but to the private conduct, the words, the very thoughts of its vassals. … Under this extraordinary polity, a people advanced in many of the social refinements, well skilled in manufactures and agriculture, were unacquainted … with money. They had nothing that deserved to be called property. They could follow no craft, could engage in no labor, no amusement, but such as was specially provided by law. They could not change their residence or their dress without a license from the government. They could not even exercise the freedom which is conceded to the most abject in other countries, that of selecting their own wives. The imperative spirit of despotism would not allow them to be happy or miserable in any way but that established by law. The power of free agency—the inestimable and inborn right of every human being—was annihilated in Peru."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: The Standard Natural History (J. S. Kingsley, edition.), volume 6, pages 215-226.

J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 9 (volume 2).

E. J. Payne, History of the New World called America, book 2 (volume 1).

See, also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES, ANDESIANS.

PERU: The empire of the Incas.

"The Inca empire had attained its greatest extension and power precisely at the period of the discovery by Columbus, under the reign of Huayna Capac, who, rather than Huascar or Atahualpa, should be called the last of the Incas. His father, the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, had pushed his conquests on the south, beyond the great desert of Atacama, to the river Maule in Chili; while, at the same time, Huayna Capac himself had reduced the powerful and refined kingdom of the Sciris of Quito [see ECUADOR], on the north. From their great dominating central plateau, the Incas had pressed down to the Pacific, on the one hand, and to the dense forests of the Amazonian valleys on the other. Throughout this wide region and over all its nations, principalities, and tribes, Huayna Capac at the beginning of the 16th century ruled supreme. His empire extended from four degrees above the equator to the 34th southern parallel of latitude, a distance of not far from 3,000 miles; while from east to west it spread, with varying width, from the Pacific to the valleys of Paucartambo and Chuquisaca, an average distance of not far from 400 miles, covering an area, therefore, of more than one million square miles, equal to about one-third of the total area of the United States, or to the whole of the United States to the eastward of the Mississippi river. … In the islands of Lake Titicaca, if tradition be our guide, were developed the germs of Inca civilization. Thence, it is said, went the founders of the Inca dynasty, past the high divide between the waters flowing into the lake and those falling into the Amazon, and skirting the valley of the river Vilcanota for more than 200 miles, they established their seat in the bolson [valley] of Cuzco. … It is not only central in position, salubrious and productive, but the barriers which separate it from the neighboring valleys are relatively low, with passes which may be traversed with comparative ease; while they are, at the same time, readily defensible. The rule of the first Inca seems not to have extended beyond this valley, and the passes leading into it are strongly fortified, showing the direction whence hostilities were anticipated in the early days of the empire, before the chiefs of Cuzco began their career of conquest and aggregation, reducing the people of the bolson of Anta in the north, and that of Urcos in the south. … The survey of the monuments of Peru brings the conviction that the ancient population was not nearly so numerous as the accounts of the chroniclers would lead us to suppose. From what I have said, it will be clear that but a small portion of the country is inhabitable, or capable of supporting a considerable number of people. The rich and productive valleys and bolsones are hardly more than specks on the map; and although there is every evidence that their capacities of production were taxed to the very utmost, still their capacities were limited. The ancient inhabitants built their dwellings among rough rocks, on arid slopes of hills, and walled up their dead in eaves and clefts, or buried them among irreclaimable sands, in order to utilize the scanty cultivable soil for agriculture. They excavated great areas in the deserts until they reached moisture enough to support vegetation, and then brought guano from the islands to fertilize these sunken gardens. They terraced up every hill and mountain–side, and gathered the soil from the crevices of the rocks to fill the narrow platforms, until not a foot of surface, on which could grow a single stalk of maize or a single handful of quinoa, was left unimproved. China, perhaps Japan and some portions of India, may afford a parallel to the extreme utilization of the soil which was effected in Peru at the time of the Inca Empire. No doubt the Indian population lived, as it still lives, on the scantiest fare, on the very minimum of food; but it had not then, as now, the ox, the hog, the goat, and the sheep, nor yet many of the grains and fruits which contribute most to the support of dense populations. … The present population of the three states which were wholly or in part included in the Inca Empire—namely, Equador, Peru and Bolivia—does not exceed five millions. I think it would be safe to estimate the population under the Inca rule at about double that number, or perhaps somewhere between ten and twelve millions; notwithstanding Las Casas, the good, but not very accurate, Bishop of Chiapa tells us that, 'in the Province of Peru alone the Spaniards killed above forty millions of people.'"

E. G. Squier, Peru, chapter 1.

PERU:A. D. 1527-1528. Discovery by the Spaniards.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1524-1528.

{2520}

PERU: A. D. 1528-1531. The commission and the preparations of Pizarro.

"In the spring of 1528, Pizarro and one of his comrades, taking with them some natives of Peru and some products of that country, set out [from Panama] to tell their tale at the court of Castile. Pizarro … found the Emperor Charles V. at Toledo, and met with a gracious reception. … His tales of the wealth which he had witnessed were the more readily believed in consequence of the experiences of another Spaniard whom he now met at court, the famous conqueror of Mexico. Yet affairs in Spain progressed with proverbial slowness, and it was not until the expiry of a year from the date of his arrival in the country that the capitulation was signed defining the powers of Pizarro. By this agreement he was granted the right of discovery and conquest in Peru, or New Castile, with the titles of Captain-general of the province and Adelantado, or lieutenant-governor. He was likewise to enjoy a considerable salary, and to have the right to erect certain fortresses under his government, and, in short, to exercise the prerogatives of a viceroy. Almagro was merely appointed commander of the fortress of Tumbez, with the rank of Hidalgo; whilst Father Luque became bishop of the same place. … Pizarro, on his part, was bound to raise within six months a force of 250 men; whilst the government on theirs engaged to furnish some assistance in the purchase of artillery and stores." Thus commissioned, Pizarro left Seville in January, 1530, hastening back to Panama, accompanied or followed by four half-brothers, who were destined to stormy careers in Peru. Naturally, his comrade and partner Almagro was ill pleased with the provision made for him, and the partnership came near to wreck; but some sort of reconciliation was brought about, and the two adventurers joined hands again in preparations for a second visit to Peru, with intentions boding evil to the unhappy natives of that too bountiful land. It was early in January 1531 that Pizarro sailed southward from the Isthmus for the third and last time.

R. G. Watson, Spanish and Portuguese South America, volume 1, chapters 6-7.

PERU:A. D. 1531-1533. Pizarro's conquest. Treacherous murder of Atahualpa.

"Pizarro sailed from Panama on the 28th of December, 1531, with three small vessels carrying one hundred and eighty-three men and thirty-seven horses. In thirteen days he arrived at the bay of San Mateo, where he landed the horses and soldiers to march along the shore, sending back the ships to get more men and horses at Panama and Nicaragua. They returned with twenty-six horses and thirty more men. With this force Pizarro continued his march along the sea-coast, which was well peopled; and on arriving at the bay of Guayaquil, he crossed over in the ships to the island of Puna. Here a devastating war was waged with the unfortunate natives, and from Puna the conqueror proceeded again in his ships to the Peruvian town of Tumbez. The country was in a state of confusion, owing to a long and desolating war of succession between Huascar and Atahualpa, the two sons of the great Ynca Huayna Capac, and was thus an easy prey to the invaders. Huascar had been defeated and made prisoner by the generals of his brother, and Atahualpa was on his way from Quito to Cusco, the capital of the empire, to enjoy the fruits of his victory. He was reported to be at Caxamarca, on the eastern side of the mountain; and Pizarro, with his small force, set out from Tumbez on the 18th of May, 1532. … The first part of Pizarro's march was southward from Tumbez, in the rainless coast region. After crossing a vast desert he came to Tungarara, in the fertile valleys of the Chira, where he founded the city of San Miguel, the site of which was afterwards removed to the valley of Piura. The accountant Antonio Navarro and the royal treasurer Riquelme were left in command at San Miguel, and Pizarro resumed his march in search of the Ynca Atahualpa on the 24th of September, 1532. He detached the gallant cavalier, Hernando de Soto, into the sierra of Huancabamba, to reconnoitre, and pacify the country. De Soto rejoined the main body after an absence of about ten days. The brother of Atahualpa, named Titu Atauchi, arrived as an envoy, with presents, and a message to the effect that the Ynca desired friendship with the strangers. Crossing the vast desert of Sechura, Pizarro reached the fertile valley of Motupe, and marched thence to the foot of the cordilleras in the valley of the Jequetepeque. Here he rested for a day or two, to arrange the order for the ascent. He took with him forty horses and sixty foot, instructing Hernando de Soto to follow him with the main body and the baggage. News arrived that the Ynca Atahualpa had reached the neighborhood of Caxamarca about three days before, and that he desired peace. Pizarro pressed forward, crossed the cordillera, and on Friday, the 15th of November, 1532, he entered Caxamarca with his whole force. Here he found excellent accommodation in the large masonry buildings, and was well satisfied with the strategic position. Atahualpa was established in a large camp outside, where Hernando de Soto had an interview with him. Atahualpa announced his intention of visiting the Christian commander, and Pizarro arranged and perpetrated a black act of treachery. He kept all his men under arms. The Ynca, suspecting nothing, came into the great square of Cusco in grand regal procession. He was suddenly attacked and made prisoner, and his people were massacred. The Ynca offered a ransom, which he described as gold enough to fill a room twenty-two feet long and seventeen wide, to a height equal to a man's stature and a half. He undertook to do this in two months, and sent orders for the collection of golden vases and ornaments in all parts of the empire. Soon the treasure began to arrive, while Atahualpa was deceived by false promises, and he beguiled his captivity by acquiring Spanish and learning to play at chess and cards. Meanwhile Pizarro sent an expedition under his brother Hernando, to visit the famous temple of Pachacamac on the coast; and three soldiers were also despatched to Cusco, the capital of the empire, to hurry forward the treasure. They set out in February, 1533, but behaved with so much imprudence and insolence at Cusco as to endanger their own lives and the success of their mission. Pizarro therefore ordered two officers of distinction, Hernando de Soto and Pedro del Barco, to follow them and remedy the mischief which they were doing. On Easter eve, being the 14th of April, 1533, Almagro arrived at Caxamarca with a reinforcement of 150 Spaniards and 84 horses. {2521} On the 3rd of May it was ordered that the gold already arrived should be melted down for distribution; but another large instalment came on the 14th of June. An immense quantity consisted of slabs, with holes at the corners, which had been torn off the walls of temples and palaces; and there were vessels and ornaments of all shapes and sizes. After the royal fifth had been deducted, the rest was divided among the conquerors. The total sum of 4,605,670 ducats would be equal to about £3,500,000 of modern money. After the partition of the treasure, the murder of the Ynca was seriously proposed as a measure of good policy. The crime was committed by order of Pizarro, and with the concurrence of Almagro and the friar Valverde. It was expected that the sovereign's death would be followed by the dispersion of his army, and the submission of the people. This judicial murder was committed in the square of Caxamarca on the 29th of August, 1533. Hernando de Soto was absent at the time, and on his return he expressed the warmest indignation. Several other honorable cavaliers protested against the execution. Their names are even more worthy of being remembered than those of the heroic sixteen who crossed the line on the sea-shore at Gallo."