So far the narrative structure has been quite simple. Book 1 consists of the stories of Croesus and Cyrus; Book 2 concerns Egypt. Book 3, however, reminds us that the books were almost certainly not H’s own divisions, but an Alexandrian invention probably designed to produce roughly comparable units of papyrus that could easily be stored and handled. It contains a short and lurid account of the eight-year reign of Cambyses (530–522 BCE), and a longer account of the beginning of the reign of Darius, as he begins to assert control over the huge and unwieldy empire he has taken on. Several themes run through this book: the complexities of power, and the ease with which it is abused; the way that apparently quite disparate events impinge on each other; the way each new person who becomes the focus of the account (Cambyses, Darius, but also Polycrates, Periander, Oroetes, Maeandrius, and even Democedes and Charilaus) has his own ideas about how to get what he wants, and how these schemes fit into the larger geopolitical account. Small does become big and big small in Book 3; the personal delusions of Cambyses and Charilaus and the private desires of Syloson the exile and Democedes the slave physician have considerable consequences.
Cambyses and Darius demonstrate two different aspects of the problems inherent in empire: Cambyses is an unstable, perhaps sick, man at the helm of something too powerful for him to handle, while Darius, though intelligent and competent, begins his reign by killing one of his co-conspirators and is manipulated first by his wife and his slave physician, and then (in a more distant fashion) by the ambitious brother of Polycrates and the mad brother of Polycrates’ de facto successor. Around the transition from Cambyses’ reign to that of Darius, H interlaces several episodes that explain how the Persians first became interested in Greece through the story of Samos and its foreign affairs. Vividly demonstrated here is the impact of imperial power on the fortunes of small islands far away, and how imperial power is subverted by local and regional ambitions. Finally, implicit in the story of Babylon’s fall is both a comparison and a contrast with Cyrus’ earlier achievement; while, according to H, the army of Cyrus had won Babylon by an engineering feat, drawing off the water of the Euphrates and entering along the river-bed (1.191), Darius reconquers it by a trick involving the grotesque self-mutilation and ambitious duplicity of one of his subordinates—whose grandson, H notes, deserted later to Athens (3.160).
3.1 For a different and more sympathetic portrayal of Cambyses’ accomplishments see CAH iv. 47–52. Neither the Egyptians nor Darius had an obvious interest in portraying Cambyses as a competent military commander or ruler, but we may note that as crown prince he had been entrusted with the rule of Babylon by his father, Cyrus, and had apparently kept it loyal; as king (530–522. BCE) he did plan and achieve the conquest of Egypt (525 BCE). The three stories H gives that begin his reign and give his apparent motivations for invading Egypt are all personal, concerning a woman in his household—no hint of plans previously laid by his father, abstract geopolitical considerations, or even the will of the gods (all of which figure, for instance, in Xerxes’ comparable decision at the beginning of Book 7). For what might have been some of Cambyses’ actual considerations, see CAH iv. 254–5. Control of Egypt was necessary if the coastline of Syria-Palestine was to remain under Persian rule.
3.2 Cassandane, Cambyses’ mother, has also been mentioned in 2.1. Her brother (according to H at least) is Otanes, the hero of Darius’ accession story (3.68–72, 80). Cambyses is extremely involved with the women of his own family; he later marries a cousin, Otanes’ daughter, as well as a couple of his own sisters (3.31, 68). Note that here as in Book 2 Egyptians are praised for their knowledge (cf. 2.77).
3.4 A large bowl has been found at Naucratis dedicated by Phanes son of Glaucus; CAH iii/3. 52 notes that this may be the same Phanes (cf. 3.11). One of Psammetichus’ significant problems was that important and trusted underlings like Phanes and Udjahorresne, the keeper of the temple of Neith at Saïs and commander of the fleet, betrayed him for the Persian invader in 525 BCE, CAH iv. 49, 258. See more broadly CAH iii/2. 725–6 for the isolation of the Egyptian navy after Cyrus won over the Phoenicians and Polycrates of Samos.
3.8–9 A brief excursus on Arabians, following H’s custom of describing a people as the Persians encounter them. They will recur (3.88, 107–13). For the definition of Arabs and Arabia in the Achaemenid period, see CAH iv. 162–4. For Alilat, see n. 1.131; perhaps Orotalt is a form of Ba‘al. There is no known river corresponding to the Corys in 3.9.
3.10 Rain at Thebes is defined as a portent. Cf. n. 1.78.
3.12 The mention of the battle of Papremis (459 BCE, CAH iv. 276) dates H’s sightseeing in Egypt at least later than the mid-450s. Inaros and Amyrtaeus with Athenian help attempted to free Egypt from Persian rule, Inaros was defeated, and a substantial Athenian fleet was lost (about 250 ships, according to Thucydides 1.104, 109–10, 112). Cf. 3.69 for another instance of the (mistaken) belief that Persians wear hats all the time, 2.36 for Egyptian baldness.
3.14–15 This is the first real anecdote about Cambyses, and first sign of behaviour that becomes increasingly pathological. For Persian tolerance, cf. nn. 1.135 and 1.156. The end of ch. 14 reminds the reader of the end of 1.86; no wonder Croesus weeps here.
3.16 Amasis’ cartouches must have been obliterated at this time, although the testimony of Udjahorresne the collaborator (whose statue in the Vatican bears a brief autobiography in hieroglyphs) acquits Cambyses of outraging Egyptian religious sensibilities. Foreign troops were quartered in the temple precincts at Saïs (CAH iv. 258).
3.17–26 Cambyses’ three expeditions. CAH iv. 49 discusses the improbability of such massive incompetence on Cambyses’ part, given his past record. There is some evidence that Egypt’s southern borders were successfully defended and at least northern Nubia brought under Persian rule: in 3.91 Libya, Cyrene, and Barca are all part of Darius’ tribute-bearing empire; in 7.70 Ethiopians form part of Xerxes’ army. See Asheri.
Much in the report of Ethiopia is highly imaginative; for the Table of the Sun (18), see earlier Greek fantasies of a just people who dine with the gods, n. 2.137–40. H distinguishes the Ethiopians of Africa from the Ethiopians of Asia (cf. 3.94, 101, 7.69–70). Among the southern, African Ethiopians he includes a variety of African peoples.
3.19 The willing surrender of the Phoenicians to Persia was of considerable military and political significance, since the Phoenicians became the backbone of Persia’s navy (under Darius: 5.108, 112, 6.6, 14; Thucydides 1.16; under Xerxes: 7.89, 96, 8.67; Thucydides 1.100). See further CAHiv. 156–7, and for the effect of isolating the Phoenician colony, Carthage, and making it turn its attention westwards, CAH iv. 749–50. Cf. n. 1.166. Cyprus joins the Greek side in the Ionian revolt of the 490s but is crucial to Persian maritime control and will be reconquered (5.104, 108–16, 6.6).
3.21 Another story of the strong and less civilized versus the overcivilized; cf. n. 1.71. The king of the Ethiopians echoes some of the observations of Tomyris the Massagete in 1.206; to both of them the Persian compulsion to conquer seems odd. The notion of the attraction of the fruits of civilization finds its ironic completion in Pausanias’ juxtaposition of a Spartan and a Persian dinner in 9.82, after the battle of Plataea. The Persians are called water-drinkers in 1.71, but cf. 1.133 and, for Cambyses himself, 3.34. Cf. n. 1.136.
3.23–4 The Ethiopians in Xerxes’ army (7.69) are archers. Parts of this passage are a mixture of fantasy and misunderstood or mistranslated travellers’ tales (cf. the ‘feathers’ of 4.31). For the crystal coffins, see Strabo 17.3 and Diodorus 2.15.
3.25–6 The Ammonians lived at the famous oasis of Siwa, in Egypt’s western desert. The cannibalism of Cambyses’ main army is not a matter of vengeance, as in the Astyages story (1.73), or a part of culture (3.99, 4.26), but foolishness brought on by Cambyses’ mad impetuousity. Lloyd (i. 118) singles out the Greek (Samian) inhabitants of the oasis in 3.2.6, El Khargeh, as possible Greek sources of H’s information on Egypt. Asheri notes that Phanes the Halicarnassian of 3.4 and 11 is another possible candidate. For Egyptian sources, see n. 2.2.
3.27–9 Hieroglyphic records do not bear out the story H reports, CAH iv. 260. One Apis was born in 543 and died in September 525, and the following Apis was born in 526 and died in 518, in the reign of Darius. Egyptian hieroglyphic records in the Memphis Serapeum testify that Cambyses financed the construction of the Apis sarcophagus and performed the traditional burial rites. Cambyses’ constraints on Egyptian temple revenues may have been responsible for his later bad press from the temple priesthoods. Memphis was the seat of government and important cults, esp. that of Apis. Cf. 2.38, 153 for the Apis cult in Egypt; in 2.38 H refers ahead to this passage for the description of the marks of the animal. Ch. 29 foreshadows the wound on the thigh that will cause Cambyses’ own death (3.64). The extensive description of Egyptian religiosity in Book 2 has helped the reader understand how shocking Cambyses’ behaviour is here.
3.30–2 Cambyses’ mistreatment of his family. A long trilingual inscription exists at Bisiton (mod. Behistun), carved in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, in which Cambyses’ successor, Darius, confirms the gist of what is said here, that Cambyses had his brother Smerdis (Persian, Bardiya) killed. None the less, it is a very peculiar story (CAH iv. 53 f.); for its continuation in H, see 3.61 below. Asheri notes the similarity between Astyages’ dream in 1.107, Cyrus’ dream in 1.209, and Cambyses’ dream in 3.30. The ‘Red Sea’ here is the Persian Gulf.
For the royal judges see also 3.14 above. CAH iv. 82–3 doubts that there was a fixed body or number, but H believes they were appointed for life; cf. 5.25 and 7.194 for the strenuousness of the position. Persian royal decrees were written down and kept (CAH iv. 87), whence the famous immutability of the ‘law of the Medes and the Persians’ in Daniel 6: 8 and 15. Atossa, the elder of the two sisters Cambyses marries, will go on to an influential career as Darius’ most important wife (3.133, 7.3). (A third daughter of Cyrus and Cassandane, Artystone, does not marry her brother Cambyses but will become Darius’ favourite wife: 3.88, 7.69.) As often, the variants in ch. 32 contain a common kernel of meaning, here that the sister is unhappy at Cambyses’ murder of their brother. For the ‘first atrocity’ cf. n. 5.96–7. Cf. more generally H’s habit of keeping track of the numbers of times something happens, n. 1.92.
3.33 Epilepsy. The Hippocratic On the Sacred Disease I also claims that the causes are physical rather than religious.
3.34–6 Cambyses has proved to his own satisfaction that he is not too drunk to shoot his cupbearer accurately. Prexaspes’ courtier-like behaviour reminds one of Harpagus (1.119), but Prexaspes will decide at the end to remain faithful to the Achaemenids (3.74–5). Burying people alive (35) is something Persians do (7.114). This is the last time Croesus figures in the continuous narrative (36), scuttling out of the room in fear of Cambyses (there are incidental anecdotes in 6.37 and 125 and some later monuments and temple dedications).
3.37 The temple of Ptah at Memphis had a privileged position, exempt for instance from financial restrictions, CAH iv. 260. For the temple, see 2.99, 101; for its priests as H’s most important Egyptian informants, see n. 2.2. It is not clear what ancient connections existed among the Greek metalworking god Hephaestus and the helping figures of the Phoenician Pataïci, the Cabiri of Egypt, and the Cabiri of Lemnos or Samothrace (2.51). Cabiri were also part of seventh-century Boeotian cult, although connected with agriculture rather than craft.
3.38 An important and rare passage of H’s own judgement on religion and custom; cf. 2.3. The Callatiae may be the Callantiae of 3.97 (cf. 3.99). Plato, Gorgias 484b also quotes the Pindar passage (fr. 169 Snell), but the gist of the Platonic quotation is that the strong hand of custom dominates both god and man, justifying violence. Other vivid expressions of H’s personal opinion occur in 2.43–5, 53, 143, 3.106, 108, 6.27, 7.139, 8.13.
3.39–60 An excursus on Samos and in particular on the foreign policy of Samos’ famous tyrant Polycrates (c.535–522 BCE); cf. CAH iii/3. 218–19. H probably follows here the principle noted by Immerwahr (p. 61) that ‘the place between logoi forms a pause’. H discusses the complicated story of Samos at the end of his account of Cambyses’ reign, thus using it to mark a pause before embarking on the continuous account of Cambyses’ downfall and Darius’ accession; it also lays the background necessary for understanding the two subsequent Samian narratives of 3.120–5 and 139–49. The fate of Polycrates reminds the reader of the impossibility of evading one’s assigned destiny (cf. n. 1.8). H’s treatment of Samos in the Histories, as well as the much later biographical tradition, suggests that he knew Samos well and may be recording reasonably good information here.
3.39–43 The story of Polycrates’ ring; Amasis’ pessimism turns out to be well founded (3.125). The struggle between Samos and Miletus for dominance of the Aegean trade routes was ongoing and traditional. Syloson will reappear in 3.139. Theodorus (41) is also the craftsman H thinks made the giant silver bowl Croesus sends to Delphi (1.51).
3.44 There is a possibility that Polycrates broke off his alliance with Amasis and went over to Persia, perhaps when the Phoenicians became part of the Persian empire, CAH iv. 464, cf. n. 3.19. This must have intensified the Lacedaemonian hostility to Polycrates, since Sparta was determined to keep Greece independent of Persian overlordship (1.152; cf. n. 3.148).
3.46–7 Spartans are indeed laconic; see n. 1.152. The bowl had been stolen in 547 BCE (1.70). Sparta’s seventh-century struggles with Messenia (47) ended with the subjection of Messenia and the enslavement of its population c.620; cf. n. 6.58–60.
3.48–53 Corinth was part of the Peloponnesian League from about 550 BCE (CAH iii/3. 356–7), and no doubt joined Sparta for that reason. H uses the fact of Corinth’s presence in the war against Polycrates to interrupt the Samian narrative to tell the earlier story of Periander, Corinth’s famous tyrant (c.627–587 BCE; for Periander and other tyrants, see CAH iii/3. 346–51). Political motivations in H are often personal, but this is one of the most peculiar. It is highly improbable that the Corinthians were still angry in the 520s that their tyrant two long generations earlier had been foiled by the Samians in his attempts to castrate 300 Corcyran boys. The relevance of the story here is thematic, in a narrative replete with instances of tyrannical behaviour. In 5.92 H again inserts the story of the Corinthian tyranny into a context that seems strained to a modern ear.
3.55 H rarely names his interlocutors; cf. 2.55, 4.76, and 9.16. Only here and probably at 2.28 does he expressly say where the interview took place; cf. 2.44 for another rare glimpse of research as a part of H’s travels.
3.56 This is record-keeping; the second expedition was in 479 BCE, to Mycale (9.96). Cf. n. 1.92 for other enumerations in H.
3.57 Asheri notes that four of H’s five instances of the verb ‘to flourish, be prosperous’ are of cities which later are destroyed: here and also 1.29, 5.28, 6.127. The one human who ‘flourishes’ is the courtesan Rhodopis, 2.134. The island of Siphnos was famous in the archaic period for its mineral resources of silver, lead, and gold, and the Siphnian treasury in Delphi was famous for its wealth (cf. n. 1.14). The Siphnians only supplied one penteconter or fifty-oared ship, however, to the Greek cause in the Persian Wars (8.48).
3.59 This whole set of events probably took place about 524–519 BCE. A chief cause for hostility between Samos and Aegina was probably rivalry for the markets of Libya and Egypt. Aegina was the only non east Greek state with a presence in the Egyptian trading-centre of Naucratis, and a Samian base established in north-west Crete threatened the Aeginetan trade route southwards. Cf. n. 4.152 and CAH iv. 364.
3.60 The temple was begun about 570 BCE, before Polycrates’ time; Rhoecus, its builder, was also said with Theodorus to have invented smelting and casting metal (Pausanias 8.14.8, 9.41.1). This temple burned down and an even larger one was begun under Polycrates, which H saw and was impressed by (but cf. 2.148 for an even more impressive building in Egypt). One can still today get a good idea of the aqueduct, the mole, and the temple H admired on Samos.
3.61–87 The story of Cambyses resumes from 3.38. Structurally, it is interesting that this section of narrative about the transfer of power from Cambyses to Darius is framed by the long excursus on Samos before it (3.39–60), and by an equally long survey of the extent of the Persian empire after it (3.88–116).
3.61–7 The story of Cambyses resumes from 3.38. The Medes seize power; Cambyses dies. H’s story stays fairly close in its major outlines to Darius’ own account in the Bisitun inscription, although Darius calls the rebel Mede Gaumata and mentions no second Median brother; he gives another name, Bardiya, to H’s other Smerdis, the brother Cambyses had killed (3.30; CAH iv. 53–7). Cambyses’ speech (65) refers again to a theme of the Croesus and Astyages stories, a fate foretold in a dream that he could not and should not have tried to avoid. Cf. n. 1.8.
3.68–79 The conspiracy of the seven. H accurately names all but one; in the Bisitun inscription Darius calls H’s Aspathines Ardumanish (CAH iv. 54). The conspirators remain close to the centre of power (except for Intaphrenes in H, 3.118; Darius’ inscription, however, names Intaphrenes as reconquering Babylon near the beginning of Darius’ reign). Otanes is the brother of Cambyses’ wife, Cassandane (3.2), and the father of another of his wives, Phaedymia; his descendants become the rulers of Cappadocia. He argues for a democratic government in Persia (3.80), and yet ironically he subdues Samos for Darius (3.141, 147, 149). Aspathines is the father of Prexaspes, one of Xerxes’ officers in the expedition to Greece (7.97). Gobryas is both Darius’ brother-in-law and father-in-law (7.2, 5); he is one of Darius’ councillors in Scythia (4.132); his son, Mardonius, becomes Xerxes’ brother-in-law, the most fervent supporter of his invasion of Greece (7.5), and the invasion’s military commander. Megabyzus, who argues for oligarchy in 3.81, is the father of Zopyrus, in H’s version the conqueror of Babylon for Darius (3.153, 160). Hydarnes is the father of two of Xerxes’ military commanders (7.66 and 83) and his son of the same name becomes the governor of the Asian coastal region (7.135); his family later become the rulers of Armenia.
Darius’ rule meant return of control to the Persian Achaemenid military and administrative élite (perhaps to a different branch of it from that of. Cyrus); in his inscription Darius claims that he returned pastures, herds, household slaves, and houses to ‘the people’ and re-established ‘the people on its foundations’ in both Persia and Media. His emphasis on Gaumata as a Magus and on the restoration of destroyed sanctuaries perhaps indicates a degree of attempted religious revolution as well; cf. 3.79 where H says that an annual Persian festival is still held in his day celebrating the ‘murder of the Magi’ (Magophonia).
3.70–2 In the Bisitun inscription Hystaspes the father of Darius is satrap of Parthia. Ch. 72 highlights without editorial comment Darius’ carelessness about basic Persian values (cf. 1.136). Like Amasis (2.173–4), Darius is something of a trickster figure at the beginning of his reign.
3.80–3 As Asheri notes, this tripartite typology of governments is found already in Pindar (Pythian Odes 2.85 ff.), and later in Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Polybius. Although H emphasizes here and again in 6.43 the fact that this debate really occurred, his account of it owes a great deal to fifth-century Greek sophistic thought. It is highly structured, so that each speaker contradicts the previous one, and it is the most theoretical discussion of political systems in the Histories. See Lateiner, 167–86 for the large bibliography on the subject and the issues entailed. The aftermath of the debate makes it clear that Darius’ strongest argument is the (unspoken) one of self-interest; except for Otanes, everyone hopes himself to become king. H’s own sympathy for Otanes’ position is patent; cf. his depiction of Sparta (7.104) as governed by law, and Athens (5.78) as successful when its citizens become free from despotism. He respects isonomiē, ‘equality before the law’ or, more generally, ‘political equality’, but remains somewhat ambivalent about democracy as practised in Athens (5.97). Cf. H’s irony towards Samos in 3.142–3.
3.84–7 Darius makes no mention of his groom’s odd trick; he credits his success to the will of Ahura Mazda, in the Bisitun inscription, CAH iv. 54. The rule about access to the king except when he is with a woman (84) will figure in the Intaphrenes story (3.118).
3.88 Darius reigned from 521 to 486 BCE. For Arabians cf. n. 3.8; they control the spice trade (3.107) and are valuable friends, but their independence is perhaps less absolute than H supposes, since they will serve in the army that marches to Greece (7.69). Darius had married a daughter of Gobryas before becoming king (7.2); Artystone daughter of Cyrus was his favourite wife while she lived (7.69; cf. n. 3.30–2).
3.89–97 This seems to be a development from the system of government described in 1.134 and remains a valuable survey of the organization into satrapies of the Persian empire and the revenues of each. Cf. CAH iv. 87–91, 96–9, and the individual discussions of taxation and tribute for Babylonia, central Asia, Europe, India, and Syria-Palestine. H perhaps has misunderstood the 360 talents of gold-dust he assigns to India in 3.94. CAH iv. 204 thinks it is much more likely to have been the weight in silver equivalent to the value of the assessed gold-dust. See Asheri, H & W, and Legrand, ad loc. for efforts to make H’s arithmetic in ch. 95 come out correctly. The last chapter (97) discusses the parts of the empire that gave ‘gifts’ instead of a fixed tribute.
3.98–105 H gives a brief ethnography of India as a pendant to the subject of the Indian gold-dust paid as tribute. It ends with an elaborate traveller’s tale about how the gold is collected; see Asheri for the long afterlife of the story of ants as big as foxes. (In the New York Times of 25 Nov. 1996 a French ethnologist, Michel Peissel, is quoted as claiming that the Persian word for marmot was the equivalent of ‘mountain ant’, and that marmots have been recently observed on the Dansar plain, near the border between India and Pakistan, engaging in behaviour resembling that described here. The camels, however, are missing from the modern story.)
3.102 Caspatyrus was the origin of the remarkable voyage of Scylax of Caryanda (4.44); its geographical location remains uncertain (CAH iv. 201 f. thinks it is Peshawar).
3.103 H may have mistaken the hock of the camel for a second knee, given the odd way in which the camel kneels down; Aristotle tacitly corrects H (Historia Animalium 499a).
3.104 Since the earth is seen as a flat disc and the sun travels westwards in an arc across it, logically in the extreme east it is hottest in the morning. See n. 2.19–27.
3.106–16 H’s survey of the amazing things found at the ends of the earth; cf. n. 2.65–76. H & W comment that the stories of horrific dangers and difficulties associated with the harvesting of spices may have been invented by his sources to dissuade potential competitors from the lucrative spice trade. The ‘wool from trees’ (106) is cotton. For the flying snakes (107), cf. 2.75.
3.108 See Immerwahr, 307 for the notion of a divine balance as one that controls the political sphere as well as the natural one in H.
3.115–16 Eridanus is a mythic river in Hesiod, Theogony 338. In Pherecydes, FGH 3, fr. 74 and Euripides, Hippolytus 732 ff. it is the Po, to others the Rhône, and it may be connected in myth to memories of an early amber route from the Baltic. The griffins and Arimaspians come from theArimaspea of Aristeas of Proconnesus (cf. n. 4.13–16). The Cassiterides (literally, the Tin Islands) are commonly identified as the Scilly Isles, or possibly Britain itself. H ends ch. 116 with ring composition, a repetition of the thought with which this geographical excursus begins in 3.106.
3.117 This chapter provides a transition back to the topic of Darius and the subsequent narratives that detail his efforts to control his huge empire. Central Asia did have a developed irrigation system dating back to the Late Bronze Age, but this particular plain does not exist, CAH iv. 183–4. 3.117 may be read as an ominous thematic indication of what Persian conquest means, but H does not force this interpretation on us. Without comment he instead embarks on the long narrative of Darius’ reign, which will last down to the beginning of Book 7.
3.118–60 The large outlines of H’s narrative for the rest of Book 3 show a progression with some thematic coherence: Darius first kills a trusted confidant (118), then removes a powerful satrap (126), conquers Samos (149), and finally resubdues Babylon, the most important western capital of the empire (150). Much is excluded: for instance, many of the revolts around the empire put down by Darius in the early years of his reign, as well as a conquest of the eastern Scythians, the Sacae (CAH iv. 57–66). See n. 3.150–60, end.
3.118–19 In the Bisitun inscription Intaphrenes (Vindafarnah) is listed first among the conspirators, and is said to have put down a revolt of Babylon on 27 Nov. 521 BCE (CAH iv. 130). The story of Intaphrenes may suggest an attempted revolt by other highranking Persians against Darius’ rule, but H is our only source for it.
Many think that the story of Intaphrenes’ wife in H is the source of Sophocles’ Antigone 905–12. If this is true, it suggests a date in the mid-440s for this part of the Histories’ composition, although H could have been narrating the story long before finishing the Histories as a whole. Alternatively, a common earlier source might lie behind both passages. In H the point of the story seems to be Darius’ recognition of the woman’s cleverness in expressing her tacit loyalty, by choosing to save a member of her natal family rather than her politically compromised husband. H enjoys narrating witty retorts and paradoxical observations: cf. 1.71, 2.30, 172, 4.142, 144, 7.120, 226, 8.26.
3.120–49 Here begins a narrative thread demonstrating how small becomes big and vice versa (1.5). A squabble in Darius’ antechamber between two rival satraps from the west (120) leads by a circuitous route to the destruction of a famous Greek tyrant (125), the turning of Darius’ attention towards the conquest of Greece (138), and the brutal subjugation of the island of Samos (149).
3.120–6 Oroetes is a powerful and ambitious satrap in the western part of the empire, ruling from Sardis, Croesus’ old capital. He takes advantage of the confusion surrounding the end of Cambyses’ reign to kill both Mitrobates, a rival satrap from the region of the Hellespont, and Mitrobates’ son (126). But first, in this episode (the continuation of 3.39–60), Oroetes destroys Polycrates, whom H calls the most magnificent of all Greek tyrants except for the rulers of Syracuse (125). H’s comment on Polycrates here forms part of his interest in ‘firsts’ and ‘bests’; cf. 11. 1.214.
Anacreon (c.570–485 BCE) was a poet of love and wine at the court of Polycrates, who went to the court of the Pisistratidae in Athens after Polycrates’ death and then perhaps to Thessaly. At the end of Polycrates’ story (125) H makes an oblique reference back to the story of Amasis and the ring (3.40–3); in defining Polycrates as the first real person to aim at control of Ionia and the islands, H again separates off the spatium historicum, the time of real history, from the myths that antedate it (122). Cf. 1.5 and 2.147 where he also demarcates an earlier period from a later one that seems more securely known. In his treatment of Minos H is more cautious than Thucydides (1.4).
3.127–8 The theme of tisis or divine retribution recurs here; cf. n. 1.8. The word itself occurs in the Greek text in 1.13, 86, 2.152, 3.109, 5.56, 79, 6.72, 84, 7.8a, 8.76, 105, 106, and twice in this passage. The ability of writing to do crafty, unexpected, or long-range harm intrigues H: cf. n. 1.123 and passages cited there.
3.129–38 The confusion of the domestic and the political (sometimes called ‘harem politics’), suggested as a theme in Cambyses’ reign (3.1–3, 30–2), recurs here with a vengeance. Democedes, although he is only now a Greek slave, inveigles the queen, Atossa, to become his mouthpiece and influence the shaping of Persian foreign policy (134). Repeatedly, underlings give Darius or Xerxes partial or misleading information designed in reality to further private aims of their own: Megabazus, Aristagoras, and Histiaeus do so successfully in Book 5 and Mardonius influences the whole of the campaign in Greece in Books 7–9 (H also enjoys showing such thinking backfire, as in the case of the ambitious Paeonian brothers in 5.12–15). Darius does receive useful and impartial advice from his brother, Artabanus (4.83), and Xerxes will receive it from Artabanus (7.10 f., 46 f.), Artabazus (9.41), and two Greeks, Demaratus (7.101 f., 209, 234 f.) and Artemisia (8.68, 8.102) as well, but good advice is usually not taken; cf. nn. 1.8, 1.71, 9.41–3.
Atossa’s speech in ch. 134 is intelligently argued; it raises some of the same issues later contained in the speeches of Xerxes and his ambitious cousin, Mardonius, in 7.5, 7.8, and 7.9. Mardonius himself in Books 7 to 9 is an example of the kind of Persian Atossa warns Darius against here; a prudent ruler finds wars a useful way to distract excessively ambitious subordinates.
3.137 Milo the late sixth-century wrestler was one of the most famous athletes of the ancient world, six times an Olympic victor, six times at the Pythian games, ten times each at the Isthmian and Nemean games. The Pythagoreans in Croton were said to have met at his house.
3.138 Like the Ethiopian Sabacos (2.139), the Athenian Aristides (8.79), and the Persian Otanes (3.80), Gillus is a rare example of someone who does not at all costs cling to power. His forbearance implicitly highlights by contrast the very different story of another exile that immediately follows (3.139–49). The formulaic sentence at the end of the chapter indicates that the account begun in 3.129 is ending. By its emphasis on ‘firsts’ it also indicates the importance of this account to the larger theme of the Histories, East-West hostilities, despite the apparent triviality of many of the motives involved (cf. n. 1.92). This is the first in a series of westward-turning Persian military expeditions that will dominate the remaining narrative of the Histories.
3.139–49 The third and final episode of the Samian story. Samos is destroyed after Darius’ establishment of Syloson as its tyrant goes awry (c.521 BCE). Syloson’s initial banishment by his brother Polycrates had been noted in 3.39. The story here is full of bitter ironies; cf. Otanes’ interest inisonomiē for the Persians (3.80) with his behaviour in Samos as Darius’ henchman (144, 147, 149). On the other hand, H remarks that the aristocrats in charge of Samos ‘did not want to be free’. The abusive behaviour that Argives and Scythians use successfully towards men they call former slaves (4.3, 6.83) backfires when used on the Samian Maeandrius (142–3); he is not cowed into submission. In its largest outlines, this account, like the story of Democedes before it, signals how little control even a conscientious ruler like Darius has over the events unfolding under his jurisdiction.
3.142 It is curious that the brother of Maeandrius responsible for his initial acts of violence is later found ruling Lemnos under the Persians, unchanged in character (5.27, unless the current text refers instead to Otanes).
3.148 This is the second time a Samian has asked for Spartan help, and the theme of Ionian eloquence vs. Spartan simplicity is again raised (3.46; cf. 1.152). For Cleomenes, the energetic king of Lacedaemon (c.520–490 BCE), see CAH iv. 356–67. He resisted embroiling Sparta in overseas adventures: in H, in 517 he refuses aid to Maeandrius, in 513 to the Scythians (6.84), and, most significantly, in 499 to the Ionians revolting against Persia (5.49 f.). At the same time we see him throughout Books 5 and 6 trying to maintain control over the other member states of the Peloponnesian League and to extend its power, interfering in the government of Athens (5.64–74), trying to mount war against Aegina (6.50), demolishing the Argives at the battle of Sepeia (6.77 ff.), and driving his fellow king, Demaratus, from office (6.61 f.); like Cambyses he goes mad. His gruesome death is attributed by other Greeks to a variety of transgressions (6.75). A systematic desire to check the growth of Persian influence may have inspired some of his activity. On the other hand, much of it also led to increased ill will and disunity among the various Greek states of the mainland (cf. nn. 5.49–51, 6.73–84, 6.108).
3.149 Asheri notes that this is the first of a number of wholesale interferences with European populations by Darius; he deports Barcans (4.204), Paeonian Thracians (5.15), Milesians (6.20), Eretrians (6.119). For Otanes’ disease, cf. 1.105, but also 1.19, 4.205, and perhaps 3.32 and 6.75. For a fuller description of ‘trawling’ cf. 6.31.
3.150–60 This account of Babylon’s revolt early in Darius’ reign is connected as a synchronism to the Persian take-over of Samos. Darius’ Bisitun inscription records two revolts in Babylon in Darius’ first year, and revolts in Persia, Elam, Media, Assyria, perhaps Egypt, Parthia, Margiana, Sattagydia, and Scythia as well (CAH iv. 58–63 and 129 f.). What Darius tells us in the Bisitun inscription cannot be reconciled with the twenty-month siege described here, and Zopyrus’s role is known only from H. The account of this revolt was perhaps designed as part of the ‘Assyrianlogoi’ which H promises in 1.106 and 184 but does not include in his Histories. H never distinguishes Babylonia from Assyria.
3.153 Cf. 1.55 (1.91) and 7.57 for other unlikely mules. For portents generally, cf. n. 1.78. The portent starts Zopyrus thinking, much as the dropped helmet starts Cyrus’ men thinking in 1.84, as they besiege Sardis.
3.154 The king’s benefactors are indeed rewarded abundantly; see the end of this story in 3.160 and 8.85. (For a Greek example of expedient self-mutilation, cf. 1.59.) The story of Zopyrus ends with a twist, however, since H concludes the whole account of the capture of Babylon by remarking that Zopyrus’ grandson much later deserts to Athens—perhaps to become one of H’s informants or even one of the Persian logioi mentioned in 1.1? Other rewards the king gives for service turn out oddly as well: cf. 3.139 f. and 5.11, which lead respectively to the destruction of Samos and the Ionian revolt. It is not a good idea to count on lasting gratitude from the king; cf. 7.29 and 38. (For a Greek example of expedient self-mutilation, cf. 1.59.)
3.158 For the temple of Zeus-Bel, cf. 1.181.
3.159 The Babylonians must here marry non-Babylonian women; cf. n. 1.1. In 1.146 also H emphasizes that blue-blooded Ionians are actually half-Carian, but in 3.159 the tone is less paradoxical and amused. Cf. the end of 1.196 for a description of contemporary Babylonian hardship.