army, with the king at the head of them, to retire Artax. through the seat of his empire, and in a manner Mnemon from the gates of his palace, and to traverse a vast extent of unknown countries, almost all in arms against them, without being dismayed by the prospect of the innumerable obstacles and dangers, to which they were every moment exposed; passes of rivers, of mountains and defiles; open attacks; secret ambuscades from the people upon their rout; famine, almost inevitable in vast and desert regions; and above all, the treachery they had to fear from the troops, who, seemed to be employed in escorting them, but in reality had orders to destroy them. For Artaxerxes, who was sensible how much the return of those Greeks into their country would cover him with disgrace, and decry the majesty of the empire in the sense of all nations, had left nothing undone to prevent it; and he desired their destruction, says Plutarch, more passionately, than to conquer Cyrus himself, or to preserve the sovereignty of his estates. Those ten thousand men, however, notwithstanding so many obstacles, carried their point, and arrived, through a thousand dangers, victorious and triumphant in their own country. Anthony long after, when pursued by the Parthians almost in the same country, finding himself in like danger, cried out in admiration of their invincible valour, Oh the retreat of the ten thousand!

h

And it was the good success of this famous retreat, which filled the people of Greece with contempt for Artaxerxes, by demonstrating to them, that gold, silver, luxury, voluptuousness, and a numerous seraglio of women, were the sole merit of the grand monarch; but that, as to the rest, his opulence and all his boasted power were only pride and vain ostentation. It was this prejudice, more universal than ever in Greece after this celebrated expedition, that gave birth to those bold enterprizes of the

Plut. in Anto. p. 937. go

Artax. Greeks, of which we shall soon treat, that made Maemon. Artaxerxes tremble upon his throne, and brought

the Persian empire to the very brink of destruction.

SECT. VII. Consequences of Cyrus's death in the court of Artaxerxes. Cruelty and jealousy of Parysatis. Statira poisoned.

I RETURN to what passed after the battle of

Cunaxa in the court of Artaxerxes. As he believed that he killed Cyrus with his own hand, and looked upon that action as the most glorious of his life, he desired that all the world should think the same; and it was wounding him in the most tender part, to dispute that honour, or endeavour to divide it, with him. The Carian soldier, whom we mentioned before, not contented with the great presents the king had made him upon a different pretext, perpetually declared to all that would hear him, that none but himself had killed Cyrus, and that the king did him great injustice in depriving him of the glory due to him. The prince, upon being inform ed of that insolence, conceived a jealousy equally base and cruel, and had the weakness to cause him to be delivered to Parysatis, who had sworn the destruction of all those that had any share in the death of her son. Animated by her barbarous revenge, she commanded the executioners to take that unfor tunate wretch, and to make him suffer the most exquisite tortures during ten days; then after they had torn out his eyes, to pour melted brass into his ears, till he expired in that cruel misery; which was accordingly executed.

Mithridates also, having boasted in an entertainment where he had heated his brain with wine, that it was he gave Cyrus his mortal wound, paid very dear for that sottish and imprudent vanity. He was condemned to suffer the punishment of the * troughs,

Plut. in Artax. p. 1018-1021. * See the description of this torture, as before given in this

volume.

one of the most cruel that was ever invented, and Artax. Mnemon after having languished in torment during seventeen days, died at last slowly in exquisite misery.

There only remained, for the final execution of her project, and fully to satiate her vengeance, the punishment of the king's eunuch Mesabates, who by his master's order had cut off the head and hand of Cyrus. But as there was nothing to take hold of in his conduct, Parysatis laid this snare for him. She was a woman of great address, had abundance of wit, and excelled in playing at a certain game with dice. After the war, she had been reconciled with the king, played often with him, was of all his parties, had an unbounded complaisance for him, and far from contradicting him in any thing, prevented his desires, did not blush at indulging his passions, and even at supplying him with the means of gratifying them. But she took especial care never to lose sight of him, and to leave Statira as little alone with him as she could, desiring to gain an absolute ascendant over her son.

One day seeing the king entirely unemployed, and with no thoughts but of diverting himself, she proposed playing at dice with him for a thousand Daricks *, to which he readily consented. She suffered him to win, and paid down the money. But affecting regret and vexation, she pressed him to begin again, and to play with her for an eunuch. The king, who suspected nothing, complied, and they agreed to except five of the favourite eunuchs on each side, that the winner should take their choice out of the rest, and the loser be bound to deliver him. Having made these conditions, they sat down to play. The queen was all attention to the game, and made use of all her skill and address in it; besides which the dice favoured her. She won, and chose Mesabates, for he was not one of the excepted. As soon as she got him into her hands,

* The Darick was worth ten livres.

Artax.
Mnemon.

before the king could have the least suspicion of the revenge she meditated, she delivered him to the executioners, and commanded them to flea him alive, to lay him afterwards upon three cross bars, and to stretch his skin at large before his eyes upon two stakes prepared for that purpose; which was performed accordingly. When the king knew this, he was very sorry for it, and violently angry with his mother. But without giving herself any further trouble about it, she told him with a smile, and in a jesting way, Really, you are a great loser, and "must be highly in the right, to be so much out of "humour for a decrepid wretch of an eunuch, when "I, who lost a thousand good Daricks, and paid "them down upon the spot, don't say a word, and "am satisfied."

All these cruelties seem to have been only essays and preparations for a greater crime Parysatis meditated. She had retained at heart a violent hatred for queen Statira, which she had suffered to escape her upon many occasions. She perceived plainly, that her credit with the king her son, was only the effect of his respect and consideration for her as his mother; whereas that for Statira was founded in love and confidence, the best security of credit with him. Of what is not the jealousy of an ambitious woman capable! This resolved to rid herself, whatever it cost her, of so formidable a rival.

For the more certain attainment of her ends, she feigned a reconciliation with her daughter-in-law, and treated her with all the exterior marks of sincere friendship and real confidence. The two queens, appearing therefore to have forgot their former suspicions and differences, lived well together, saw one another as before, and eat at each other's apartments. But as both of them knew how much the friendships and caresses of the court were to be relied upon, especially amongst the women, they were neither

* Plutarch explains this circumstance no farther.

of them deceived in the other; and the same fears Artax. always subsisting, they kept upon their guard, and Mnemon. never eat but of the same dishes and pieces. Could one believe it possible to deceive so attentive and cautious a vigilance? Parysatis one day, when her daughter-in-law was at table with her, took an extremely exquisite bird, that had been served up, cut it in two parts, gave one half to Statira, and eat the other herself. Statira soon after was seized with sharp pains, and having quitted the table, died in the most horrible convulsions, not without inspiring the king with the most violent suspicions of his mother, of whose cruelty, and implacable and revengeful spirit, he was sufficiently sensible before. He made the strictest enquiry into the crime. All his mother's officers and domesticks were seized and put to the question; when Gygis, one of Parysatis's women and confidents, confessed the whole. She had caused one side of a knife to be rubbed with poison, so that Parysatis, having cut the bird in two, put the sound part into her own mouth directly, and gave Statira the other that was poisoned. Gygis was put to death after the manner the Persians punished poisoners, which is thus: They lay their heads upon a great and very broad stone, and beat upon it with another till they are entirely crushed, and have no remains of their former figure. As for Parysatis, the king contented himself with confining her to Babylon, where she demanded to retire, and told her, that he would never set his foot within it whilst she was there.