Travels with Herodotus Page 15

  HONORS FOR THE HEAD

  OF HISTIAEUS

  I left Persepolis and now I am leaving Tehran, going back twenty years and returning once more to Africa. But along the way I must stop—in my thoughts, that is—in the Greco-Persian world of Herodotus, for dark clouds are beginning to gather over it.

  Darius does not succeed in conquering the Scythians; they have stopped the Asian at the gates of Europe. He sees that he cannot prevail against them. Moreover, he is suddenly afraid that they will now attack and destroy him. And so under cover of night he begins his escape-retreat, desiring one thing only: to get out of Scythia and return as quickly as possible to Persia. As his enormous army withdraws, the Scythians immediately set off in pursuit.

  Darius has only one path of retreat: over the bridge on the Danube which he himself built at the start of the invasion. It is being guarded for him by the Ionians (Greeks inhabiting Asia Minor, which in Herodotus’s time was under Persian rule).

  How the world’s fortunes turn. The Scythians, knowing the shortest routes and mounted on swift horses, reach the bridge ahead of the Persian forces and try to head off their retreat. They appeal to the Ionians to destroy the bridge, which would allow the Scythians to finish off Darius and by the same token would give the Ionians their freedom.

  It would seem that from the Ionians’ perspective the proposal is indeed an excellent one, and so when they gather a council to discuss it, the first to speak, Miltiades, says: Great, let’s tear down the bridge! And everyone else seems to concur (it is not the Ionian people who participate in the council, but the tyrants, whom, as de facto lieutenants, Darius has installed over the population). The next one to speak is Histiaeus of Miletus: [He] took the opposite line; he argued that every one of them owed his position as tyrant of his community to Darius, and that if Darius were to fall, he would not be able to rule Miletus and none of them would remain in power either, because there was not one of their communities which would not prefer democracy to tyranny. Histiaeus’ argument immediately won everyone at the meeting over to his point of view, although they had previously been in favor of Miltiades’ proposal.

  This change of mind is of course understandable: the tyrants realized that if Darius loses his throne (and probably his head), tomorrow they will lose their positions (and probably their heads) as well. Though they tell the Scythians that they will dismantle the bridge, in reality they continue to protect it and permit Darius safe passage back to Persia.

  Darius, appreciating the historic role Histiaeus has played in this decisive moment, rewards him richly according to the latter’s desires. But he does not allow him to return to his seat as tyrant of Miletus, taking him instead to Susa, the Persian capital, as an adviser. Histiaeus is ambitious and cynical, and it is best to keep a close eye on his kind, all the more so now that he has risen to the status of savior of the empire, which without his voice, there by the bridge over the Danube, might have ceased to exist.

  But all is not lost for Histiaeus. The tyranny of Miletus, the principal city of Ionia, is now assumed by his faithful son-in-law, Aristagoras. He, too, is ambitious and hungry for power. All this is happening at a time when discontent with, even resistance to, the Persian domination is growing among the subjugated Ionians. The father and the son-in-law intuit that the time is ripe to take advantage of the prevailing mood.

  But how are they to communicate, how to agree on a plan of action? It would take a messenger three months at a brisk pace to traverse the distance between Susa (where Histiaeus dwells) and Miletus (where Aristagoras rules)—and there are both deserts and mountains along the way. Histiaeus has no choice route: It … so happened, in fact, that a man with a tattooed head arrived from Histiaeus in Susa with a message telling Aristagoras to rebel against the king. Histiaeus could find no other safe way to communicate to Aristagoras the message he wanted to get through to him, because the roads were guarded, so he shaved the head of his most trustworthy slave, tattooed the message on his scalp, and then waited for his hair to grow back. As soon as it had, he sent him to Miletus with just the one task—to tell Aristagoras, when he got to Miletus, to shave his hair off and examine his scalp. And as I have already said, the tattooed message was that Aristagoras should revolt. The reason Histiaeus took this step was because he hated being kept in Susa.

  Aristagoras presents Histiaeus’s appeal to his supporters. They listen and vote unanimously for the uprising. Aristagoras now sets off beyond the sea in search of allies, because Persia is many times stronger than Ionia. First, he sails to Sparta. Its king, Cleomenes, is thought, Herodotus notes, not to be in full possession of his faculties—practically insane, in fact—but he manages to display a great deal of sagacity and common sense. Upon hearing that the matter at hand was war against a king who ruled over all of Asia and resided in a capital city called Susa, he sensibly asked how far it was to this Susa. At that point Aristagoras, who up till then had been so clever and had been successfully taking Cleomenes in, made a mistake. In pursuit of his aim of seducing the Spartiates to Asia, he should not have told the truth, but he did: he told him that the journey inland would take three months. He was going on to say more about the journey, but Cleomenes interrupted him. “Sir,” he said, “I order you to leave Sparta before sunset. You are not saying anything attractive to the Lacedaemonians, if you want them to travel three months’ journey away from the sea.”

  So dispatched, Aristagoras traveled to Athens—the most powerful city in Greece. Here he changed tactics: instead of speaking with the ruler, he addressed the crowd (in accordance with another of Herodotus’s rules, that it seems to be easier to fool a crowd than a single person) and appealed directly to the Athenians to help the Ionians. So now that they had been won over, the Athenians voted to send a fleet of twenty ships to help the Ionians … These twenty ships proved to be the beginning of misfortune for Greeks and non-Greeks alike—meaning, they were the germ of the great Greco-Persian war.

  Before it comes to that, however, there are some smaller incidents. To begin with, there is the Ionian uprising against the Persians, which will last several years before it is bloodily suppressed. Several scenes:

  Scene 1: The Ionians, supported by the Athenians, occupy and burn Sardis (the second largest Persian city after Susa).

  Scene 2 (a famous one): After a certain time, that is, after two or three months, news of this reaches the Persian king, Darius. It is said, however, that his first reaction to the news was to discount the Ionians, because he was confident of punishing them for their rebellion, and to ask who the Athenians were. On hearing the answer, he is said to have asked for his bow; he took hold of it, notched an arrow, and shot it up towards the sky. And as he fired it into the air, he said, “Lord Zeus, make it possible for me to punish the Athenians.” Then he ordered one of his attendants to repeat to him three times, every time a meal was being served, “Master, remember the Athenians.”

  Scene 3: Darius summons Histiaeus, whom he begins to suspect of something, because it was after all his son-in-law, Aristagoras, who fomented the Ionian uprising. Histiaeus denies everything and lies to the king’s face: “My lord … how could I be involved in planning anything that would cause you even the slightest amount of distress? What possible motive could I have for doing so?” And he blames the king for having brought him to Susa, because if he, Histiaeus, were in Ionia, no one would have mutinied against Darius. So now let me go as quickly as possible to Ionia, so that I can restore order out of all the chaos in your affairs there and deliver into your hands this man I left in charge of Miletus, who is responsible for all this. Darius lets himself be persuaded, allows Histiaeus to go, and commands him to return to Susa once he has accomplished the promised mission.

  Scene 4: Meantime, battles between the Ionians and the Persians unfold with varying and inconclusive results. In time, however, the Persians, more numerous and powerful, gradually gain an edge. Histiaeus’s son-in-law, Aristagoras, notices this and decides to withdraw from the uprising, even
to leave Ionia. Herodotus writes about this decision with contempt: Aristagoras of Miletus proved himself to be somewhat of a coward. He had caused all the commotion in Ionia and had stirred up a great deal of trouble, but seeing the current situation, and because he now despaired of ever defeating King Darius, he began to contemplate flight. He therefore convened a meeting of his supporters … claiming that they should have a bolt-hole available in case they were ever thrown out of Miletus … He … recruited a band of volunteers, and set sail for Thrace. There he gained control of the land he had set out for and made it his military headquarters. However … the Thracians destroyed his army, and Aristagoras himself was one of the casualties.

  Scene 5: Histiaeus, released by Darius, reaches Sardis and calls on the satrap Artaphrenes, Darius’s nephew. They converse. What do you think, the satrap asks him, why did the Ionians revolt? I have no idea, Histiaeus replied, feigning ignorance. But Arta-phrenes knows what he knows: “I’ll tell you what actually happened, Histiaeus: it was you who stitched the shoe, while Aristagoras merely put it on.”

  Scene 6: Histiaeus realizes that the satrap has seen through him and that calling on Darius for help is futile: It would take three months for a messenger to get to Susa, and the return trip under safe-conduct from Darius another three to six months altogether, during which time Artaphrenes could have him beheaded a hundred times. Therefore he flees from Sardis by night heading west, toward the sea. It takes several days to reach the shore, and it is easy to imagine Histiaeus pushing ahead with his heart in his mouth, constantly looking behind him to look for Artaphrenes’ myrmidons in pursuit. Where does he sleep? What does he eat? We do not know. One thing is certain: he wants to assume leadership over the Ionians in the war against Darius. Histiaeus therefore proves a traitor twice over: first, he betrayed the cause of the Ionians in order to save Darius; and now he betrays Darius by inciting the Ionians against him.

  Scene 7: Histiaeus makes his way to the island of Chios, inhabited by Ionians. (This is a beautiful island. I could gaze forever at its bay and the navy blue mountains visible on the horizon. In general, the drama is set amidst such magnificent landscapes.) But he has barely made landfall when the Ionians arrest him and throw him into prison. They suspect him of serving Darius. Histiaeus swears that this is not so, that he wants to command an anti-Persian uprising. They believe him in the end and set him free, but are not inclined to offer him support. He feels isolated, and his plans for a great war against Darius appear increasingly delusional. Yet his ambition still burns. Despite everything, he does not lose hope, continues to lust for power; the desire to command leaves him not a moment’s peace. He asks the locals for help sailing back to the mainland, to Miletus, where he was once tyrant. The Milesians, however, were glad to have got rid of Aristagoras, and, now that they had tasted independence, they were in no great hurry to welcome another tyrant into their land. In fact, when Histiaeus tried to bring about his restoration by force and under cover of darkness, he was wounded in the thigh by one of the Milesians. Banished from his native city, he returned to Chios. He tried to persuade the Chians to give him a fleet, but they refused, so he went over to Mytilene, where he persuaded the Lesbians to give him some ships. Great Histiaeus, once the plenipotentiary of the famous city of Miletus, having sat so recently at the side of Darius, king of kings, now roams from island to island, searching for a place to call his own, for a sympathetic ear, for support. But invariably he either has to flee, or is thrown into dungeons, or is shoved away from the city gates, beaten and wounded.

  Scene 8: But Histiaeus does not give up; still he struggles to keep his head above water. It could be that he continues to fantasize about the scepter, visited by dreams of absolute might. He manages to make a good enough impression for the inhabitants of Lesbos to offer him eight ships. He sails at the head of this fleet to Byzantium, where they set up a base and proceeded to seize all ships sailing out of the Euxine Sea, unless the crews promised to recognize Histiaeus as their leader. Thus his degradation continues. Little by little, he turns into a pirate.

  Scene 9: News reaches Histiaeus that Miletus, vanguard of the Ionian uprising, has been conquered by the Persians. After their naval victory over the Ionians, the Persians blockaded Miletus by land and sea. They used all kinds of stratagems, such as undermining the walls, until the city fell into their hands, acropolis and all, in the sixth year after Aristagoras’ revolt. They reduced the city to slavery …

  (For the Athenians, the defeat of Miletus was a terrible blow. When the playwright Phrynichus composed and produced a play called The Fall of Miletus, the audience burst into tears. The Athenian authorities imposed a draconian fine of a thousand drachmas on the play’s author and banned any future productions of it in their city. A play was meant to raise one’s spirits, not reopen wounds.)

  At the news of Miletus’s fall, Histiaeus reacts bizarrely. He stops plundering ships and sails with the Lesbians to Chios. Does he want to be closer to Miletus? To run further away? But where? For the time being, he organizes a slaughter on Chios: a garrison of islanders … refused to let him pass; battle was joined and a great many of the Chians died. Then, with the help of his Lesbians, he gained control of the rest of the island …

  But this carnage does not solve anything. It is a gesture of despair, rage, madness. He abandons the lifeless land and sails to Thasos—an island of gold mines situated near Thrace. He lays siege to Thasos, but is not wanted there, and the island does not submit. Abandoning hope for gold, he sails for Lesbos—he had enjoyed the best reception there. But there is hunger on Lesbos now, and because he has an army to feed, he makes his way to Asia, to the country of Mysia, where he hopes to harvest some crops, find something, anything, to eat. The noose is tightening; he really has nowhere to go. He is trapped, he is at the bottom. There is no limit to man’s smallness. A small man immersing himself in smallness is only engulfed by it, until finally he perishes.

  Scene 10: A Persian, Harpagus, happened to be in that part of the country which Histiaeus reached, with a sizeable army under his command. He engaged Histiaeus just as he disembarked, captured him alive, and wiped out most of his troops. But before this happened, Histiaeus, upon disembarking, tried to escape: As he was running away from the battlefield, a Persian soldier caught up with him and was just about to stab him to death when Histiaeus spoke in Persian to him and let him know that he was Histiaeus of Miletus.

  Scene 11: Histiaeus is brought to Sardis. Here Artaphrenes and Harpagos order that he be publicly impaled. They cut off his head, have it embalmed, and send it to King Darius in Susa. (To Susa! After three months on the road, what must that head, even embalmed, have looked like!)

  Scene 12: On learning about all that has happened Darius rebukes Artaphrenes and Harpagos for not sending him Histiaeus alive. He orders the scrap he received washed, appropriately dressed, and buried with honors.

  He wants, if only in this way, to pay homage to the head in which, several years earlier, near the bridge over the Danube, arose the idea that saved Persia and Asia, as well as Darius’s kingdom and his life.

  AT DOCTOR RANKE’S

  The events described by Herodotus so absorbed me while I was in the Congo that at times I experienced the dread of the approaching war between the Greeks and the Persians more vividly than I did the events of the current Congolese conflict, which I was assigned to cover. And the country of The Heart of Darkness was also taking its toll on me, of course, what with the frequent eruption of gunfights, the constant danger of arrest, beatings, and death, and the pervasive climate of uncertainty, ambiguity, and unpredictability. The absolute worst could happen here at any moment and in any place. There was no government, no rule of law and order. The colonial system was collapsing, Belgian administrators were fleeing to Europe, and in their place was emerging a dark, deranged power, which most frequently assumed the guise of drunken Congolese military police.

  One could see clearly how dangerous freedom is in the absence of hierarchy and order
—or, rather, anarchy in the absence of ethics. Under such circumstances, the forces of evil aggression—all manner of villainy, brutishness, and bestiality—instantly gain the upper hand. And so it was in the Congo, which fell under the rule of these gendarmes. An encounter with any one of them could be deadly.

  Here I am walking down the street in the small town of Lisali.

  It is sunny, empty, and quiet.

  Suddenly, I spot two policemen approaching from the opposite direction. I freeze. But running away makes no sense—there is no place to run to, and, furthermore, it is dreadfully hot and I can barely drag one foot after the other. The gendarmes are in fatigues, with deep helmets which cover half their faces, and bristling with armaments, each carrying an automatic rifle, grenades, knife, flare pistol, truncheon, and a metal implement combining spoon and fork—a portable arsenal. Why do they need it all? I wonder. And there is more. Their imposing silhouettes are also encircled with all kinds of belts and detachable linings, to which are sewn garlands of metal circles, pins, hooks, buckles.

  Dressed in shorts and shirts, perhaps they would have seemed pleasant young men, the sort who would greet you politely and pleasantly offer directions if asked. But the uniform and the weaponry altered their nature and stance, and also performed yet another function: rendering difficult, even impossible, any normal human contact. The men walking toward me were not ordinary people to be casually encountered, but dehumanized creatures, extraterrestrials. A new species.

  They were drawing nearer and I was dripping with sweat, my legs leaden and getting heavier by the second. The key to the entire situation was that they knew as well as I did that to whatever sentence they might impose there was no appeal. No higher authority, no tribunal. If they wanted to beat me, they would beat me; if they wanted to kill me, they would kill me. I have only ever felt true loneliness in circumstances such as these—when I have stood alone face-to-face with absolute violent power. The world grows empty, silent, depopulated, and finally recedes.