Travels with Herodotus Read online

  And so two of Asia’s then mightiest rulers—the defeated Croesus and the victorious Cyrus—sit side by side, looking at the remnants of the pyre upon which just a while ago one of them was going to immolate the other. We can imagine that Croesus, who only one hour earlier was awaiting death in dreadful torment, is still in shock, and when Cyrus asks him what he could do for him, he starts to rail against the gods: “Master,” Croesus replies, “nothing would give me more pleasure than to be allowed to send these shackles of mine to the god of the Greeks, whom I revered more than any other god, and to ask him if it is his normal practice to trick his benefactors.”

  What sacrilege! What is more, Croesus, having received Cyrus’s permission, sent a delegation of Lydians to Delphi. He told them to lay the shackles on the threshold of the temple and ask the god if he was not ashamed to have used his oracles to encourage Croesus to march against the Persians … And they were also to ask whether Greek gods were normally so ungrateful.

  To which the Delphic Pythia was said to reply with the sentence that will constitute the third law of Herodotus:

  “Not even a god can escape his ordained fate. Croesus has paid for the crime of his ancestor four generations ago, who, though a member of the personal guard of the Heraclidae, gave in to a woman’s guile, killed his master, and assumed a station which was not rightfully his at all. In fact, Apollo wanted the fall of Sardis to happen in the time of Croesus’ sons rather than of Croesus himself, but it was not possible to divert the Fates ….”

  This was the Pythia’s response to the Lydians. They … relayed the statement to Croesus. When he heard it he realized that the fault was his and not the god’s.

  THE BATTLE’S END

  I thought that I had heard all I was going to hear regarding Croesus, who had actually come to seem quite sympathetically human to me—at first in his naïve and unconcealed pride in the treasures that the whole world admired (all those tons of gold and silver filling his vaults), and then, as well, in his unwavering faith in the prophecies of the Delphic oracle; in his bottomless despair over the death of his son, to which he had indirectly contributed; in his breakdown after the bitter loss of his nation; in his apathetic acquiescence to a martyr’s death upon the pyre; in his sacrilegious repudiation of divine verdicts; and then, finally, in the necessity of his costly atonement for the sin of an ancestor he did not even know. Yes, I thought that I had once and for all said goodbye to this punished, humiliated man, when suddenly he appeared again in the pages of Herodotus, once more in the company of King Cyrus, who, at the head of the Persian army, has set out to conquer the Massagetae, a wild and warlike people living deep in central Asia, all the way on the banks of the Amu Darya.

  It is the sixth century B.C.E. and the Persians are aggressively on the move—they are conquering the world. Years, centuries later, one superpower after another will make the same attempt, but the ambitious striving of the Persians, back in that dim and distant epoch, remains arguably unrivaled in its boldness and scope They had already conquered the Ionians and the Aeolians; captured Miletus, Halicarnassus, and many other Greek colonies in western Asia; grabbed the Medes and Babylon—in short, everything that could be seized in the near and distant vicinity came under Persian rule. And now Cyrus sets off to subjugate a tribe somewhere at the very ends of what was then the known and imagined world. Perhaps he believes that if he crushes the Massagetae, takes over their lands and herds, he will come yet another inch closer to the moment when he can triumphantly proclaim: “The world is mine!”

  But this need to possess everything, which earlier had led to Croesus’s downfall, will now in turn bring about Cyrus’s defeat. The punishment for man’s unrestrained rapaciousness befalls him always at the very moment—and here lies the particularly cruel and destructive irony—when he appears to be but a step away from attaining his dreams. The comeuppance is therefore accompanied by a savage disappointment in the world, a profound resentment toward a vengeful fate, and a depressing sense of humiliation and powerlessness.

  For now, however, Cyrus sets off for the depths of Asia, for the north—to conquer the Massagetae. The expedition did not surprise his contemporaries, because everyone noticed how he attacked every race indiscriminately …. There were a number of significant factors tempting and inducing him to undertake this campaign. The main two were the apparently miraculous nature of his birth, and the good fortune that attended him in war, in the sense that any race which Cyrus sent his troops after found it impossible to escape.

  What is known about the Massagetae is that they live on the great flat steppes of central Asia, as well as on islands in the Amu Darya, which call Araxes, where in the summer they dig up various roots to eat, storing the ripened fruit they find in the trees for subsequent winter consumption. We learn that the Massagetae used something akin to narcotics, and were therefore the forerunners of today’s addicts and junkies: They have also discovered a kind of plant whose fruit they use when they meet in groups. They light a bonfire, sit around it, throw this fruit on the fire, and sniff the smoke rising from the burning fruit they have thrown on to the fire. The fruit is the equivalent there to wine in Greece: they get intoxicated from the smoke, and then they throw more fruit on to the fire and get even more intoxicated, until they eventually stand up and dance, and burst into song.

  In those days the queen of the Massagetae is a woman called Tomyris. A deadly, bloody drama will be enacted between her and Cyrus, one in which Croesus will also play a part. Cyrus starts with a subterfuge: he pretends that it is Tomyris’s hand that he is after. But the queen of the Massagetae quickly senses that the Persian king’s designs are not on her but on her kingdom. Cyrus, seeing that he will not attain his goal in the way he had hoped, decides to wage open war against the Massagetae on the other side of the Amu Darya, the river whose shores his forces have just reached.

  From the Persian capital of Susa to the shores of the Amu Darya the road is long—or, more accurately, there is no road. One must cross mountain passes, traverse the burning desert of Kara-Kum, and then wander the endless steppes.

  One is reminded of Napoleon’s mad campaign for Moscow. The Persian and the Frenchman are in the grips of an identical passion: to seize, conquer, possess. Both will suffer defeat on account of having transgressed a fundamental Greek principle, the law of moderation: never to want too much, not to desire everything. But as they are launching their ventures, they are too blind to see this; the lust for conquest has dimmed their judgment, has deprived them of reason. On the other hand, if reason ruled the world, would history even exist?

  For now, though, Cyrus’s expeditionary force is still on the march. It must be an interminable column of men, horses, and matériel. Tired soldiers keep falling off mountain cliffs, later many perish of thirst in the desert, later still some units are lost in the roadless expanses of the steppes. There were no maps in those days, after all, no compasses, no binoculars, no road signs. They must reconnoiter with the help of tribes they encounter along the way, ask around, find guides, perhaps even consult fortune-tellers. Whatever the case may be, the great army advances—laboriously, indefatigably, and at times surely, as was wont to happen with the Persians, under the lash.

  Only Cyrus enjoys all possible comforts along this road of suffering. Now, the Great King goes on his military expeditions well equipped with food and livestock from home, and he also brings water from the River Choäspes (on whose banks the city of Susa is situated), because water from no other river except the Choäspes is allowed to pass the king’s lips. This Choäspes water is boiled, and wherever the king might be campaigning on any given occasion, he is accompanied by a large number of four-wheeled wagons, drawn by mules, which carry the water in silver containers.

  I am fascinated by this water. Water that has been boiled ahead of time. Stored in silver vessels to keep it cool. One has to cross the desert freighted with those vessels.

  We know that the water is transported on numerous four-wheeled wagons draw
n by mules. What connection between the water wagons and the soldiers dropping of thirst along the way? There is none: the soldiers die, and the wagons keep rolling. They do not stop, because the water they carry is not for the soldiers; it is water that has been boiled expressly for Cyrus. The king, after all, drinks no other, so if it ran out, he would die of thirst. How could one even contemplate such an eventuality? Another thing interests me as well. There are de facto two kings in this procession—the great, reigning Cyrus and the dethroned Croesus, who only yesterday just barely escaped death on a burning pyre, a fate that the first king had been preparing for him. What are relations between them like now? Herodotus maintains that they are cordial. But he did not take part in this expedition—he wasn’t even born yet. Do Cyrus and Croesus ride in the same equipage, no doubt adorned with gold-plated wheels, gold-plated stanchions, and a gold-plated shaft? Does Croesus sigh wistfully at the sight? Do the two gentlemen converse? If they do, it must be through an interpreter, because they share no language. And what is there to talk about, anyway? They ride thus for days, then weeks; sooner or later, they will have exhausted all possible subjects of conversation. And what if, moreover, one of them—or both—is the quiet sort, with a secretive and introverted personality?

  I wonder what happens when Cyrus wants a drink of water. He calls to the servants. These water bearers must be retainers of exceptional trustworthiness, who have taken an inviolable oath; otherwise, what would prevent their taking sips of the priceless liquid on the sly? And so, at the command, they fetch a silver pitcher. Does Cyrus now drink alone, or does he say, “Care for some, Croesus?” Herodotus is silent on this subject, but it is an important moment to consider—one cannot live in the desert without water; deprived of it, a human being succumbs quickly to dehydration.

  But perhaps the two kings do not ride together—in which case the problem does not arise. Or maybe Croesus has his own barrel of water, ordinary water, not necessarily from that special river, Choäspes. But all this is mere speculation, because Herodotus makes no further mention of Croesus until the expedition reaches the broad and calm Amu Darya.

  Cyrus, who failed at possessing Tomyris, declared war on her. His first step was to order the construction of pontoon bridges on the river, to give his army passage to the other side. While this work is in progress, a messenger arrives from the queen, who sends Cyrus commonsensical words full of wise caution: “Abandon your zeal for this enterprise …. Stop and rule your own people, and put up with the sight of my ruling mine. But no: you are hardly going to take this advice, since peace is the last thing you desire. If you really are committed to a trial of strength with the Massagetae, you need not bother with all the hard work of bridging the river; we will pull back three days’ journey away from the river and then you can cross over into our land. Or if you would rather meet us in your own land, you withdraw the same distance.”

  Upon hearing this, Cyrus convenes a meeting of elders and asks for their views. All of them, unanimously, advise a retreat, proposing that the engagement with Tomyris’s forces take place on their own, Persian side of the river. But there is one dissenting voice—that of Croesus. He begins philosophically: “The first thing you should appreciate,” he tells Cyrus, “is that human affairs are on a wheel, and that as the wheel turns around it does not permit the same people always to prosper.”

  In short, Croesus warns Cyrus point-blank that good fortune might desert him and that things could then go very badly indeed. He counsels crossing to the other side of the river and there—because he has heard that the Massagetae are unaccustomed to riches such as the Persians have and have experienced few pleasures—to slaughter herds of sheep, set out fine wine and tempting dishes, and organize a great feast for them. The Massagetae will eat and drink, fall into a drunken sleep, whereupon they can be taken prisoner. Cyrus accepts Croesus’s plan, Tomyris retreats from the river, and the Persian troops cross into the lands of the Massagetae.

  Tensions soon arise, as is typical before a great confrontation. After Croesus’s earlier words sink in, those about fortune turning like a wheel, Cyrus, who is an experienced ruler, having now reigned over Persia for twenty-nine years, starts to grasp the seriousness of what is about to transpire. He is no longer sure of himself, no longer, as before, arrogant and self-satisfied. He has a nightmare, and when daylight comes, concerned for the life of his son, Cambyses, sends him back to Persia accompanied by Croesus. In addition, plots and conspiracies against him proliferate.

  But he is the commander of an army and must issue orders; everyone is waiting to hear what he will say, where he will lead them. And what Cyrus does is execute, point by point, Croesus’s advice, unaware that he is thereby proceeding step by step toward his own destruction. (Did Croesus consciously mislead Cyrus? Did he set a trap for him in order to avenge the defeat he endured and the humiliation he suffered? We do not know—about this Herodotus is silent.)

  Cyrus sends in first the part of his army most unfit for battle—various camp hangers-on, vagabonds, the weak and the sick, all sorts of, as one used to say in the gulags, dokhodiagi (goners). He is in effect condemning these people to death, which is precisely what happens, because in the encounter with the elite of the Massagetae forces, they are cut down to a man. Now the Massagetae, having slaughtered the Persian rear guard, noticed the feast, which had been laid out, and they reclined and ate it. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, they fell asleep—and then the Persians fell on them. Many of the Massagetae were killed, but even more were taken prisoner, including Queen Tomyris’ son, who was the commander of the army and whose name was Spargapises.

  At the news of her son’s and her army’s fate, Tomyris sends Cyrus a messenger with the following words: “Give me back my son, and then you can leave this country without paying for the brutality with which you treated a third of the Massagetan army. But if you do not, I swear by the sun who is the lord of the Massagetae that for all your insatiability I will quench your thirst for blood.”

  These are strong, sinister words, of which Cyrus nevertheless takes not the slightest notice. He is intoxicated by his victory, pleased that he has led Tomyris up the garden path and succeeded in revenging himself upon one who rejected his advances. At this moment the queen is still unaware of the depth of her own misfortune, namely: When Spargapises, the son of Queen Tomyris, recovered from the wine and saw the trouble he was in, he begged Cyrus to release him from his chains. Cyrus granted his request, but as soon as Spargapises was free and had regained control of his hands, he killed himself. An orgy of death and blood begins.

  Tomyris, seeing that Cyrus had not heeded her counsel, gathered her forces and engaged him in battle. Herodotus: I consider this to be the fiercest battle between non-Greeks there has ever been … Initially, both armies rain arrows down upon each other. When there are no arrows left, they fight with lances and daggers. And finally, they resort to barehanded wrestling. Although they are equally matched at the start, gradually the Massagetae gain the upper hand. Most of the Persian army perishes. Cyrus, too, is among the dead.

  What ensues now is a scene from a Greek tragedy. The plain is strewn with the corpses of soldiers from both armies. Onto this battlefield steps Tomyris, carrying an empty wineskin. She walks from one slaughtered soldier to the next and collects blood from the still fresh wounds, enough to fill the wineskin. The queen must be drenched with human blood, she must be positively dripping with it. It is hot, so she surely wipes her face with her bloodied hands. Her face is smeared with blood. She looks around, searching for Cyrus’s corpse. When she found it, she shoved his head into the wineskin, and in her rage addressed his body as follows: “Although I have come through the battle alive and victorious, you have destroyed me by capturing my son with a trick. But I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall.”

  That is how the battle ends.

  That is how Cyrus dies.

  The stage empties, and the only one left standing is the despairing,
hate-filled Tomyris.

  Herodotus offers no commentary, adding only, with a reporter’s sense of duty, several pieces of information about Massagetan customs, which were, after all, unfamiliar to the Greeks: If a Massagetan desires a woman, he hangs his quiver outside her wagon and has sex with her, with no fear of reprisal. The only imposed limit on life there is as follows. When a person becomes very old, all his relatives come together and sacrificially kill him and some livestock along with him; then they stew the meat and eat it. They believe that there is no more fortunate way to die, whereas anyone who dies after an illness is buried in the ground rather than eaten, and they regard it as a calamity that he did not get to be sacrificed.

  ON THE ORIGIN OF THE GODS

  I put Herodotus away into the drawer of my office desk, leaving Tomyris on the corpse-strewn battlefield, in defeated victory, despairing but also triumphant—the indomitable and incandescent Antigone of the Asiatic steppes—and I start to leaf through the latest batch of telegrams sent by the correspondents for Reuters and Agence France-Presse in China, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. They report that Vietnamese guerrillas near Bing Long have engaged in yet another skirmish with the troops of Ngo Dinh Diem (the result of the clash and the number of casualties—unknown). That Mao Tse-tung has proclaimed another campaign: Dead is the politics of One Hundred Flowers; now the task is the reeducation of the intelligentsia—whoever knows how to read and write (these skills have suddenly metamorphosed into liabilities) will be forcibly deported to the countryside, where, pulling a plow or digging irrigation canals, coming to know real proletarian peasant life, he or she will be rid of liberal, One Hundred Flower-like chimera. That the president of Indonesia, Sukarno, one of the ideologues of the new politics of Pancasila power, has ordered the Dutch to leave his country, their former colony. One can learn little from these brief dispatches; they lack context and what one might call local color. I can perhaps imagine most easily the professors of Peking University, see them riding in a truck, hunched over from the chill, not even knowing where they’re headed because their eyeglasses are fogging over in the cold.