by Daisy Dunn
Xerxes was exceedingly angry. ‘Artabanus,’ he replied, ‘you are my father’s brother, and that alone saves you from paying the price your empty and ridiculous speech deserves. But your cowardice and lack of spirit shall not escape disgrace: I forbid you to accompany me on my march to Greece – you shall stay at home with the women, and everything I spoke of I shall accomplish without help from you. If I fail to punish the Athenians, let me be no child of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, the son of Arsames, the son of Ariaramnes, the son of Teispes, the son of Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, the son of Teispes, the son of Achaemenes! I know too well that if we make no move, the Athenians will – they will be sure to invade our country. One has but to make the inference from what they did before; for it was they who marched into Asia and burnt Sardis. Retreat is no longer possible for either of us: if we do not inflict the wound, we shall assuredly receive it. All we possess will pass to the Greeks, or all they possess will pass to us. That is the choice before us; for in the enmity between us there is no middle course. It is right, therefore, that we should now revenge ourselves for the injury we once received; and no doubt in doing so I shall learn the nature of this terrible thing which is to happen to me, if I march against men whom Pelops the Phrygian, a mere slave of the Persian kings, once beat so soundly that to this very day both people and country hear the conqueror’s name.’
And so began the second Persian invasion of Greece. Although Xerxes would enjoy some successes, most notably in the Battle of Thermopylae, the conflict would ultimately result in victory for the Greek peoples.
1 The Aleuadae were the Thessalian reigning family.
THE FALL OF THE BARBARIANS
Persians
Aeschylus
Translated by Janet Lembke and C. John Herington, 1981
Aeschylus’ Persians is the earliest surviving Greek tragedy. First performed in 472 BC, eight years after the Greeks defeated the Persians in a naval battle at Salamis, the play won first prize at the annual theatre festival in Athens. You can see why. Written from the Greek perspective, the play characterizes the Persians as indulgent over-reachers and ‘barbarians’. Darius was not without his faults (see Story 16), but by comparison with his hubristic and headstrong son Xerxes, he is depicted as a man of wisdom and integrity. At Susa, the Persian capital, Darius’ widow Atossa awaits news of their son Xerxes’ progress. She is joined by a Chorus of elder statesmen.
ATOSSA. [In unaccompanied iambic verse] Night after night
since my son left with the army he mustered
I am joined with many dreams
He’s gone,
gone to Greece,
bent on making it Persian and his.
But never has a vision showed more clear
than what I saw last night
in the kind-hearted dark.
I’ll tell you:
It seemed to me
two well-dressed women—
one robed with Persian luxury,
the other in a plain Greek tunic—
came into view, both
taller far than any woman now living,
and flawless in beauty,
and sisters from the one same
parentage.
And for a fatherland, a home,
one was allotted Greek soil,
the other, the great world beyond.
Then I saw
the two of them build bitter quarrels,
one against the other,
and when my son learned this,
he tried to curb and gentle them:
under his chariot
he yokes the two, and on their necks
he straps broad leather collars.
And the one towered herself
proud in this harness
and she kept her mouth
well-governed by the reins.
But the other bucked stubborn
and with both hands
she wrenches harness from the chariot fittings
and drags it by sheer force,
bridle flung off, and she
shatters the yoke, mid-span
and he falls,
my son falls,
and his father is standing beside him—
Darius, pitying him
and when Xerxes sees that
he shreds around his body
the clothes that a king wears.
I tell you
I did see these things last night.
Today, when I’d risen
and dipped both hands in a clear-rippling spring
to cleanse me of bad dreams,
hands busy with offerings,
I stood by Phoibos’ altar
wanting to give mixed honey and wine,
their expected due,
to the undying Powers that turn away evil.
And I see
an eagle
fleeing toward the altar’s godbright flame.
Frightened, mute, my friends, I
just stood there,
and soon I see a hawk in downstoop
raising wings to break the fall and working
talons in the eagle’s head, and the eagle did
nothing,
only cringed and offered up
its flesh.
Terrors! I saw them!
Now you’ve heard them.
And you surely know
that if my son succeeds, he’ll be marveled at,
but if he fails,
his people cannot call him to account.
When he is safely home,
he’ll rule the country as he always has.
CHORUS. Mother,
here’s advice
meant neither to alarm
nor overgladden you.
Gods abide:
turn toward them suppliant,
if anything you saw stirs faintest doubt,
praying them
to turn it away and bring
goodness to its peak
for you and
children in your line,
for Persia, too,
and those you love.
Afterward, pour out
the drink due Earth
and give the thirsty dead their sip
and pray, appeasing him,
your husband Darius—
you say you saw him
in the kind-hearted night—
asking him to send up
from his depth into our light
blessings for you and your son
and hold the reverse back
earth-coffined
till it molders in that dark.
For this advice
I have consulted
my prophetic heart.
Be appeased,
for as we
read the signs,
everything
shall
turn out well.
ATOSSA. Yes, you
the first
to read my dream,
with goodwill toward my son and house,
have found
its true interpretation.
Would that the omens
turn out well!
I’ll do all you say
for gods and old friends under earth
when I go home.
But first
I’d like to know, dear friends,
where
Athens is.
CHORUSLEADER. Far west where the Lord Sun fades out.
ATOSSA. My son really wanted to hunt down this city?
CHORUSLEADER. Yes, so all Greece would bend beneath a Shah.
ATOSSA. Does it field a manhorde of an army?
CHORUSLEADER. Such that it has worked evils on the Medes.
ATOSSA. Then bowtugging arrows glint in their hands?
CHORUSLEADER. No. Spears held steady, and heavy shields.
ATOSSA. What else? Wealth in their houses?
CHORUSLEADER. Treasure, a fountain of silver, lies in their soil.
ATOSSA. But who herd
s the manflock? Who lords the army?
CHORUSLEADER. They’re not anyone’s slaves or subjects.
ATOSSA. Then how can they resist invaders?
CHORUSLEADER. So well that they crushed Darius’ huge and shining army.
ATOSSA. Terrible words! You make the parents of those gone shudder.
CHORUS. [Severally]
But I think you will soon hear the whole story.
Someone’s coming!
He’s ours—
a Persian clearly by the way he runs.
Something’s happened. Good or bad,
he brings the plain truth.
[The MESSENGER enters left.]
MESSENGER.
Listen! cities that people vast Asia.
Listen! Persian earth, great harbor of wealth.
One stroke, one single stroke has smashed
great prosperity,
and Persia’s flower is gone, cut down.
Bitter, being first to tell you bitter news,
But need presses me to unroll the full disaster.
Persians,
our whole expedition is lost.
CHORUS.
Cruel cruelest evil
newmade, consuming Oh
weep, Persians, who hear
this pain
MESSENGER. Everything over there has ended. And I—
against all hope, I’m here, seeing this light.
CHORUS. Life stretches long
too long for grey old men
who hear of all hope
undone
MESSENGER. I was there. I can tell you, no hearsay,
the evils that sprang up hurtling against us.
CHORUS. No nonono
That bright storm
of arrows showing Asia’s massed colors
advanced
all for NOTHING
into hostile Greece?
MESSENGER. They met hard deaths. The corpses
pile on Salamis and every nearby shore.
CHORUS. No nonono
You’re saying
those we love are floating, foundering
awash
DEAD MEN shrouded
in sea-drowned cloaks?
MESSENGER. Our arrows didn’t help. The whole force
went down, broken, when ship rammed ship.
CHORUS. Rage
for the Persians killed
Wail the death howl
All that began well
comes to the worst end CRY!
CRY OUT
For the army slaughtered!
MESSENGER. Salamis, I hate that hissing name.
And Athens, remembering makes me groan.
CHORUS. Athens
bears Persia’s hate
We will recall
wives she has widowed
mothers with no sons NO!
and all
ALL FOR NOTHING!
ATOSSA. Silence has held me till now
heartsore,
struck by the blows of loss,
for this disaster so exceeds all bounds
that one can neither tell,
nor ask,
about the suffering.
Yet there is terrible need
for people to bear pain
when gods send it down.
You must
compose yourself: speak out,
unrolling all the suffering,
though you groan at our losses.
Who is not dead?
And whom shall we mourn?
Of all the leaders
whose hands grip authority
which one
left his post unmanned, deserted
when he died?
MESSENGER. Xerxes—he lives and sees light—
ATOSSA. You speak: light blazes in my house,
and white day after a black-storming night!
MESSENGER. —but Artembares,
commander of ten thousand horse,
is hammered along Sileniai’s raw coast
and thousand-leader Dadakes,
spearstuck,
danced back without any effort I could see
overboard
and Tenagon,
pureblooded Bactrian and chief,
scrapes against Ajax’ sea-pelted island.
Lilaios,
Arsames,
and a third, Argestes,
wave-tumbled around that dove-broody island,
kept butting resistant stones
and so did Pharnoukhos
whose home was Egypt, by Nile’s fresh flow,
and so did they
who plunged from one same ship,
Arkteus,
Adeues,
and a third, Pheresseues.
And Matallos from a golden city,
leader of ten thousand,
dying, stained his full beard’s tawny brush
changing its color with sea-purple dye.
And the Arab, Magos,
with Artabes the Bactrian,
who led thirty thousand black horse,
took up land as an immigrant
by dying there
on that harsh ground.
Amistris
and Amphistreus,
whose spear delighted in trouble,
and bright-souled Ariomardos,
whose loss brings Sardis down grieving,
and Seisames the Mysian,
Tharybis, too,
sealord of five times fifty ships,
Lyrnaian by descent, a hard-bodied man,
lies dead,
a wretch whose luck went soft,
and Syennesis,
first in courage, the Cilicians’ chief,
one man who made most trouble for the enemy,
died with glory.
These are the leaders
of whom I bring my memories.
But we suffered many losses there.
I report a mere few.
[The CHORUS cry out sharply.]
ATOSSA. Noooo!
These words I hear
lift evil to its height.
O the shame cast on Persians,
and the piercing laments!
But tell me,
turn back again,
was the count of Greek ships so great
they dared launch their rams
against Persia’s fleet?
MESSENGER. If numbers were all, believe me,
Asia’s navy would have won,
for Greek ships counted out
at only ten times thirty
and ten selected to lead out that line.
But Xerxes, this I know,
commanded a full thousand,
two hundred and seven
the fastest ever built.
That is our count. Perhaps you thought
we were outnumbered?
No.
It was some Power—
Something not human—
whose weight tipped the scales of luck
and cut our forces down.
Gods keep Athens safe for her goddess.
ATOSSA. You’re saying that Athens is not yet sacked?
MESSENGER. Long as her men live, her stronghold can’t be shaken.
ATOSSA. But at the beginning, when ship met ship,
tell me, who started the clash?
Greeks?
Or my son
who exulted in his thousand ships?
MESSENGER. My lady,
the first sign of the whole disaster came
when Something vengeful—
or evil and not human—
appeared from somewhere out there.
For a Greek,
who came in stealth from the Athenian fleet,
whispered this to your son Xerxes:
As soon as black night brought its darkness on,
Greeks would not maintain their stations, no,
but springing on the rowing benches,
scattering here, there in secret flight,
&
nbsp; would try to save their own skins.
And at once,
for he had listened not understanding
the man’s treachery nor the gods’ high jealousy,
he gave all his captains this command:
As soon as Sun’s hot eye let go of Earth
and darkness seized the holy vault of Sky, then
they should deploy ships
in three tight-packed ranks
to bar outsailings and the salt-hammered path,
while others circled Ajax’ island.
And if the Greeks should somehow slip the trap
by setting sail, finding a hidden route,
Xerxes stated flatly
that every last captain would lose his head.
So he commanded in great good spirits.
He could not know the outcome set by gods.
There was no disorder. Obediently
the crews prepared their suppers,
and each sailor, taking a thong,
made his oar snug to the tholepin.
And when Sun’s glow faded and Night
was coming on,
each oarlord,
each expert man-at-arms
boarded his ship.
Squadron on squadron, cheers for the warships
roared from the decks,
and they sailed,
each captain maintaining his position.
And all night long the lords of the fleet
kept fully manned vessels plying the channel.
And night was wearing on.
The Greek forces never
tried sailing out secretly.
Not once.
But when Day rode her white colt
dazzling the whole world,
the first thing we heard
was a roar, a windhowl, Greeks
singing together, shouting for joy,
and Echo at once hurled back
that warcry
loud and clear from island rocks.
Fear churned in every Persian.
We’d been led off the mark:
the Greeks
weren’t running, no,
but sang that eerie triumph-chant
as men
racing toward a fight
and sure of winning.
Then the trumpet-shriek blazed
through everything over there.
A signal:
instantly
their oars struck salt.
We heard
that rhythmic rattle-slap.
It seemed no time till they
all stood in sight.
We saw them sharp.
First the right wing,
close-drawn, strictly ordered,
led out, and next we saw
the whole fleet bearing down, we heard
