The Near East 10000 Years Of History by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE BATTLE OF THE BROTHERS

The Greeks, Persia realized, might be annoying, but they could never seriously hurt Persia, as long as they remained divided among themselves and fought each other incessantly. Persia learned therefore to keep those fights going and she spent money freely with that end in view.

By the time Artaxerxes I died in 424 B.C., Persia had the satisfaction of seeing the Greek cities lining up in a kind of miniature World War. The whole Greek world flung itself behind the two chief cities, Athens and Sparta, who proceeded to fight each other to the death.

The new Persian monarch, Darius II, did his best to encourage that fighting. Of the two chief cities, Sparta seemed the less ambitious and the more likely to confine its activities to Greece itself. Therefore, Persia threw its weight more and more on the side of Sparta. In the year of the death of Darius II, 404 B.C., Persian policy won out and Sparta crushed Athens.

That would seem well for Persia, and yet it wasn’t entirely well, for that very victory had set off a Persian dynastic squabble that was to have fatal consequences for Persia. This came about as follows:

Darius II left behind two sons. The elder succeeded to the throne as Artaxerxes II. The younger son, however, was a man of talent and he did not wish to be overlooked. His name was Cyrus and he is usually called “Cyrus the Younger” to distinguish him from the founder of the Persian Empire. Even as a teen-age boy, he had been handling Persia’s relations with the Greeks and had shown himself to be a shrewd judge of men and events.

It seemed to Cyrus that he had done enough for Sparta to expect something in return, and what he wanted was a contingent of Greek soldiers. With a Persian army and a Greek contingent as a cutting edge, he could make his way to Susa and place himself on the Persian throne.

The Spartans were too cautious to help him officially (after all, he might lose) but the end of the great war between Athens and Sparta had left many soldiers at loose ends and ready for hire. An exiled Spartan, Clearchus (klee-ahr'kus), supervised the hiring of these mercenaries and took charge of them. Eventually, nearly 13,000 Greeks were collected, and in 401 B.C. off they marched with Cyrus’ army.

Across Asia Minor, they marched, until finally they reached the upper Euphrates at Thapsachus (thap'suh-kus), 75 miles south of Harran. For the first time in history a large body of Greek soldiers entered the storied land of the two rivers. They crossed the Euphrates and marched downstream for 350 miles. The Greeks were now some eleven hundred miles from home.

Meanwhile, though, Artaxerxes II finally got it through his head that his younger brother was not merely marching to greet and congratulate him — but to kill him. He gathered a large force of his own, including such Greek mercenaries as he could scrape up, and advanced to head off Cyrus.

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