PART I. On this account, Ninyas has been accused of indolence and effeminacy, though seemingly without reason. By seldom appearing in public, he inspired his people with more awe of his presence"; and by devolving the executive government upon others, he had more leisure to attend to the affairs of the cabinet, and provide for the general interests of his empire. He accordingly framed, and carried into operation, a system of jealous policy, admirably calculated for preserving peace and tranquillity in a great monarchy. He ordered the governor of every province to raise annually a certain number of men, for the support of his military establishment; and the whole army when completed, to be mustered in the neighbourhood of his capital, where he appointed a commander in chief over the troops of each nation". At the close of the year, the army was dissolved; and a new one, levied in the same manner, supplied its place; the soldiers of the former being absolved from their military oath, and permitted to return home+. No system of martial policy could be better adapted than this to the ends proposed by Ninyas. A numerous body of disciplined men always under arms, and ready to march to the most distant part of his dominions, enabled him effectually to repel invasion, as well as keep 52. The Greeks, a restless and warlike people, who could esteem no prince that was not distinguished by martial exploits, concluded Ninyas shut himself up in his palace only to conceal his vices. (Diod. Sicul. lib. ii. p. 108.) But this is a very unfair inference. If the secluded life of Ninyas can be ascribed to any cause beside despotic policy, it may perhaps be imputed to the domestic habits which he had contracted: during the reign of his mother Semiramis; whose love of power made her retain the sceptre after her son had attained the age of manhood, and decline second nuptials, lest she should give herself a master in taking a husband. Diod. Sicul. lib. ii. p. 101. I. his subjects in obedience; while the annual change of LETTER the troops, which composed that body, prevented the officers and soldiers from leaguing togethers; and, consequently, from forming ambitious attempts against the Imperial authority. Nor was the attention of Ninyas confined solely to military regulations. He duly appointed able judges, and civil governors, for the several provinces of his empires; and each governor was obliged to repair, once a year, to Nineveh, and give an account of his administration, in persons". The same plan of government was invariably pursued by the successors of Ninyasa. And so firmly was the Assyrian empire established, by this jealous policy, that it subsisted longer, without being dismembered, than any great monarchy in the ancient world", notwithstanding the indolent and lascivious lives its sovereigns are said to have led". At length, however, the Medes, 56. Id. ibid. 55. Diod. Sicul, ubi sup. 57. Nicol. Damasc. ap. Vales. Excerpt. 58. Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 108. 59. Herodotus affirms, that the Assyrian empire had subsisted five hundred and twenty years, before any of the subject nations recovered their independency. (Herodot. lib. i. chap. xcv.) This chronology I have chosen to follow, as more consistent with probability than that of any other ancient historian. Diodorus and Justin assign a much longer duration to the Assyrian empire before the revolt of the Medes; and the want of the Assyrian history of Herodotus, to which he frequently alludes, has made these copiers of Ctesias be generally followed. 60. Diod. Sicul. lib. ii. p. 108. Justin, lib. i. cap. ii. It is impossible to believe that Ninyas and his successors were so dissolute as they have been represented. For, as the president Goguet very judiciously remarks, the Assyrian monarchy could not have subsisted unbroken by revolutions for so great a length of time, if the princes who governed it had been abandoned to debauchery, and sunk in effeminacy. (Orig. des Loix, &c. par. ii. liv. i. chap. i.) We may therefore, presume, that the contempt with which the successors of Ninyas have been treated by the Greek and Roman historians, who have scarcely conde. scended PART I. Medes, strenuously contending for liberty, threw off the Assyrian yoke. Other nations followed their example. The Babylonians revolted63. And the city of Babylon became the capital of an independent kingdom, under Nabonassar+; the beginning of whose reign forms the first æra in Ptolemy's Astronomical Canon; and, therefore, is supposed to be the first we can fix with certainty, in tracing the line of oriental history. The Medes, after they had recovered their independency, lived under the controul of their own laws, during a period of about forty years, in a state of freedom65. But that freedom having degenerated into anarchy, the Median chiefs, in order to remove the miseries under which the nation groaned, chose a king named Dejoces66; who repressed the public disorders, and founded the city of Ecbatana, which became the seat of a new and powerful monarchy. In this revolution, we have a striking instance of the slender partitions between licentious liberty and despotism; but by no means a proof of the necessity of regal authority, to give stability to government. Dejoces during the anarchy of the Medes, was distinguished among his countrymen, by his sagacity and regularity scended to preserve their names, ought to be ascribed to the tranquillity with which they reigned; and that they owed this tranquillity to the political maxims of Ninyas; who, by confining himself to his palace, where he secretly moved all the wheels of government, was revered by his people as a god. (Diod. Sicul. lib. ii. p. 108.) Mysterious obscurity seems essential to the support of despotism; and despotism, with religious veneration for the sovereign, to the secure ruling of a great empire; which is consequently a great evil in the system of human affairs, however mild the administration. 61. Herodotus, lib. i. cap. xcv. 62. Id ibid. 64. Ptolem. Canon. Astronom. 66. Ibid. cap. xcviii. of I. of manners. Having cast his eye upon the throne, he LETTER applied himself diligently to the redress of grievances; and being appointed judge of the district to which he belonged, he approved himself worthy of that high office, alike by the rectitude of his decisions and the unwearied discharge of the duties of his function. The people of other districts, and at last the whole body of the Medes, except such as lived by acts of violence, looked up to Dejoces for justice, and resorted to his tribunal. Now secure of his object, he withdrew himself from the seat of judicature; oppressed, as he pretended, with the weight of business, and under the necessity of attending to his private affairs68. An universal alarm was spread. The public calamities increased, when licentiousness had no longer any curb; and a national assembly of the Medes, secretly influenced by the friends of Dejoces, invested that archpolitician with regal power, as the only effectual remedy for the disorders of anarchy69. The first act of sovereignty that the new king exercised, was to command his subjects, to build him a palace, and the second to found a strong city; in the centre of which his palace stood, and where he reigned, encompassed with battlements, and protected by guards7o. Having thus provided for the security of his person, and the perpetuity of his power, this jealous prince, aiming at despotic rule, became in a manner invisible and inaccessible to his people". In order to inspire them with more respect for his authority, none but his confidential ministers were permitted to appear in his presence72. It was solely from the heart of Ecbatana, from the innermost circle of his seven-walled capital, that Dejoces, by 67. Herodot. lib. i. cap. xcvi. VOL. I. E 68. Ibid. cap. cvii. means Ant. Ch. 710. Nabonass. æra 37. PART I. means of emissaries, surveyed his dominions73. Hex continued, however, to preserve the esteem of the Medes, by the impartial administration of justice; and Ant. Chr. after maintaining his sway, with a steady hand, during Nabonass, a reign of fifty-three years, he transmitted the Median sceptre to his son, Phraortes. 657. æra 90. Meanwhile the Assyrian empire, though broken, was not subverted. Nineveh was still the metropolis of a powerful monarchy74. With many proofs of this power we are furnished both in sacred and civil history; and with strong presumptions, that the seat of dominion was not affected by the revolt of the Medes and Babylonians, or the grandeur of the Assyrians thereby much obscured, notwithstanding what we are told by Diodorus and Justin, on the authority of Ctesias. Herodotus, the father of civil history, confidently tells us, That Phraortes, king of the Medes, "not "satisfied with the absolute sovereignty of Media, "which he assumed on the death of his father, Dejoces, 73. Herodot. lib. i. cap. c. The description of no city in the ancient world has afforded so much room for exaggeration as that of Ecbatana. Herodotus, who appears to have seen it, says, it was about the size of the city of Athens; that it was seated on the declivity of a hill, and encompassed with seven walls of unequal height, and of a circular form, within the innermost circle of which the king's palace and treasury stood. (Herodot. lib. i. cap. xcviii.) Polybius, who had certainly seen the Median capital, but who lived full three hundred years later than Herodotus, and when the outer walls of Ecbatana seem to have been fallen to decay or thrown down, thus describes it. "This city stands," says he, “on the north side of Media. It was, from the most ancient times, the seat of the royal residence, and seems in splendour and magnificence to have exceeded all other cities. It is built on the declivity of the mountain Orontes, and not enclosed with walls. But there is a citadel in it, the fortifications of which are of wonderful strength." (Polyb. lib. x. Excerpt. iv.) This citadel was probably the original palace of Dejoces, or the innermost circle of the ancient city. 74. ii. Kings, chap. xix. ver. 35, 36. Herodot. lib. i. cap. cii. |