His city there thou seest, and Bactra there; Ecbatana her structure vast there shows, And Hecatompylos her hundred gates; There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream, The drink of none but kings; of later fame OvαINY Baridov, Strabo, lib. xi. p. 514. as was likewise Thebes in Egypt for the same reason. There Susa, the Shushan of the holy Scriptures, the royal seat of the kings of Persia, who resided here in the winter and at Ecbatana in the summer, by Choaspes, situated on the river Choaspes, or Eulæus, or Ulai as it is called in Daniel, or rather on the confluence of these two rivers, which meeting at Susa form one greater river, sometimes called by one name, sometimes by the other, amber stream, see the same expression and the conclusion of the note on Paradise Lost, iii. 359. the drink of none but kings, of which we will say nothing, as it is so fully discussed in a note by Mr. Jortin. 289. The drink of none but kings;] If we examine it as an historical problem, whether the kings of Persia alone drank of Choaspes, we shall find great reason to determine in the negative. 1. We have for that opinion the silence of many authors, by whom we might have expected to have found it confirmed, had they known of any such custom. Herodotus, Strabo, Tibullus, Ausonius, Maximus Tyrius, Aristides, Plutarch, Pliny the elder, Athenæus, Dionysius Periegetes, Eustathius, have mentioned Choaspes (or Euleus) as the drink of the kings of Persia or Parthia, 285 or have called it βασιλικον ύδως, regia lympha, but have not said that they alone drank of it. I say Choaspes or Eulæus, because some make them the same, and others counted them different rivers. The silence of Herodotus ought to be of great weight, because he is so particular in his account of the Persian affairs; and next to his, the silence of Pliny, who had read so many authors, is considerable. 2. Though it can hardly be expected that a negative should be proved any other way than from the silence of writers, yet so it happens that Elian, if his authority be admitted, affords us a full proof that Choaspes might be drunk by the subjects of the kings of Persia. τατε αλλα εφόδια είπετο τα Ξέρξη πολυτέλειας και αλαζονείας πε πληρωμένα, και ουν και ύδως ηκολούθει το εκ του Χοασπου. Επει δ' εν τινι ερημω τοπω εδίψησαν, ουδέπω της θερα ποιας ήκουσης, εκηρύχθη τῷ στρατοπεδα, εἴ τις έχει ύδωρ εκ του Χοάσπου, ίνα do Barines will. Και εύρεση τις Beaxv xai orontos exar. Επιεν ουν τουτο ὁ Ξέρξης, και ευεργετην τον δοντα ενόμισεν, ότι αν απωλετο τη δίψη, σε un exsivo sugeon. In the carriages which followed Xerxes, there were abundance of things which served only for pomp and ostentation; there was also the water of Choaspes. The army being oppressed with thirst in a desert place, and the carriages not being yet come Built by Emathian, or by Parthian hands, The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there up, it was proclaimed, that if any one had of the water of Choaspes, he should give it Xerxes to drink. One was found who had a little, and that not sweet. Xerxes drank it, and accounted him who gave it him a benefactor, because he had perished with thirst, if that little had not been found. Var. Hist. xii. 40. 3. Mention is made indeed by Agathocles of a certain water, which none but Persian kings might drink; and if any other writers mention it, they take it from Agathocles. We find in Athenæus: Ayaloxλns sy Πέρσαις Φησιν είναι και χξυσουν και λούμενον ύδως· είναι δε τουτο λίβαδας ἑβδομηκοντα, και μηδενα πίνειν απ' αυτου η μονον βασιλέα και τον πρεσβύτατον αυτου των παίδων των δε άλλων εαν τις πιη, θάνατος ή ζημία. Agathocles says, that there is in Persia a water called golden, that it is seventy streams, that none drinks of it except the king and his eldest son; and that if any other person does, death is the punishment. See Herodotus, edit. Gronov. p. 594. where this passage is to be found. 4. It appears not that the golden water and Choaspes were the same. Eustathius, transcribing from Agathocles, says: To aga Пgrais χρυσουν καλουμενον ύδως, όπερ ην λιβαδες ἑβδομηκοντα, ούπερ ουδεις, φασιν, επινεν ότι μη βασιλευς, και παιδων αυτού πρεσβυτατος· των δ' αλλων ει τις πιη, θάνατος ή ζημία. Ζητητέον δε ει και το Χοασπειον ύδωρ, ούπες επινε στρατευομενος ὁ Περσων βασιλευς, τοιαυτην επιτίμιον πηρα εφελκετο. The Persians had a wa των ter called golden &c. Quære, whe 290 ther the water of Choaspes, which the Persian king drank in his expeditions, was forbidden to all others under the same penalty. Eustathius in Homer, Iliad. Y. p. 1301. Ed. Basil. 5. It may be granted, and it is not at all improbable, that none besides the king might drink of that water of Choaspes, which was boiled and barrelled up for his use in his military expeditions. 6. Solinus indeed, who is a frivolous writer, says, Choaspes ita dulcis est, ut Persici reges quamdiu intra ripas Persidis fluit, solis sibi ex eo pocula vendicarint. 7. Milton, considered as a poet, with whose purpose the fabulous suited best, is by no means to be blamed for what he has advanced; and even the authority of Solinus is sufficient to justify him. Milton, when he calls Choaspes amber stream, seems to have had in view the golden water of Agathocles and of his transcribers. Jortin. In Lucian's Necyomantis the water of the Choaspes appears to have been highly esteemed for lustration, a circumstance not elsewhere mentioned of that river by any writer. Ed. Reitz. i. p. 465. sect. 7. This was on account of its purity or clearness. All Mr. Jortin's proofs, and many more, are to be seen in Brissonius, De principat. Pers. 1. i. p. 59. seq. ed. Commelin. 1595. 8νο. T. Warton. Herodotus says of the Choaspes, του μουνου πίνει βασιλευς, και αλλου ουδενός ποταμου. L. i. p. 89. ed. Wesseling. Is it impossible Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon, Turning with easy eye thou may'st behold. that a corrupt reading of this 289. of later fame &c.] Cities of later date, built by Emathian, that is Macedonian, the successors of Alexander in Asia, or by Parthian, hands, the great Seleucia, built near the river Tigris by Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's captains, and called great to distinguish it from others of the same name; Nisibis, another city upon the Tigris, called also Antiochia, Antiochia, quam Nisibin vocant. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. sect. 16. Artaxata, the chief city of Armenia, seated upon the river Araxes, juxta Araxem Artaxata. Plin. lib. vi. sect. 10. Teredon, a city near the Persian bay, below the confluence of Euphrates and Tigris, Teredon infra confluentem Euphratis et Tigris. Plin. lib. vi. sect. 32. Ctesiphon near Seleucia, the winter residence of the Parthian kings. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 743. All these cities, which before belonged to the Seleucidæ or Syro-Macedonian princes, sometimes called kings of Antioch, from their usual place of residence, are now under the domi 295 nion of the Parthians, whose empire was founded by Arsaces, who revolted from Antiochus Theus, according to Prideaux, two hundred and fifty years before Christ. This view of the Parthian empire is much more agreeably and poetically described than Adam's prospect of the kingdoms of the world from the mount of vision in the Paradise Lost, xi. 385-411: but still the anachronism in this is worse than in the other: in the former Adam is supposed to take a view of cities many years before they were built, and in the latter our Saviour beholds cities, as Nineveh, Babylon, &c. in their flourishing condition many years after they were laid in ruins; but it was the design of the former vision to exhibit what was future, it was not the design of the latter to exhibit what was past. 295. great Arsaces] Justin describes Arsaces, vir, sicut incertæ originis, ita virtutis expertæ, l. i. c. 4. and again, c. 5. Arsaces, non minus memorabilis Parthis, quam Persis Cyrus, Macedonibus Alexander, Romanis Romulus-cujus memoriæ hunc honorem Parthi tribuerunt, ut omnes exinde reges suos Arsacis nomine nuncupent. Dunster. 297. the luxurious kings of Antioch] No particular luxury And just in time thou com'st to have a view Of his great pow'r; for now the Parthian king seems laid by history to the charge of Antiochus Theus, though the profligate conduct of the governor of Parthia under him caused the revolt of Arsaces. See Prideaux, part ii. b. 2. Nor are any luxurious excesses recorded of Seleucus, son of Antiochus, who carried on the contest with Arsaces. Antiochus the Great, the next king of Syria who attempted to recover Parthia, did indeed give himself up to luxury, but not till he was above fifty years old, (Livy, 1. xxxvi.) and when he had already ceded Parthia and Hyrcania to the son of the great Arsaces. But Milton had probably in his mind the history of the abandoned conduct and dissipation of Antiochus Epiphanes, which procured him the name of Epimanes, or the Madman, instead of that which he had himself assumed of Epiphanes, or the Illustrious. See Polyb. apud Athenæum, 1. v. Dunster. 298. And just in time thou com'st to have a view Of his great pow'r ;] Although Milton in this temptation had no less a scene at his command than all the empires of the world, yet being sensible how incapable his subject was of poetic decoration in many other parts of it, and considering too, very probably, that a geographic description of kingdoms, however varied in the manner of expression and diversified with little circumstances, must soon grow tedious, he has very judi ciously thrown in this digressive picture of an army mustering for an expedition, which he has executed in a very masterly manner. The same conduct he has observed in the subsequent description of the Roman empire by introducing into the scene prætors and proconsuls marching out to their provinces with troops, lictors, rods, and other ensigns of power, and ambassadors making their entrance into that imperial city from all parts of the world. There is great art and design in this contrivance of the author's, and the more as there is no appearance of any, so naturally are the parts connected. Thyer. Thus in the Phoenissæ of Euripides, where Antigone has ascended the tower to behold the Grecian army, her conductor says to her, In Ctesiphon hath gather'd all his host He marches now in haste; see, though from far, His thousands, in what martial equipage They issue forth, steel bows, and shafts their arms All horsemen, in which fight they most excel; In rhombs and wedges, and half-moons, and wings. parations and provisions for them: and therefore the poet might well suppose the Scythians at this time to have made an incursion into Sogdiana, which was the province next adjoining to them, and the Parthian king to have assembled a great army at Ctesiphon in order to oppose them. 302. to her aid He marches now in haste ;] In the Charon or Επισκοπουντες οἱ Lucian, Mercury in a similar manner shews, and describes to Charon, Cyrus marching on his expedition against Croesus: xar νυν ελασειοντι επι Λυδίαν εοικεν, ὡς καθελών τον Κροισον άρχοι άπαντων. c. 9. The Dialogue resembles in other respects this part of our author's poem. Mercury, to gratify Charon in a short time with a full view of what is passing in the world, devises a specular mount, any ixavnv σ, on purpose, by piling Pelion on Ossa, and Eta and Parnassus on these. Thence he shews him an outstretched prospect of land and water, yn λλny, xai ogn, xai πoταμους. Charon afterwards desires to see Nineveh and Baby 300 305 lon. The first Mercury tells him has been so completely destroyed, that no traces of it remain: the second he shews him, and describes it as vugyos and rov μsyav Tigibodov (exovca) like our Poets, huge cities and high-towered. Dun ster. 305. -steel bows and shafts their arms, Of equal dread in flight, or in pursuit; &c.] Thus Catullus terms them sagittiferos Parthos, Ep. xi. and Dionysius describes them as agnio, ayxvλoroko. Perieges, 1040. and as habituated from their infancy to archery and horsemanship, ibid. 1044. Dunster. 309. In rhombs and wedges,] Rhombs is a word formed from the Greek poucos, or Latin rhombus, a figure of four sides, which being converted into one of three makes a wedge. In re militari etiam transformatum in triquetrum, cuneum seu rostrum vocamus. Rob. Stephens. In Greek it was called ρομβοειδής φάλαγξ. 309. See Vegetius, 1. iii. 29. And for the effect produced by the wedge, Cæsar, Bell. Gall. i. |