26 History of Art in Antiquity. service of the Achajmenidc-c, or of pretenders, or great vassals who aimed at recuvering their independence. They were garrisoned in all the western provinces of the kingdom, from Egypt to the entrance of the Eiixine, and tlieir leaders sometimes assumed all but sovereign rule. At the same lime, the delegates of Sparta, Corinth, Athens, and Thebes were constantly seen on the roads leading to one of those distant capitals, of which each in turn was honoured by the presence of the sovereign. The Greek envoys were sometimes kept long waiting ere they were received in audience and learnt the royal will. Their stay was not protracted beyond a few weeks or months, perhaps ; but others of their country- men, political refugees, as Histi:eus of Miletus, Demaratus and Themistocles ; doctors, as Democedes and Ctesias (the same who on retiring from public life took up the part of historian), were all attached, in some capacity or other, to the court, and ac- companied it in its peregrinations from Hcbatana to Pcrscpolis, from Susa to Babylon. The talkative Greeks beguiled, we may be sure, the tedium of the journey to the Persian princes, the viziers, and the women of their harems, some of whose slaves were their countrywomen.' What more natural than that the conversation should have turned upon that Greece so near their hearts, and that, prompted in part by vanity, in part by the desire to astonish, they should have used with no niggard hand the brightest colours their palette could afford in depicting her brilliant culture. Narratives woven with so deft a hand did not fall unheeded on the prince's ear, but excited a desire to judge for himself of the merit of artists extolled to the sky in his presence. To some extent a notion of their talent could be gained from such works as he or his ancestors had obtained, either in Ionia or Greece proper, without stirring from the spot. Was there not in some corner of his palace a golden crater, executed by the famous ' With regard to Democedes and his relations with the wives of D.irius, see Herodotus, iii. 129-134. The story of the Phociaa Milto is well known. She was a great favourite of the younger Cyrus, by n^ioill she was called Aspasia. At Cunaxa she became the piopefty of Artanrxes Mnemon and entered his harem, where she rose to a high situation (Xekophon, Anah., I. x. 2 ; Pldtarcb, PerUies, xxiv. 12 ; Artaxerxes, xxvi. 3, 4). Milto was not tlio only Greek woman who lived in the intimacy of Cyrus. A Milesian, says Xenophon, accompanied him also to Cunaxa, and was allowed to take refii^ in the Grade camp after the battle {Anabasis, III. z. 3). Digitized by Google
