历史的瑰宝

收到一封友人信。古代人民的智慧令人肝颤。

On our rambles, as ever, you prattle away, and a few days after you left, I kept on running into answers to your questions as I was taking notes on Herodotus.

You asked if anyone ever bribed the ancient oracles. The answer, apparently, is yes.

Athens was once taken over by a tyrant, and his enemies fled the city. They wished to overthrow him, but they had no power, no army. On the other hand, the Spartans had a mighty army, so they could overthrow the tyrant and his clan if they wanted to, but they had no motivation to.

One of the clans who was sent packing out of Athens was a wealthy and well-connected family called the Alkmeonids. They were so wealthy that the priests of the divine oracle at Delphi begged them to help refurbish the temple where the oracle lived. The Alkmeonids agreed, and spent lavishly. They actually spent more than the architect's plans demanded, cladding the new buildings not in cheap volcanic stone, but in pure marble.

Powerful families from all over Greece went to visit this gorgeous new temple. Funny thing: That year, whenever a Spartan visited the oracle and asked for advice about, well, anything, really, the answer always included, "But of course the future will go much better for you if you invade Athens and overthrow the tyrant Hippias."

Finally, a bunch of Spartans were talking and they were all like, "Hey, I was thinking of invading Athens and overthrowing the tyrant Hippias." -- "Yeah, me too!" -- "Great! I call shotgun!"

And so the Spartans attacked Athens and overthrew the tyrant Hippias, an act which they would later regret for another hundred years -- and the Alkmeonids returned from their exile, and the whole violent insane cycle went on.

That is one story related to the questions of your idle Tangian brain.

You also asked about whether an enlightened dictatorship is perhaps better than the fractiousness of a democracy 【which 我没有】. That was also discussed quite intelligently and forensically in Herodotus. Here's the story.

When Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, died, he left two sons. Cambyses, the oldest, had a dream in which his brother Smerdis overthrew him, so instead, he had his brother killed. Then, having seized the throne, Cambyses headed off to conquer Egypt, leaving a Magus -- a Zoroastrian wizard (as in the word "magician") in charge of administering the eastern half of the kingdom while he was away.

Once Cambyses had left the Persian capital at Susa -- off defeating the Pharoah of the Egyptians -- this Magus cooked up a plan. His own brother, it turned out, was a total look-alike for the dead Smerdis, Cambyses' brother. Even better, he was actually also named Smerdis.

Well, when I say they were look-alikes, I mean in a general way. You know how it is in ancient texts. It's super easy for people to mistake each other in the ancient world. Even the stupidest disguise works. It's like everyone born before 1700 had face blindness.

In this case, Smerdis the Magus looked exactly like Smerdis the Persian, except he had no ears. They had been cut off for rebellion by the previous king of Babylon.

Now, Cambyses had kept the death of his brother Smerdis kind of under wraps because he didn't want people to figure out that it was a murder. This wasn't smart: because the two Magi brothers could then come forward and say, "ACTUALLY, Smerdis is NOT DEAD, here he is ALIVE. See what I MEAN but hey stop looking at his ears." Then they declared Smerdis to be king of the Persian Empire, and they began to rule as if Smerdis were, well, Smerdis.

Meanwhile, off to the west, Cambyses had defeated Egypt. He immediately made himself offensive to the Egyptians. They worship a bull called the Apis Bull, which was thought to be a god. Cambyses laughed at them saying, "Cow cow cow! Cow cow cow!" Then he walked up to the sacred bull and stabbed it in the thigh. He tried for the gut but he had crappy aim. And when the bull bled, screaming in protest, Cambyses mocked the Egyptians for worshipping a frail, stupid animal of blood and flesh.

At that point, the Egyptians claim, Cambyses was struck by the gods and went mad.

Herodotus says, very quietly, that he thinks maybe Cambyses was already a little unstable by the time he killed his brother and sister because he had a dream about them.

Anyway, let's go back to Susa, capital of Persia, where Smerdis was pretending to be Smerdis. There was a hitch: A guy named Otanes started to suspect that the wrong Smerdis was sitting on the throne. For example, he noticed that Smerdis no longer saw anyone in person, he just stood at a distance from them and yelled stuff. And he spent most of the time hiding inside his palace.

It just so happened that Otanes's daughter was one of the royal concubines. So Otanes asked her, "Hey, do you think Smerdis is, well, Smerdis?"

The girl shrugged, but then she got thoughtful. Because there was a new rule: that whenever King Smerdis was fucking a concubine, they had to fuck in total darkness. No one could see his face. She asked her father, how could she recognize if Smerdis was Smerdis if she couldn't see him?

Otanes said, Easy enough, my girl. When you're plugging away, run your hands through his hair in passion, then feel to see if he has any ears.

Ears = Smerdis the Persian.

No ears = Smerdis the Magus.

The Persian King slept with his prostitutes in rotation. This girl, Phaidymie, waited for the night that was her turn. When she met with the king and they were tumbling, she raised her hands up to his skull. No ears.

Later that night, she snuck out of the palace and told her father what she had felt. The kingdom was being ruled by an imposter.

Otanes went and rounded up several friends, including a forceful young number named Darius, and they resolved to kill the false king. They stormed the palace and killed the two Magi. Initially, the Persian people were horrified -- until they heard that they'd been duped, at which point they all rioted and started killing any Magi they could find.

So the real Smerdis was dead, and now too was fake Smerdis. So who would rule the Persian Empire?

The obvious example was crazed, paranoiac King Cambyses, off in Egypt. But it was not to be. A messenger reached him with word of what had happened at Susa. It is unclear if the messenger knew that this new Smerdis who was killed was not the old Smerdis. (Herodotus hedges on this count, because he suspects that there was no fake Magus Smerdis -- he thinks all of this was just a story made up by Otanes, Darius, and their cronies later, as an excuse for killing the real crowned and anointed monarch.) Anyway, Cambyses hears that apparently, his brother was not dead, but that apparently, a group of seven men including Otanes and Darius just killed the resurrected Smerdis.

Hearing this, Cambyses was horrified -- he realized he had probably killed his brother for nothing. Suddenly, he missed his brother a whole lot. It was time for action. Time to ride to Susa and revenge himself on these rebels. He leaped up into his saddle.

And in doing so, he stabbed himself in the leg with his sheathed sword. The sword slashed into him in exactly the spot where he had pierced the Apis Bull.

The wound festered and he died.

So now there was no king of Persia. There was no successor. Who to rule the Persian Empire? Otanes, Darius, and the other five regicides gathered to discuss the best methods of government, and to debate what the best system would be.

What follows is a fascinating piece of political science oratory, as each one espouses a different form of government, arguing the benefits and drawbacks of each one.

Here is what Darius said, casting scorn on a Democracy like the Athenian Greeks had:

“I am in favor of what Otanes says in his attempt to put an end to tyranny, but when he tells us to transfer power to a majority, he has strayed far from good judgment. For nothing can be both more unintelligent or insolent than the worthless, ineffectual mob. If men want to escape the arrogance of a tyrant, it is absolutely intolerable that they should hen fall victim to the arrogance of the undisciplined common people. For whatever the tyrant may do, he at least knows what he is doing, whereas the people have no idea of what they are doing. How could someone who has not been educated, who has ever seen anything good or decent, be knowledgeable about anything? He pushes and shoves and stumbles into affairs without thought, like a raging torrent. So let those who are hostile to the Persians be governed by the people, while we pick out the best men to make up an intimate company and endow it with power and authority. We ourselves will of course belong to this company …”

Yes. Of course. This sounds very reasonable. Following this speech, they were all convinced by Darius that a dictatorship was the best -- given that you can find the right dictator. But who could that be? Who, who, who? Darius had some ideas. But they needed to decide this rationally.

So of course, they agreed, all seven of them, to ride outside the city walls as the sun rose. They would sit there and present themselves to the god of the sun. The first one whose horse made a loud noise after sunrise would be king.

This eminently logical decision -- definitely the best way to ensure the best ruler possible -- hit a little snag. Darius was a smart cookie. He told his groom to visit his prize mare the night before this trial. The groom rubbed his hand all over the mare's clunge, getting his hand good and covered with the juices. Then he stuck his hand into his pocket and sauntered outside the city walls.

The seven men on their seven steeds rode out just before dawn. They all sat there, facing their god, the rising Sun.

The groom came over to Darius and bowed, and pulled out his hand and stuck it under Darius' horse's nose. The horse, smelling his mate in heat, whinnied loudly.

And so, my friend, Darius, later called Darius the Great, became King of Persia by having a friend rub a horse's clit.

And there we see the answer to the question: What is the best form of government?

I hope this all is of some use.

=== 所以希罗多德的《历史》，实际上是《黑历史》。。？