The Histories by Herodotus - 4 - Darius and the Seven Conspirators
Book Three
Quote
Darius: "Where a lie is necessary, let it be spoken. Our objective is the same whether we use lies or the truth to achieve it."
Notes
- After Cyrus dies (back in Book One), his son Cambyses becomes king.
- Cambyses shows signs of being erratic and possibly crazy. First he kills his own brother, Smerdis, after having a dream where he sees Smerdis sitting on the throne. Second, he has the laws reinterpreted so that he can marry his sister, but then he kills her, too, because she was sad about him killing their brother.
- Because of the king's madness, a group of Magi plot a rebellion. Their plot is to have one of them disguise himself as Smerdis, Cambyses's brother, and then say that he is alive and should be the king. After they do, Cambyses clumsily wounds himself in his confusion and rage over the rebellion and eventually dies from the injury. The Magi seize power.
- People begin to suspect the Magi's hoax, and a new group of seven conspirators, Darius among them, plot a rebellion of their own. They make their way into the palace and start killing the Magi. More Persians rally with them and start killing all the Magi they can find.
- Having successfully taken power, the seven conspirators discuss how to set up the next government. One conspirator, Otanes, argues that they should get rid of the monarchy and opt for a system of majority rule instead. Cambyses and his madness showed them what can happen when one man has all the power, he says, so it would be better "to abandon monarchy and increase the power of the people."
- Next Megabyzus argues for oligarchy. He says majority rule will inevitably devolve into mob rule, "and there is nothing more stupid or given to brutality" than a mob. So, he says, "let us leave democracy to Persia's enemies, while we choose a number of the best men and put power in their hands. After all, we will be members of such a company, and it is reasonable to assume that the best men make the best decisions."
- Finally, Darius speaks. He says that oligarchy will devolve into "violent personal feuds" as each member pushes his own interests above the others. He also says that all systems eventually turn into a monarchy anyway. And, last, since they won their freedom by taking individual action, then they should have a ruler with the power to take that same kind of individual action, too.
- Somewhat ironically, the seven conspirators take a vote and four out of the seven choose to have a monarchy. In order to choose who will be the king, they decide that they will all ride out to the edge of the city, and the one who's horse is first to neigh after sunrise will get to be king.
- Darius has one of his slaves fix it for his own horse to neigh first. He does this is by rubbing the horse's genitals with his hand and then passing it over the horse's nostrils right at sunrise. Genius! Darius becomes the new king of Persia.
Thoughts
Darius's arguments in favour of monarchy seem to have some holes in them.
He says that since they just gained their freedom "thanks to a single individual," then "we should keep to this way of doing things." Which is odd, because it wasn't an individual who won them their victory. There were seven conspirators who took back power together.
For another part of his argument he says that if you take the best versions of each type — democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy — and compare them, monarchy is the best one. If the best person in the world is king, that's the best possible scenario, and better than the best scenarios for either oligarchy or democracy.
But how often is that going to happen? Should they base their decision on a scenario that probably won't happen? And what if your king is a crazy person, like the king they just had? Wouldn't you want to do something to prevent that from happening again?
However, one of the arguments he makes does seem to rise up above the others, and that is where he says that all other forms of government inevitably degenerate into corruption and this leads to one strong individual taking over and becoming the king. Monarchy, so says Darius, is the most natural type of government for human beings over the others. No matter what type of government you choose, it inevitably leads back to monarchy. So is it just easiest to have one guy be in charge?
Who knows? But it also feels like his argument falls apart when the seven conspirators use a democratic method to decide which kind of government they want. And then they have pure chance decide which one among them should be the king. The one whose horse neighs first after sunrise? And the reason Darius wins is literally because his slave rubs his horse's balls and makes the horse smell it. (At least that's one version of how it happened according to Herodotus, and the other version is also equally sexual...) That doesn't seem like the best way to choose a king.