Datames

Datames, born of his father Camisares, a Carian by nation, and his mother a Scythian, was at first among the number of those soldiers, in the service of Artaxerxes, who guarded the palace. His father Camisares, because he had been found both stout of hand and active in war and faithful to the king in many circumstances, held as his province a part of Cilicia next to Cappadocia, which the Leucosyri inhabit. Datames, performing his military duty, first showed of what sort he was in the war which the king waged against the Cadusii. For there his service was of great value. Hence it came about that, when Camisares had fallen in that war, his father's province was handed over to him.

He afterwards showed himself of like valour, when Autophrodates, by the king's command, was pursuing in war those who had revolted. For by his service the enemy, when they had already entered the camp, with many thousands of the king's men slain, were overthrown, and the rest of the army of the king was preserved: from which he began to be set in command of greater affairs. There was at that time Thuys, prince of Paphlagonia, of ancient stock, descended from that Pylaemenes whom Homer says was slain by Patroclus in the Trojan War. He was not obedient to the king's word. For this reason the king resolved to pursue him in war and put Datames in charge of the matter, a kinsman of the Paphlagonian: for they were born of brother and sister. For this reason Datames first wished to try to bring his kinsman back to his duty without arms. When he had come to him without an escort, because he feared no treachery from a friend, he nearly perished: for Thuys wished secretly to kill him. There was with Datames his mother, the aunt of the Paphlagonian. She learned what was afoot and warned her son. He avoided the peril by flight and declared war upon Thuys. In this, though deserted by Ariobarzanes, prefect of Lydia and Ionia and all Phrygia, he none the less persevered and took Thuys alive, together with his wife and children.

He took pains that the report of this deed should not reach the king before he himself did. And so, with all unaware, he came to the place where the king was, and on the next day he clothed Thuys — a man of the greatest stature and of terrible aspect, for he was both dark and had long hair and a flowing beard — in a most splendid robe, such as the king's satraps were wont to wear, adorned him also with a torque and golden bracelets and the rest of the royal apparel. He himself, wrapped in a double rustic cloak and a shaggy tunic, wearing on his head a hunter's cap, with a club in his right hand and a leash in his left, drove Thuys, thus bound, before him, as though leading a wild beast he had captured. When all gazed at this on account of the strangeness of the dress and the unknown form, and for that reason there was a great concourse, there was one who recognized Thuys and reported it to the king. At first he did not believe it, and so sent Pharnabazus to find out. When from him he learned what had been done, he at once ordered Datames to be admitted, greatly delighted both by the deed and by the dress, and above all because a noble prince had come unexpectedly into his power. And so he sent Datames, magnificently rewarded, to the army, which was then being gathered, under the leadership of Pharnabazus and Tithraustes, for the Egyptian war, and ordered him to be of equal command with them. But after the king recalled Pharnabazus, the supreme command was handed over to Datames.

While he was getting an army together with the greatest zeal and preparing to set out for Egypt, suddenly a letter was sent to him from the king, that he should attack Aspis, who held Cataonia — a people lying above Cilicia, bordering on Cappadocia. For Aspis, inhabiting a wooded region fortified with strongholds, not only did not obey the king's command, but even harassed the neighbouring regions and carried off what was being conveyed to the king. Datames, although he was far from those regions and was being drawn away from a greater enterprise, yet thought he must comply with the king's wish. And so with a few, but brave, men he embarked, thinking — as indeed happened — that he could more easily overwhelm an unsuspecting foe with a small band than one prepared, however great an army he had. Carried by this means to Cilicia, going forth thence, marching day and night, he crossed the Taurus and came to the place to which he had been making. He asks in what region Aspis is; he learns that he is not far off and had set out to hunt. While he is watching for him, the cause of his coming is learned. Aspis prepares the Pisidians, together with those whom he had with him, to resist. When Datames heard this, he takes up arms, bids his men follow; he himself, on a swift horse, rides at the enemy. Aspis, seeing him from afar bearing down upon him, is terrified and, deterred from his attempt to resist, surrendered himself. This man Datames handed over, bound, to Mithridates, to be led to the king.

While these things were going on, Artaxerxes, recollecting from how great a war to how small a matter he had sent the chief of his commanders, reproached himself and sent a messenger to the army at Acè, because he thought Datames had not yet set out, who should say that he should not depart from the army. Before he could reach the place to which he had been sent, he met on the road those who were leading Aspis. By which speed, although Datames had won the great good will of the king, he incurred no less the envy of the courtiers, because they saw that this one man was esteemed more than they all. By this all conspired to crush him. Pandantes, the keeper of the royal treasure and a friend of Datames, sent this written out to him, in which he informs him that he would be in great peril, if any reverse befell in Egypt while he was in command. For it was the royal custom to ascribe adverse chances to men, prosperous ones to their own fortune; whence it came about that they were easily led on to the ruin of those under whose leadership ill-conducted affairs were reported. He would be in the greater danger, in that he had as his bitterest enemies those whom the king most obeyed. Having learned of these things from such a letter, when he had now come to the army at Acè, because he was not ignorant that these things were truly written, he resolved to fall away from the king. Yet he did nothing unworthy of his honour. For he set Mandrocles of Magnesia over the army; he himself with his own men withdrew into Cappadocia and seized Paphlagonia adjoining it, concealing his disposition toward the king. Secretly he made friendship with Ariobarzanes, gathered a band, and handed over the fortified cities to his own men to guard.

But these things, on account of the winter season, went forward less prosperously. He hears that certain Pisidians are preparing forces against him. He sends his son Arsidaeus thither with an army; the young man falls in battle. The father sets out thither with no very great band, concealing how great a wound he had received, because he wished to reach the enemy before report of the disaster should reach his own men, lest, his son's death being known, the spirits of the soldiers be weakened. He came to the place to which he was making and pitched camp in such a spot that he could neither be surrounded by the multitude of his adversaries nor be hindered from keeping a band ready at hand for battle. There was with him Mithrobarzanes, his father-in-law, prefect of cavalry. He, despairing of his son-in-law's affairs, deserted to the enemy. When Datames heard this, he perceived that, if it got abroad among the crowd that he had been deserted by so near a kinsman, it would come about that the rest would follow the same course. And so he gives out among the troops that Mithrobarzanes had set out by his command, as a pretended deserter, that he might the more easily, being received, slay the enemy: wherefore it was not fitting that he be left, and that all should follow at once. If they did this with vigorous spirit, it would come about that their adversaries could not resist, since they would be cut down both within the rampart and without. This plan being approved, he leads out the army and pursues Mithrobarzanes, who had only just reached the enemy when Datames orders the standards to be borne forward. The Pisidians, troubled by the strange turn, are brought to the belief that the deserters had acted in bad faith and by collusion, so that, once received, they might be the cause of greater calamity. First they attack them. They, since they did not know what was being done or why it was happening, were forced to fight with those to whom they had gone over, and to take the side of those whom they had left: and since neither party spared them, they were quickly cut to pieces. The rest of the Pisidians, who resisted, Datames attacks: at the first onset he drives them back, pursues them as they flee, kills many, and takes the enemy's camp. By this one stroke of policy he at one and the same time crushed the traitors and routed the enemy, and turned to his own safety what had been devised for his ruin. Nowhere have we read of anything more shrewdly contrived by any commander, nor more swiftly executed.

Yet from this man Sisinas, his eldest son, fell away and went over to the king, and informed against his father's revolt. Moved by this message, Artaxerxes, because he understood that he had to do with a brave and vigorous man, who was wont both to think before he attempted, and, when he had thought, to dare to act, sent Autophrodates into Cappadocia. That he might not be able to enter, Datames was eager to seize beforehand the pass in which the Cilician Gates are situated. But he could not gather his forces so suddenly. Driven from this purpose, with the band he had gathered he chose such a place that he could neither be surrounded by the enemy, nor could his adversary pass him by without being hard pressed in difficult ground; and, if he chose to fight, the multitude of the enemy could not much hinder his own scanty numbers.

Although Autophrodates saw these things, yet he straightway preferred to engage rather than to retreat with so great forces or to sit so long in one place. He had of barbarian cavalry twenty thousand, of foot a hundred thousand, whom they call Cardaces, and of the same kind three thousand slingers, besides eight thousand Cappadocians, ten thousand Armenians, five thousand Paphlagonians, ten thousand Phrygians, five thousand Lydians, about three thousand Aspendians and Pisidians, two thousand Cilicians, as many of the Captiani, three thousand mercenaries from Greece, and a very great number of light-armed troops. Against these forces all the hope of Datames rested in himself and in the nature of the place (for he had not the twentieth part of their soldiers). Relying on these, he engaged and cut down many thousands of his adversaries, while of his own army not more than a thousand men had fallen. For which reason on the next day he set up a trophy in the place where the day before the battle had been fought. From here, when he had moved his camp, and, ever inferior in forces, came off superior in all battles, because he never joined hand to hand save when he had shut his adversaries up in the narrows of the ground — which often befell one skilled in the country and craftily thinking — Autophrodates, when he saw that the war was being dragged out to the greater calamity of the king than of his adversaries, recalling their former peace and friendship, urged him to return to favour with the king. Although Datames thought it would not be trustworthy, yet he accepted the condition and said that he would send envoys to Artaxerxes. Thus the war which the king had undertaken against Datames was quieted. Autophrodates withdrew into Phrygia.

But the king, because he had conceived an implacable hatred against Datames, after he perceived that he could not be crushed in war, was eager to kill him by treachery; most of which plots Datames avoided. As when it was announced to him that certain men were plotting against him, who were among the number of his friends (concerning whom, because it was his enemies who had informed against them, he thought he ought neither to believe nor to neglect it), he wished to test whether what had been reported to him was true or false. And so he set out by the way on which they had said the ambush would be. But he chose a man very like himself in body and stature, gave him his own dress, and bade him go in the place in which he himself was wont to go; while he himself, in the garb and dress of a soldier, began to make the journey among the bodyguards. But the conspirators, after the column reached the place where they had set their ambush, deceived by the rank and the dress, made their attack upon the man who had been put in his stead. Now Datames had warned those with whom he was marching to be ready to do whatever they saw him do. He himself, when he marked the conspirators rushing together, hurled his weapons at them. When all had done the same, before they could reach the man whom they wished to attack, they were pierced through and fell.

Yet this man, for all his cunning, was at last caught by the trickery of Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes. For he promised the king that he would kill him, if the king would grant that he might be allowed to do with impunity whatever he wished, and the king had given him a pledge of this, after the manner of the Persians, with his right hand. When he had received this, sent by the king, he gathers forces and, in absence, makes friendship with Datames, harasses the king's provinces, storms strongholds, takes great booty, of which he distributes part among his own men, part he sends to Datames; in like manner he hands over to him several strongholds. By doing these things for a long time, he persuaded the man that he had undertaken a boundless war against the king; while none the less, lest he give him any suspicion of treachery, he neither sought a meeting with him nor strove to come into his sight. Thus, in absence, he carried on a friendship in such wise that they seemed to be held together not by mutual benefits, but by a common hatred which they had conceived against the king.

When he thought he had sufficiently established this, he informs Datames that the time had come to prepare greater enterprises and to undertake war against the king himself, and that, on this matter, if it seemed good to him, he should come to a meeting in whatever place he wished. The matter being approved, a time and place for conferring is fixed, where they should meet. Thither Mithridates came, with one man whom he most trusted, several days beforehand, and in several places separately buried swords and carefully marked those places. But on the very day of the meeting both sent men to explore the place and to search themselves; then they met. When they had been some while in conference and had parted in different directions, and Datames was now far off, Mithridates, before he reached his own men, that he might give no suspicion, returned to the same place and there, where a weapon had been buried, sat down, as though he wished to rest from weariness, and called Datames back, pretending that he had forgotten something in the conference. Meanwhile the weapon that lay hidden he drew forth and, having bared it from its sheath, covered it with his garment, and said to Datames as he came: that, as he departed, he had noticed a certain place, which was in view, fit for pitching a camp. When he pointed to it with his finger and Datames looked back, he ran him through from behind with the iron, and slew him before anyone could come to his aid. So that man, who had caught many by his counsel and none by treachery, was caught by a feigned friendship.