Agreeably to the customs of all the great despotic princes of the East, the court consisted not only of the king’s servants, but also of a numerous army, principally cavalry, which surrounded the person of the king, and formed part of his retinue. This body of cavalry was divided into corps of ten-thousands, according to the nations of which it was composed. The most distinguished were the Persians; the rest succeeded in a fixed gradation. To these were attached the numerous bodyguards posted at the gates of the palace, of whom we have already had occasion to speak in the description of Persepolis. If we compare with these the descriptions of the household troops of the kings of modern Persia, or the Mongol princes in Hindustan and China, we shall perceive that the court establishment of the monarchs of the East is precisely what it was in the days of Cyrus.
It was a natural consequence of the increasing luxury of the Persians that the number of courtiers should be augmented, when the rule had once been established, that for all, even the most trivial duties, special officers were necessary.
As all these officers were supported free of expense, there were daily fed at the king’s table, according to Ctesias, fifteen thousand persons, and Xenophon assures us that a considerable body of men was required only to make the king’s bed. These inferior attendants on the court were marshalled in the same manner as the army, and divided into tens and hundreds. Courtiers, however, of a superior rank were also very numerous, distinguished by the general appellations of the friends, the kinsmen, or the servants of the king, titles which under every despotic government are understood to confer a high degree of importance.
Not only from the analogy which prevails in other courts of the East, but from a comparison of different passages in ancient writers, it appears probable that the household of the Persian monarch was originally composed of the ruling tribe or horde, namely, that of the Pasargadæ, and especially of the family of the Achæmenidæ. For this reason the courtiers of superior rank bore the appellation of the king’s kinsmen, and almost every page of Persian history proves that every trust of importance was confided, if not to this family, at all events to this tribe. The great body of the inferior attendants of the court was, as Xenophon expressly informs us, gradually filled up with the warlike followers of the king.
The very name Pasargadæ, as we have had occasion to remark, betokens that the household of the court was made up of this race, and though it cannot be ascertained to what extent in the end the other noble tribes were gradually admitted to the same privileges, it is certain that the majority of the court at all times was taken from this. The student of Persian antiquity will, accordingly, find reason to adopt the conjecture that the Grecian authors in general meant by “the Persians,” not the entire nation, but only, or principally, the tribe of the Pasargadæ; and this hypothesis applies with especial propriety to the Cyropædia of Xenophon. The details which he affords us, in the commencement of his work, respecting the education and institutions of the Persians, cannot be referred to the whole nation, but only to the ruling tribe, or the king’s household, as is proved by the notices of place which he adjoins. If we adopt this principle of interpretation, the whole picture presents itself under a totally different aspect, and it is no longer necessary to consider it as a romance. It is a description of the education and habits of life which, in compliance with custom, the noblesse of the nation, or the portion of it which composed the household of the king, were obliged to observe; and the very strictness of the discipline prescribed is perfectly in harmony with the customs of oriental courts, where everything is regulated by an exact ceremonial. Accordingly, it must not be looked upon as an account of the national system of education, nor of the manners of the people at large, but the court-education, and court-ceremonial; and in proportion as these are strict under all despotic and especially under all oriental governments, it becomes necessary to accustom to them from their very youth such as are destined to observe them.
The economy of the harem of the Persian monarchs appears to have been precisely the same with the present customs, in that respect, of the Asiatic nations. It was peopled from the different provinces of the empire, and the surveillance of the whole committed to eunuchs, of whom we find traces, long before the Persian monarchy, in the courts of the Median kings, a consequence of the practice of polygamy. His eunuchs and his wives encircled the person of the monarch, and thus easily attained an influence which, under a weak monarch who felt himself unable to shake off the yoke, often became a species of protectorship by which they were enabled to sway the helm of state, and, in the end, to exercise dominion over the throne itself.
The interior of these gynæcea is best described in the narrative of the book of Esther, while the account of a court intrigue in the reign of Xerxes, recorded in the last book of Herodotus, throws great additional light on their history. The harem was divided into two sets of apartments, and the new-comers were transferred from the first to the second on having been admitted to the king’s chamber. Unbounded luxury, which in the end degenerates into wearisome etiquette, imposes of itself a restraint on the passions of arbitrary despots. It is far from being the case that, at the present day, the sultan of Constantinople can select the object of his desire according to his own pleasure; and Persian etiquette demanded that a whole year should be spent in purification by means of aromatics and costly perfumes before the novitiate beauty was thought worthy of approaching the presence of the despot. The number of concubines must therefore have been sufficiently great to present a new victim for every day. The passions of hatred and jealousy, which are apt to become intense in proportion as their sphere is limited, attained in the harem of Persia a degree of rancour which our imaginations can hardly picture. When Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, succeeded at last in getting into her power her sister-in-law, whom she suspected as her rival, she caused her to be mutilated in a manner too horrible for recital.
The legitimate wives of the king stood, however, on a totally different footing from his concubines; a distinction which prevailed also in the inferior conditions of life. As everything in the constitution of the country depended on the distinctions of tribe, the consort was chosen from the family of Cyrus, or that of the Achæmenidæ; though the example of Esther appears to prove that occasionally concubines were elevated to the same rank. In that case they were invested with the insignia of royalty, the diadem and the other regalia. The mode of life, however, of the queen-consort was no less rigidly prescribed and limited than that of the concubines; and it is mentioned as a remarkable instance, that Statira so far overstepped that burdensome system of etiquette as to appear in public without a veil.
Uncertainty of succession is an inseparable consequence of a harem administration. It is true that illegitimate children were altogether excluded from inheriting by the customs of Persia; but the intrigues of their mothers and the treachery of eunuchs, with the help of poison, often prepared the way for them to the throne. Of legitimate sons the rule was, that the eldest should inherit, especially if he was born when his father was king. The selection was, however, left to the monarch; and as his decisions were commonly influenced by his queen, the power of the queen-mother became still more considerable among the Persians than among the Turks. As the education of the heir to the crown was mainly entrusted to his mother, she did not fail early to instil a spirit of dependence on her wishes, from which the future king was rarely able to emancipate himself. The narratives of Herodotus and Ctesias, respecting the tyrannical influence exercised by Parysatis, Amestris, and others, bear ample testimony to the fact.