upon whom they
were laid, must have tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own
resources, which the sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian
kings were in the habit of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many
cases.

The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever,
in any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in
the entire course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces
suffering to any considerable extent from a want of supplies. According
to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary
precautions and brought his army into such straits that his men began to
eat each other. This caused the total failure of his expedition, and
the loss of a great proportion of the troops employed in it. There
is, however, reason to suspect that, even in this case, the loss and
difficulty which occurred have been much exaggerated.

The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and
generally treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages
of importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles
and their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners
do not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we
should regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but
probably only when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair
enemies, but as rebels. Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment
which the king might think it right to inflict upon them, and there were
occasions after a revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed
upon the persons considered to have been most in fault. According to
Herodotus, three thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of
Darius, to punish their revolt from him; and, though this is probably an
exaggeration, it is certain that sometimes, where an example was thought
to be required, the Persians put to death, not only the leader of a
rebellion, but a number of his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at
any