The assassination of the False Smerdis in Book 3 and the ensuing constitutional uncertainty offer Herodotus an inflection point to pause and consider the institution of monarchy in Persia, its strengths and weaknesses. This chapter reexamines the speeches given by the conspirators in advance of the coup and its aftermath. In these episodes, Darius undermines a key nomos held by the Persians, their abhorrence of falsehood.Footnote ¹ As Chapter 2 contended, the disruption of nomos is characteristic of Persian rulers. Although Darius does so as a private citizen, he invites comparison with them given his subsequent rise to the throne. Darius’ disregard for nomos opens a separate philosophical debate, however, on human motivation and self-interest. In a speech to the Persian conspirators, the future Great King defends “egoism,” the philosophy that all action is performed in the interest of maximizing the individual’s self-interest. This view is set alongside orations by the Persians Otanes and Prexaspes, exponents of cooperative action and altruism, respectively. As we shall see, fifth-century intellectual culture engaged in a spirited interrogation of the individual in relation to self-interest, often in terms of the social contract. The clash between motivation on behalf of the one versus the many will illustrate the complex negotiation in Persia of ruler and ruled, self and society.

Fomenting Revolution in Persia: Darius and Egoism

The plot against the Magi begins with the Persian Otanes, who discovers that the Great King is an imposter through his daughter, one of the wives of the False Smerdis. The Persian deliberations before the attack upon him and his brother set up the political contrasts that will crystallize in the Constitutional Debate.Footnote ² These include an emphasis on the active role of the plurality in opposition to concern for the individual.

Throughout the revolt, Otanes consistently demonstrates an affinity for pluralizing rather than individual action, which prefigures his support for democracy. Otanes’ first initiative is to communicate his knowledge of the fraud to his two closest confidants, with each of these three προσεταιρίσασθαι (prosetairisasthai), “taking into partnership” (3.70.2) one other trusted individual. They include Darius as a seventh to their group (3.70.3: προσεταιρίσασθαι) upon his arrival at Susa. This same verb, “to take into partnership,” is used of another moment of internal strife and imminent constitutional change, in this case, to democracy, when Cleisthenes embraces the Athenian demos as his coconspirators (5.66.2: προσεταιρίζεται).Footnote ³ That it is found here as well chimes with Otanes’ future support of the many in the Constitutional Debate. He displays a similar drive to pluralize the proceedings by expanding their network of accomplices, as he reveals in his response to Darius’ strategy of attacking the Magi right away: “we must increase our numbers and then attack” (3.71.3: δεῖ γὰρ πλεῦνας γενομένους οὕτως ἐπιχειρέειν).Footnote ⁴ Darius, meanwhile, chastises Otanes and urges immediate action on the grounds that “it seemed right to you to refer this to the many” (3.71.5: ἐπείτε δὲ ὑμῖν ἀναφέρειν ἐς πλεῦνας ἐδόκεε). This phrase, “referring to the many,” will be used later in the context of an assembly and again conjures up participatory procedure.Footnote ⁵ Otanes’ evocation of the assembly seeps into the language of the other members of their group: Gobryas finally “sets his vote” (3.73.3: νῦν ὦν τίθεμαι ψῆφον) on the proposition made by Darius, phrasing that readily evokes a democratic election. It is fitting that when Otanes concludes his speech in defense of democracy later in the Constitutional Debate, he does so by pronouncing that “in the multitude there is everything” (3.80.6: ἐν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα).Footnote ⁶ In his behavior leading up to the insurrection, Otanes subverts Persia’s traditional top-down mechanism of political action and creates the possibility for communal achievement.

After an exchange of pledges of faith, the seven deliberate their course of action. In the discussion, Darius’ addresses notably revolve around the priorities and concerns of the individual and his self-interest. First, he insists that he believed that he alone (3.71.2: αὐτὸς μοῦνος; μοῦνον ἐμέ)Footnote ⁷ knew that the Great King was an imposter and then he demands that the conspirators make the attack straightaway and refuse any delay, μὴ ὑπερβάλλεσθαι (3.71.1: me hyperballesthai). He vehemently counters the opposition that comes from Otanes, who urges reflection, by declaring that they will die if they follow this plan.Footnote ⁸ Darius supports the prediction with an argument from individual advantage, claiming that someone would disclose knowledge of the conspiracy to the Magus, “privately contriving profit for himself” (3.71.4: ἰδίῃ περιβαλλόμενος ἑωυτῷ κέρδεα). The anxiety that someone would take the opportunity to betray the group for individual, private gain reveals something of the motivations that Darius attributes to others, even as it correlates to his own self-seeking: if the conspirators side with Otanes and postpone the attack, he promises to reveal the plot to the False Smerdis himself. That is, even if the wider Persian community is somehow threatened by the imposter, as the conspirators believe, Darius makes clear that his own individual good supersedes all else, as his threat to inform on them exposes. All the while, the spotlight remains on Darius and his agenda, as the repetition of “I myself” drives home (3.71.2: ἐγώ … αὐτός; 3.71.5: αὐτὸς ἐγώ). Darius’ intimidation spurs Otanes to ask him for an actual strategy for getting access to the Great King, given the presence of the guards at the palace. Following this, Darius gives a speech that has regularly been viewed as evoking a Greek sophistic intellectual context.Footnote ⁹ Its themes constitute an elaborate justification of pursuing individual advantage as the decisive factor in using true or false speech.Footnote ¹⁰ None of the guards, he assures his audience, will stop them, either through awe or fear. If one does, Darius has the perfect story ready: he is carrying a message to the Great King from his father, out of whose presence he has only just come.

The aim of convincing the Persian conspirators that falsehood is defensible returns to the ethnography of Persia and exposes Darius as an agitator of its norms, in an extension of the argument in the previous chapter. In the Persian nomoi, Herodotus characterized the people as uniquely bound to the logos that is true: for fifteen years, Persian youths’ education focused on three fundamentals: horsemanship, archery, and “truth-telling,” ἀληθίζεσθαι (alethizesthai).Footnote ¹¹ This is combined with an extreme disdain for falsehood, “what it is not permitted for them to do, it is not even permitted for them to say. For lying has been deemed most shameful among them” (1.138.1: ἅσσα δέ σφι ποιέειν οὐκ ἔξεστι, ταῦτα οὐδὲ λέγειν ἔξεστι. αἴσχιστον δὲ αὐτοῖσι τὸ ψεύδεσθαι νενόμισται).Footnote ¹² As this demonstrates, Persia’s ethical norms mandate against not just unlawful deeds but also false language.Footnote ¹³ For this reason, lies are “most shameful,” a superlative that underlines the power of misusing language as much as action. As has often been observed by previous scholars, the nomos is a curious one: it raises an expectation that is seldom met in the context of the Persians in the Histories. More to the point, it is forcefully contradicted by the future Great King Darius’ speech. Even before this, the Persian monarch has played fast and loose with the truth; before his death, Cambyses instructed his nobles to put down the rule of the Magian and take back the empire “by deceit, if it has been taken from us by deceit” (3.65.6).Footnote ¹⁴

Darius’ address begins with an overwrought and balanced antithesis of word and deed, μέν and δέ, expressive of extreme contrast that is stylistically evocative of sophistic rhetoric.Footnote ¹⁵ This cleavage is significant, as in the above nomos, the narrator explicitly noted that for the Persians whatever it is not permitted for them to do, it is not even permitted for them to put into words (ποιέειν … λέγειν). That is, among the Persians, illicit deeds and illicit speech have correspondingly negative implications. Darius’ opening salvo and its highlighting of the distinct capacity for deeds to lead to “some things” becoming manifest and words to “others” is an asymmetry that moves against the traditional ethnographic stance of Persia – as will his endorsement of false speech. It deflates the expectations of his internal Persian audience that force is what is called for in the initial portion of their plot and sets up speech as an alternative.Footnote ¹⁶

The declaration that “where a lie must be told, let it be told” combines an impersonal verb (δεῖ) and third-person imperative (λεγέσθω) to create a detached, objective sense of obligation. In addition to being, apparently, a descriptive account of the world, the phrasing is normative. Truth and falsehood cloak the motive of personal “gain” (κερδήσεσθαι; κέρδος). In the Histories, gain is often associated with monetary wealth.Footnote ¹⁷ But there are attempts to define its referent in other ways, as when Croesus tells Adrastus that his profit will be in bearing the misfortune of accidental homicide lightly (1.35.4) or when Artabanus proposes that good counsel is the greatest of gains (7.10.δ2). Here, the term hearkens backward to Darius’ warning that someone of the group would accrue gain for himself by betraying their cause. Since such true speech would be in the conspirator’s interest, this is consistent with his stance on egoism. The exclusion of any middle ground gives the profit motive a universalizing force. A hypothetical conditional cements the case:Footnote ¹⁸ if there were no potential for gain, people would tell truths and falsehoods indiscriminately (ὁμοίως). This affirms that those who claim to tell the truth out of a desire for altruism or justice are nonetheless still acting in the service of their own profit margins. The close of the speech circles back to the importance of action and its separate role from that of logos, in the assurance that after taking care of the guards, the group will turn to the deed (ἔργου ἐχώμεθα) of dispatching the False Smerdis.

Maximizing self-interest in speech through truth and falsehood does not commit Darius to the position that these are the same, in a kind of alethic relativism. As he says, speakers of truth and lies are not practicing the same things (οὐ ταὐτά); it is their deployment that is fluid, tied only to individual self-interest.Footnote ¹⁹ An objective sense of truth and falsehood remains in place. It is also worth noting what is missing in this argument: while Darius does make use of the language of obligation, he cannily avoids any reference to the morality that this is founded upon, and the rectitude of lying or its opposite do not enter into the discussion, in contrast with the Persian ethnography. Darius might have justified his position as a speaker in an unknown tragedy of Sophocles in saying that “lying isn’t noble (καλὸν μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔστι τὰ ψευδῆ λέγειν), but to the extent that the truth leads to terrible destruction, it is forgivable to speak what is not noble” (F 352 Radt) – but he does not. Inasmuch as Darius makes no reference to questions of right or wrong, strictly speaking he is an amoralist. For this reason, the contention that has been made that Darius is evincing moral relativism should be discarded; this is a descriptive account of the way of the world, but praise and blame are absent from it.Footnote ²⁰ If egoism dependably explains the motivation of human agents, this repudiates Persia’s customary adherence to truth and scorn for lying. Certainly, it explains the prior willingness of Cyrus and Cambyses to engage in treachery to advance their imperial aims.Footnote ²¹

Darius’ love of profit is sketched long before the coup. In a discussion of Nitocris, the queen of Babylon, we are told that she inscribed her tomb with an invitation to future kings of Babylon to open and take money from it, if ever in need of riches. Although the conquest of Babylon first takes place in the reign of Cyrus, it is Darius who breaches funerary decorum by breaking into the chamber, intending to plunder its wealth. The remarkable queen, however, has a surprise for him, as inscribed on the interior of her crypt is the judgment that, “if you were not insatiate of wealth and a lover of gain (αἰσχροκερδής) you would not have opened the grave of the dead” (1.187.5). This is reiterated by Darius’ sobriquet, the “retailer” (3.89.3: κάπηλος), after his establishment as Great King.Footnote ²² Elsewhere, Darius reveals himself to be motivated by profit and willing to break the social mores of other peoples. He makes another proleptic appearance after the particularly disturbing breaches of religious observance made by Cambyses. In Darius’ testing of the tenacity of customs surrounding burial practices among the Greeks and the Callatian Indians, he bribes them with money to subvert their norms. Very in-character, he wants to break the strength of nomos by recourse to the profit motive. This intertwining of the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses with Darius through flashforwards creates a strong sense of continuity among the Persian rulers. Darius’ insistence on his own profit represents the persistence of the tradition of Persian monarchy, not a break with it.

Still, it is not clear that Darius is able to persuade the group to enact his plan through his argument. After he speaks, Gobryas endorses his strategy of immediate attack but rallies the Persians on the grounds of the nobility of the action of saving the empire, their willingness to die for the cause, and the indignity of having a Mede and a mutilated Magian as king. Gobyras bids the group to remember what their king had “enjoined” (ἐπέσκηψε) upon them (3.73.2), in a reference to Cambyses’ final demand that had enjoined (ἐπισκήπτω) the Persians to avenge the treachery of the False Smerdis (3.65.6). At the time of this command, the conspirator clarifies, he had believed the king to be deceiving (διαβολῇ) them, while now he realizes the truth of Cambyses’ words and knows that they must act upon them. In outlining these motivations, Gobryas returns to the traditional Persian obedience to the ruler and to an observance of his ethnographic imperative for truthful speech. In fact, he passes over Darius’ support of egoism and the pursuit of individual profit. It is after Gobryas’ speech that the group agrees to strike.Footnote ²³

The episode began with Otanes’ stress on the collective in the deliberations of the conspirators. A second counsel scene bookends it, which has often been analyzed in relation to what preceded. In it, the Magians attempt to bring the Persian Prexaspes into their intrigue.Footnote ²⁴

At first, Prexaspes agrees to the deception. But when he is asked “as the most trustworthy of men among the Persians” (3.74.4) to uphold the legitimacy of the pretender to the masses, Prexaspes finally “revealed the truth” (3.75.2: ἐξέφαινε τὴν ἀληθείην) to the people. He gave a genealogy of the royal line ending with Cyrus and reminded the people of all the goods that he had given them and then informs them that they are ruled by the Magian. Before taking his own life, he commands the Persians to take back their empire and avenge themselves.

In some respects, the passage is a doublet of the conspirators’ counsel scene. As the Persians did, the Magians take oaths with Prexaspes in order to guard against his departing (ἐξοίσειν) and revealing their deception. Next, Prexaspes abruptly breaks his pledge, which is just the act feared by Darius. Prexaspes’ oath to the Magians is drawn attention to in the moment of his revelation, as he “willingly forgot” or “willingly disregarded” ἑκὼν ἐπελήθετο (3.75.1) what he had sworn. He does so based on a factor he states he cannot ignore, necessity (3.75.2: ἀναγκαίην), which echoes Darius’ own statement of necessity earlier in speaking falsely.Footnote ²⁵ In this sense, the narrative brings the audience to consider the variations within a shared pattern.

Clearly, in breaking faith with the Magians, Prexaspes overlooks his immediate self-interest.Footnote ²⁶ It has been argued persuasively that this action undercuts Darius’ egoism, since Prexaspes’ truthful words result in his demise.Footnote ²⁷ Like Otanes, Prexaspes is preoccupied with the community rather than the individual. In his self-sacrifice, he emerges as an individual committed to the benefit of Persia rather than himself, as his speech recounts the good done by Cyrus to the Persians as a whole.Footnote ²⁸ If this reading is correct, then he might be thought to reassert traditional morality in Persia on truthful speech in his rejection of deception. In the debate on self-interest, Prexaspes would be opposed to Darius and speak against the latter’s position.

In the denouement of the rebellion, the conspirators learn of Prexaspes’ final act en route to their attack. Derailed by the news, they again debate what course of action to take and are divided between a proposal of Otanes’ to delay and of Darius’ to attack immediately (3.76.2: μηδὲ ὑπερβάλλεσθαι). After a portent from the heavens, they back Darius’ approach. The divine approval of the future Great King’s plan continues, as when they move past the guards they are yielded to as those with a “divine escort” (3.77.1: θείῃ πομπῇ). Yet Herodotus explicitly states that none of the guards asks them anything, leaving Darius’ defense of falsehood unmotivated by the events themselves. This lack of relevance to the narrative action makes clearer the role of the speech in characterizing Darius before his acquisition of the throne. With its contact with the non-individualist ethics of Otanes and Prexaspes, the passage approaches the controversy over advocating falsehood for gain in fifth-century philosophical discourse. The following section surveys this problem in intellectual culture before returning to the wider scope of the profit motive in the Histories.

Intellectual Culture and the Profit Motive

In the sixth century, Theognis wrote of falsehood that even if it gave a trifling delight in its beginning, in the end it was a “shameful and base profit” (αἰσχρὸν δὴ κέρδος καὶ κακόν), one with no element of nobility (1. 607–10 Young).Footnote ²⁹ Among Herodotus’ contemporaries, there were similarly strident critics of false speech for gain on the grounds of its departure from justice. The chorus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus warns that one must gain profit with justice (889). In Euripides’ Hypsipyle, a character avers that “to those who are base, profit is more important than justice” (TrGF F 760a Kannicht: κακοῖς τὸ κέρδος τῆς δίκης ὑπέρτερον).Footnote ³⁰ The opposition of profit and justice is also found in the prologue of the Children of Heracles, as Iolaus utters the apophthegm that “one man is just by nature to his neighbours while the other kind has a will devoted to gain (ὁ δ’ ἐς τὸ κέρδος λῆμ’ ἔχων ἀνειμένον) and is useless (ἄχρηστος) to his city (2–4).”Footnote ³¹ “Uselessness” is part of a pointed commentary on his alienation from society. In Thucydides’ History, it is notable that either he or a near-contemporaneous interpolator describes the unraveling of social and political norms in the stasis at Corcyra as being driven by those who “preferred gain to not doing injustice” (3.84.2: προυτίθεσαν τοῦ τε μὴ ἀδικεῖν τὸ κερδαίνειν), a consequence of the power of envy (τὸ φθονεῖν).Footnote ³² The link between injustice and falsehood for gain is elsewhere implicit and morally culpable: Oedipus accuses the seer Teiresias of perverting his mantic art by lying for his own profit (388–9); and in the Antigone, Creon repeatedly makes the same charge (1035–7, 1055, 1061).Footnote ³³

Contemporary thinkers pursued a line of reasoning according to which human action should be directed by individual advantage. The best exemplar of this strand of thinking is found in Antiphon.Footnote ³⁴ In the fragmentary On Truth, the philosopher holds that the appropriate barometer of human action is advantage, which is the correct goal of a life lived according to nature.Footnote ³⁵

Antiphon sets the individual at odds with his society. The polis dictates certain behaviors from its citizens, and Antiphon is not calling for political anarchy – in the presence of others, these directives should be followed.Footnote ³⁶ Instead, he hollows out traditional morality by arguing for their rejection in private in the pursuit of individual gain. Those who follow the dictates of convention are, in fact, at the risk of harm: “But now it is obvious that justice deriving from law is not adequate to help those who readily accept such things.”Footnote ³⁷ Euripides’ infamous Ixion seems to follow these dictates in his scandalous remark that one should “win the reputation of a just man but undertake the deeds of one doing everything where he can make a gain” (TrGF F 426a Kannicht: τοῦ μὲν δικαίου τὴν δόκησιν ἄρνυσο, τὰ δ᾿ ἔργα τοῦ πᾶν δρῶντος ἔνθα κερδανεῖ).Footnote ³⁸ A subsequent fragment of the Ixion may counter this proposition by making an appeal to the wider community, holding that the one who wants to have more (TrGF 425 Kannicht: πλέον ἔχειν) than the citizens is “incapable of blending” (ἄμικτος) with friends and the city. The incompatibility of self-interest as an overriding motivation with participation in the polis draws attention to the negative consequences of egoism for the civic fabric.

In Antiphon, the contrast is also a political one, placing front and center the compromises in autonomy mandated by the social contract in Athens. In an example given of a prosecutor who has been wronged by a defendant, the prosecution must persuade the jury that they have been victimized or exact their own justice by means of deception (ἀπ[άτ]ῃ),Footnote ³⁹ while the defendant has precisely the same means available, a fact that unfairly puts them on the same initial footing. In another denigration of the legal system, Antiphon writes that the witness who provides a testimony of the truth paradoxically appears both just and unjust. He is considered just for his support of the one he is testifying for but acts unjustly by incriminating an individual who has done him no personal harm and may well take vengeance on him later. Again, the individual’s self-interest is the barometer of action, and the conclusion to be drawn is that acting against one’s own interests is injustice to the self (B 44).

Evidently, opposition arose in response to this. In the late fifth-century Anonymous Iamblichi, the philosopher explores the conditions through which virtue can be practiced and expressly rejects such motivation:

In a refutation of egoism, the philosopher argues that as a moral failing it damages the individual and offers an instrumental account of why it must be rejected.Footnote ⁴⁰

Still, the philosophy of self-interest had its sponsors. Gorgias’ Defence of Palamedes has its eponymous hero contend that all action arises from the pursuit of gain, kerdos (κέρδος), or the avoidance of punishment (DK 82 B 11a.19). Given the conceit that Palamedes is arguing on behalf of his life, this should not be understood as carrying an obviously negative moral connotation. Closely aligned to Darius’ words to the conspirators is a fragment from an unknown play of Sophocles in which the speaker affirms that “gain is pleasing, even if it comes from falsehoods” (τὸ κέρδος ἡδύ, κἂν ἀπὸ ψευδῶν ἴῃ).Footnote ⁴¹ In fact, this conjunction of falsehood and the pursuit of self-interest found in the Histories is later probed on the tragic stage. Sophocles’ Philoctetes, performed in 409 BCE, dramatized the contest of self-interest and traditional morality. In a dialogue early in the play, Odysseus attempts to persuade Neoptolemus to take Philoctetes’ bow by deception rather than force.Footnote ⁴² Odysseus urges Neoptolemus to abandon his nature and give himself over to him for a short time – he is ominously instructed to yield to “shamelessness” (83: ἀναιδές) – but only in order to be revealed as just and pious later on. Neoptolemus resists even a momentary lapse in morality by declaring “what words I feel distaste in hearing, | son of Laertes, these I also hate to act upon” (86–7: ἐγὼ μὲν οὓς ἂν τῶν λόγων ἀλγῶ κλύων, | Λαερτίου παῖ, τούσδε καὶ πράσσειν στυγῶ).Footnote ⁴³ Like the Persians, Neoptolemus aligns speech and action, uniting moral culpability in hearing and in deed.

Odysseus responds with praise for logos over deeds, declaring the tongue the more powerful tool (96–9).Footnote ⁴⁴ In doing so, he aims to reestablish the division between speech and action but by elevating the prior, recalling Darius’ contrast. Yet Neoptolemus continues to question Odysseus’ plan for deceiving Philoctetes on the basis of its requiring him to lie:

In its use against enemies, Odysseus’ reference to the use of a “trap” (δόλος) – a term associated with trickery that may have its roots in baiting fish – would carry a neutral connotation.Footnote ⁴⁵ However, in his willingness to treat the Greek Philoctetes as an enemy by using stratagems against him that were elsewhere reserved for their actual antagonists, the Trojans, Odysseys becomes a much more ambivalent leader.Footnote ⁴⁶

The passage corresponds closely to what we find in the Histories. Like Darius, Odysseus encourages his fellow conspirator to allow for false speech in the pursuit of advantage (κέρδος) against a moral intuition that it is shameful (αἰσχρόν).Footnote ⁴⁷ And as with the Persian revolutionary, he connects the lie to an impersonal sense of duty with πρέπει (“it is fitting”), which limits individual culpability. He too mandates against any delay (ὀκνεῖν), as Darius persistently did. Yet unlike the Great King, Odysseus is explicit in his statement that the trap is in the service of the Greeks on the plains of Troy. The morality of lying is rationalized due to its goal of “salvation,” a term that widens the screen to include the fortunes of the Greeks as a whole. Odysseus’ desire for victory is fully consonant with the wider Greek cause and he has at times been identified with the state itself.Footnote ⁴⁸ In this sense, he might be thought to advocate for a kind of “Noble Lie,” akin to Plato’s Socrates in the Republic. There, falsehood is essential to the maintenance of the society’s political and social hierarchies and tolerated for its promotion of virtue in the individual.Footnote ⁴⁹ By contrast, as Mary Whitlock Blundell observes of the Philoctetes, “Odysseus’ language suggests, however, that his overriding aim is in fact the fulfilment of his own goals, which just happen to coincide with the public good.”Footnote ⁵⁰ After all, later in the play, he will revise his motivation by revealing that his nature is directed by a desire to be victorious (1052: νικᾶν γε μέντοι πανταχοῦ χρῄζων ἔφυν).Footnote ⁵¹ And Odysseus’ errant speech is targeted by Philoctetes, in his complaint that “for him all can be said, all dared” (633–4).Footnote ⁵² The primacy of the profit drive is reiterated in Sophocles’ Creusa, where a speaker refers to even wealthy mortals as being among those who cling to gain, since “other things rank second to mortals after money” (F 354 Radt: κἄστι πρὸς τὰ χρήματα | θνητοῖσι τἆλλα δεύτερ᾿).Footnote ⁵³

For his part, though Neoptolemus initially bucks the strategy, by the end of the exchange he begins to accept Odysseus’ plan, as his response to Odysseus concentrating on his own gain (κέρδος δ’ ἐμοὶ) makes clear. He yields and agrees to the deception, persuaded that he will be called wise and noble (119). Neoptolemus’ solipsistic heroism may make him an easier mark for Odysseus, as when Troy is mentioned, it is because the young hero worries that he will not be the one responsible for its sack.Footnote ⁵⁴ There is a dramatic momentum behind their rugged individualism; it will throw into relief just how circumscribed self-interest is in the face of the social bond that Neoptolemus and Philoctetes will share.Footnote ⁵⁵ Fittingly for its performance context in the reestablished democracy, social entanglement that looks beyond the self is central to the ideology of the Athenian state and its maintenance of empire. Further, Athenian democratic political culture relied upon truthful speech to direct the city’s course in the assembly.

Sophocles’ treatment of the sophistic debate returns to the clash in values found in the Histories, where a transgressive drive for individual gain brings success.Footnote ⁵⁶ Part of the challenge that the Philoctetes brings to bear on this is the confusion of the distinctions between friend and enemy, as Philoctetes becomes increasingly difficult to place in the latter category. In the Histories, Darius defended falsehood in the context of an attack on an unambiguous enemy, the False Smerdis, but did so in general terms after voicing a willingness to betray the Persians.Footnote ⁵⁷

In crafting Odysseus’ persuasive oratory around egoism, Sophocles is in dialogue with the Philoctetes of Euripides, which had been performed in 431 BCE.Footnote ⁵⁸ In the tragedy, a Trojan embassy that arrived on Lemnos promised Philoctetes that they would give him money and make him a ruler if he were willing to join the Trojans. A disguised Odysseus opposes the betrayal of the Greeks in the knowledge that Troy could not be captured without the hero and his bow on their side. One fragment captures the rhetorical basis on which the Trojans made their case to Philoctetes, with gain as a prime motivator.

Again, kerdos is expected to spur morally dubious action, in this case, Philoctetes’ disloyalty to the Greek cause.Footnote ⁵⁹ It does so by an analogy with the admirable wealth of the gods and the profit of humans. In addition to the Trojan message of self-enrichment, the comparison of the life of the divine with that of mere mortals points to the distorted nature of the sentiment.

Odysseus’ response to the Trojan is telling, as he seems to counter the notion of self-interest by setting it in a wider political context. Odysseus says he speaks because he considers it shameful to remain silent “on behalf of the whole Greek army” (TrGF F 796 Kannicht: ὑπέρ … παντὸς Ἑλλήνων στρατοῦ). Even if only in the service of persuasive speech, Odysseus counters Philoctetes’ self-interest with the interests of the Greeks as a whole.Footnote ⁶⁰

Sophocles returns to the moral ambiguity of false speech explicitly elsewhere. In the Electra, Apollo decrees that Orestes will only be able to exact vengeance with “snares” (37: δόλοισι). At the beginning of the tragedy and in advance of a false report of Orestes’ death that is delivered to his mother, Orestes reflects on the stratagem: “what does it grieve me, if dying in words I am saved by deeds and win glory? I suppose that no speech with gain is base” (59–61: λόγῳ θανὼν | ἔργοισι σωθῶ κἀξενέγκωμαι κλέος | δοκῶ μέν, οὐδὲν ῥῆμα σὺν κέρδει κακόν).Footnote ⁶¹ For Orestes, as in several of the other examples above, the cleavage of speech from deeds renders it trifling. After all, he has been sent by the god Apollo and refers to his own mission as operating with “justice” (70: δίκῃ). As above, in the case of Sophocles’ Odysseus, social context is relevant. Unlike Odysseus, Orestes deceives his true enemies – but also his loyal sister. Still, here too there is evidence that his heroism is being interrogated, since Orestes universalizes in his avowal that speech is ultimately always directed by gain.Footnote ⁶² This is clearly how later readers such as Athenaeus conceived it; he included it in those things said basely by the poets and prose writers.Footnote ⁶³

Egoism and Political Participation

As the above passages demonstrate, fifth-century intellectual culture contemplates questions relating to self-interest and its clash with moral norms such as the injunction against falsehood. This tradition goes some way to contextualizing Herodotus’ exploration of these themes in the speeches of Darius, Otanes, and Prexaspes. On the surface, Darius emerges as an agitator of Persian tradition by departing from the ethnographic imperative against falsehood. Yet the Histories has already undermined this apparent practice by portraying the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses as rife with deception, with victory as its own justification. In his pursuit of individual gain then, Darius represents their successor. Otanes and Prexaspes serve as foils to this position: Otanes, in his stress on participation and collaboration; Prexaspes, in his rejection of individual gain and reliance upon the truth. Taken together, these three raise issues surrounding the compatibility of the monarch’s egoism with civic participation.

It is the Constitutional Debate that crystallizes the opposition of the one and the many.Footnote ⁶⁴ It reprises the contest between Otanes and Darius prior to the overthrow of the False Smerdis. For Otanes, the flaws in monarchy are systemic rather than unique to a single individual; on his account, the institution creates a negative feedback loop with the populace that leads to instability. Instead of the unjust and depraved individual ruler, Otanes endorses the multitude, in whom “everything is” (3.80.6). When Darius comes to speak in support of monarchy, he does so by looking to a hypothetical set of best democracies, oligarchies, and monarchies and settles on the rule of the best man as superior to the others. Reference to an ideal ruler allows Darius to offer up an image of the Persians as faultlessly governed by an individual with perfect judgment, something that the many and the few cannot hope to enjoy collectively. This rhetorical strategy bypasses the troubling aspects of recent history. It is the more distant past that serves Darius’ purpose: he reminds the people of their acquisition of freedom from the Medes by Cyrus. Since they were “freed by one man” (3.82.5: ἐλευθερωθέντας διὰ ἕνα ἄνδρα), he holds, they should be ruled by one man. Of course, the Persians have lately been freed by a group of seven, but such pedantic consistency will not weigh Darius down.Footnote ⁶⁵ With relative ease, Darius is able to recommit the Persians to monarchy in the Constitutional Debate. Even the method of the installation of the king disregards the more democratic options suggested by Otanes, by lot or by popular vote (3.83.2). If Otanes opens a vista onto an alternate Persia, it is just as swiftly closed off.

Individual gain through deception is a winning strategy for Darius following the Debate.Footnote ⁶⁶ The seven conspirators choose to accept as king whoever’s horse neighs first at sunrise in a designated area. To avoid leaving his success up to chance, Darius enlists his horse-keeper, a sophos named Oibares, in contriving a scheme (3.85.1–2: σοφίην; σόφισμα) to make the horse neigh. In his order, the future ruler returns to his emphasis on the importance of avoiding delay (μὴ ἀναβάλλεσθαι). Oibares is successful in his machinations and when Darius’ horse neighs first, he becomes the next Great King.Footnote ⁶⁷ Later, this horse and its rider will be memorialized in an equestrian statue with an inscription explaining their prominence in his acquisition of Persia by the ruse. This willingness to gain victory through deceit complements Darius’ support of falsehood for gain in the pre-coup deliberations and goes a step further by memorializing it.Footnote ⁶⁸

Darius’ pursuit of rugged self-interest has, however, negative implications for his role as ruler and for his subjects. The notion that individual advantage is its own justification and that falsehood and truth-telling aim at this leads to a breakdown in communication and to the inability to identify trustworthy and untrustworthy Persians. This is exemplified immediately after the overthrow of the False Smerdis. In what is Darius’ first act as ruler, Herodotus relates that one of the seven conspirators, Intaphrenes, was put to death (3.118.1). After the installation of Darius on the throne, we are told that they had agreed to a nomos according to which any of the other six might meet with the king without advance notice, provided that the king was not with one of his wives. On one occasion in which Intaphrenes enters the palace to converse with the Great King, he is informed that he is with his wife and barred from entry. Intaphrenes believes that the attendants “spoke lies” to him (3.118.2: ψεύδεα λέγειν) and maims them horrifically as a punishment. When Darius receives his slaves and hears of this outrage, he immediately suspects the other five of having done this in league with Intaphrenes to overthrow his rule and orders them to come one by one to make a trial of their opinions on the vicious act. When satisfied that Intaphrenes has acted alone, Herodotus relates that the ruler seized not only Intaphrenes but all of his male relations, again on the grounds that a conspiracy to overthrow him is in the works. This paranoia has no basis in reality, of course, but like Intaphrenes, Darius distrusts the sincerity of those around him. In both cases, needless destruction is the consequence. The episode showcases just what the inability to distinguish truth and falsehood, friend and enemy, leads to.

Viewed in the context of sophistic discussion on self-interest, the interweaving of the episodes on Darius, Otanes, and Prexaspes do not point to the triumph of truth over falsehood or altruism over egoism. More ambiguously, they articulate a live debate on what the individual owes to the state and to the self. The power of the profit motive and its effects on civic engagement is readily evident in, for example, Athens’ transition to democracy. After the Athenians are freed from the rule of the sons of Peisistratus, they quickly rise in martial prowess in relation to their neighbors. The cause of this rise in their fortunes is, according to the narrator, their new enfranchisement and ability to work on their own behalf: “so it’s clear that when held down they were deliberately cowardly, as those working for a despot, while after they were freed each individual was eager to achieve something for himself” (5.78: δηλοῖ ὦν ταῦτα ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν ἐθελοκάκεον ὡς δεσπότῃ ἐργαζόμενοι, ἐλευθερωθέντων δὲ αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἑωυτῷ προεθυμέετό <τι> κατεργάζεσθαι). Herodotus might have formulated this in terms of an eagerness to work on behalf of the people or the institution of democracy, but instead it is the individual who is elevated through this institutional change.

An even more salient parallel to Darius is Themistocles, who continuously enriches himself, as his interests happen to overlap with those of Athens.Footnote ⁶⁹ Emily Baragwanath has observed that initially the narrative presents Themistocles as a unifier and a driver of collective interest but that this gives way to a far more ambivalent presentation.Footnote ⁷⁰ Before Artemisium, he accepts a bribe of thirty talents from the Euboeans with a promise to keep the Hellenic navy in place and fight in front of Euboea. To acquit himself of his obligation, Themistocles uses part of the sum to bribe the Spartan commander, Eurybiades, and another part to pay off the Corinthian commander, Adeimantus, allowing both to believe that they were funds from the Athenian state. Herodotus relates that by these means the Euboeans were gratified, the commanders fully persuaded, and “Themistocles himself made a profit” (8.5.3: αὐτός τε ὁ Θεμιστοκλέης ἐκέρδηνε).Footnote ⁷¹ After the Greek victory at Salamis, his deception continues. Beginning with Andros, Themistocles attempts to extort money for his own gain. Due to the poverty of the island, they refuse his request and are then besieged by the Greek fleet, in a campaign that initially fails but eventually results in the establishment of an Athenian cleruchy on Andros, as the Greek audience would have well known.Footnote ⁷² This only enlarged Themistocles’ appetite: “he did not cease from his desire for gain, and kept sending threatening words to the other islands, asking for money through the same messengers” (8.112.1: οὐ γὰρ ἐπαύετο πλεονεκτέων, ἐσπέμπων ἐς τὰς ἄλλας νήσους ἀπειλητηρίους λόγους αἴτεε χρήματα διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν ἀγγέλων). Threat of naval investment allowed Themistocles to enrich himself without the awareness of the Athenians, who he nonetheless represented for the islanders.Footnote ⁷³ Themistocles’ profit motive is fundamentally ambiguous.Footnote ⁷⁴ Themistocles epitomises the dilemma of the profit drive. It is worth emphasizing precisely who he deceives – fellow Greeks who are not unequivocally the enemy. While unscrupulous, at times his agenda overlaps with that of Athens. Even when it does not, his self-interest generates benefits for the state. Like Darius, his rapacity is linked to imperial power and expansionism.

Unlike Athens, in Persia self-interest is the prerogative of the ruler. In this respect, Xerxes proves a worthy heir to his father’s legacy. In the course of his march from Sardis, Xerxes stops at Abydos to survey his army and navy and turns to consult with his uncle and advisor, Artabanus, on the strength of their forces. Artabanus reacts with cautious words, indicating the dangers of adverse weather and finding food sufficient for their numbers. He urges fear in deliberation and boldness in action. Xerxes replies by extolling the value of swift action and its result – gain: “to those who wish to do something, on the whole gains usually are found, but to those who reckon up everything and delay, not much happens” (7.50.2: οῖσι τοίνυν βουλομένοισι ποιέειν ὡς τὸ ἐπίπαν φιλέει γίνεσθαι τὰ κέρδεα, τοῖσι δὲ ἐπιλεγομένοισί τε πάντα καὶ ὀκνέουσι οὐ μάλα ἐθέλει). In an echo of Darius, deliberation is coded to delay and speed to profit.Footnote ⁷⁵ There is an uncomfortable truth to this deduction. In any case, before Xerxes’ march on Greece, the Great King is performing what has become a well-rehearsed script.Footnote ⁷⁶

Reading the Histories in the Cyropaedia: Xenophon and the Persian Profit Motive

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, another work that defies generic categorization, follows the life of Cyrus the Great and the rise of Persia’s empire. As has long been recognized, this hybrid narrative history, philosophical dialogue, biography, and proto-novel is in dialogue with Herodotus’ narration of the life of Cyrus in Book 1 of the Histories. Early in the Cyropaedia, Xenophon engages creatively with Herodotus’ portrayal of the Persians as committed to pedagogical truth-telling while having monarchs who regularly indulge in falsehood.Footnote ⁷⁷ In doing so, he returns to the status of gain and its effect on the civic body.

During a journey to the border of Persia after Cyrus has been made general of the Median army, he discusses the art of military tactics and generalship with his father, Cambyses. Their exchange turns to the appropriate way to take advantage of an enemy, at which point Cambyses reveals that this entails becoming a “plotter, dissembler, treacherous, deceitful, a thief, robber, and greedy in every way” (1.6.27).Footnote ⁷⁸ Even so, Cambyses assures his son that he would remain the “most just man and the most observant of the law” (1.6.28: δικαιότατός τε καὶ νομιμώτατος). Cyrus, unnerved by the paradox, asks why he and the rest of the Persian youths have not been instructed in how to undertake these actions. Cambyses explains that these juveniles have been trained in deception but that this has so far only been practiced on animals in the hunt. Even if Persian boys deal truly with men, they are still expected to use snares, tricks, and all other means of unfair advantage against animals. The distinctions between the appropriate action toward man and animal, he clarifies, will later map onto those of friends and enemies. When Cyrus again protests that his education has not prepared him to treat men – even enemies – this way, Cambyses replies with a developmental account of the Persian education system:

For these Persian youths in the past, an education in justice was a holistic one that prepared them to encounter their enemies and to counteract the potential errors of their friends. To train them in the dark side of justice, the anonymous teacher had them practice upon one another, leading them to become proficient in deception and taking advantage. The unintended result of this is that, however, “they were perhaps becoming proficient too in being lovers of gain” (1.6.32: ἴσως δὲ καὶ πρὸς τὸ φιλοκερδεῖν οὐκ ἀφυεῖς ὄντες),Footnote ⁷⁹ so that the division of actions directed toward friends and enemies was no longer maintained. This erosion of the civic fabric led to a new law (ῥήτρα) according to which the education of the Persians was now to consist of learning to tell the truth (ἀληθεύειν), not to deceive, and not to take advantage over others (1.6.33).Footnote ⁸⁰ This mirrors the education of the enslaved in Persia, who are taught only this partial account of justice. Unlike them, when Persian youths reach maturity, as Cyrus has, they are able to learn the “customary practices” (1.6.34: νόμιμα) appropriate for dealing with the enemy. These precautions are designed to produce “tamer” (1.6.33: πρᾳότεροι) citizens to avoid their becoming “savage” (1.6.34: ἄγριοι) with one another, in a return to the animal analogy above, where the distinction of humans and beasts gave ground for instruction in taking advantage of the enemy.Footnote ⁸¹ As Jon Hesk has argued, Xenophon supports military deceit but refuses to have Cyrus educated in how to deceive friends because of the potential “behavioural fall-out amongst citizens which would prove catastrophic for the community.”Footnote ⁸² Cambyses’ failure to tackle the justice of deceiving friends arises, on this account, from the populace’s inability to maintain friend-enemy distinctions. The cause of this is not probed by Hesk, but Cambyses identifies it as “love of gain” (φιλοκερδεῖν). In the face of individual profit, in Persia friends and enemies cease to have meaning. The conclusion of the Cyropaedia reprises the theme in its analysis of the failings of Persia in Xenophon’s own time: unlike their ancestors under Cyrus, these Persians are characterized by their “love of base gain” (8.8.18: αἰσχροκέρδεια).

In the Histories, Darius’ speech leaves the issues surrounding Persian tradition, falsehood, and the profit motive highly charged but ambiguous. The audience is made aware of the complexity of moral action through Darius’ rise to the Persian throne, but there is no explicit resolution to it. In his intervention in the education of Cyrus, Xenophon locates the origins of the tradition of truth-telling in the ancient history of Persia. His Socratic-style teacher’s attempts to communicate the multifaceted nature of justice fail, leading to its simplification as “truth-telling,” at least until one reaches maturity. Yet this naturalizes Herodotus’ depiction of Persian deceit and lying as harking back to a more nuanced understanding of justice. As in Cambyses’ speech in the Cyropaedia, in the Histories it is the profit motive that proves a catalyst of historical action. It leads to Darius’ inability to distinguish friend and enemy, even as it evokes Otanes’ complaint on the failure of the monarch to treat his subjects with any decency. Among Xenophon’s ancient Persians too, profit corroded relations between citizens. More damningly, in the Cyropaedia, it has the potential to undercut Cyrus’ successes: when Cyrus’ father Cambyses returns to the stage in Book 8, he does so with a warning to his son against ruling the Persians as he does other nations – to his advantage (8.5.24: ἐπὶ πλεονεξίᾳ). Ruling Persian subjects this way, he warns, will only lead to ruin.

Conclusion

In advance of the revolt against the False Smerdis, the Histories orchestrates a philosophical debate on the profit motive and the rationalization of falsehood. The future Great King, Darius, offers an elaborate defense of kerdos and the necessity of lying to achieve the aims of the group of conspirators. Lying, however, transgresses the Persians’ abhorrence of falsehood as recorded in their ethnography. Darius’ speech is sandwiched between Otanes’ support of participatory action and Prexaspes’ rejection of falsehood and self-interest, which suggest that Darius’ words are not fully consonant with his fellow citizens’ behaviors. In the end, falsehood is not required during the revolution, which suggests that the airing of the profit motive serves more to characterize Darius as heir to the problematic moral patrimony of Cyrus and Cambyses than to explain the downfall of the False Smerdis and his brother. In this instance, Darius’ private interests overlap with those of Persia, much as Odysseus’ do with Greece in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, and Themistocles’ with Athens during the Greco-Persian Wars and their aftermath. Egoism, however, is not treated one-dimensionally as constructive. The distorting potential for the civic fabric in Darius’ formulation is dramatized in the breakdown of communication that follows his establishment as king. If everyone aims for his own advantage and truth is but a means to an end, the position of the ruler and the ruled is unstable, as is the line dividing friend and enemy.