the only interpretation which would suggest itself to a despot, Kambyses at once sent Prexaspes home with orders to slay the prince. When it was afterwards discovered that the deed had been done to no purpose, Prexaspes swore solemnly that he had not only slain but buried him with his own hands; but the historian admits that while one account represented him as murdering Smerdis on a hunting expedition, others said that he had enticed him out to sea and thrown him overboard. The Behistun inscription shuts out both these tales by saying that the tyrant's brother was murdered long before the army started for Egypt.

We now come to the last act of the tragedy. The army had reached on its homeward march a Syrian village named Agbatana, when a herald coming from Sousa bade all Persians to own as their king not Kambyses who was deposed but his brother Smerdis the son of Cyrus. To a question of Prexaspes, put by the order of Kambyses, the herald replied that he had received his message not from the new king, whom he had never seen, but from the Magian who was over his household. A further question put by Kambyses to Prexaspes himself called forth the answer that he knew not who could have hatched this plot but Patizeithes, whom Kambyses had left at Sousa as his high steward, and his brother Smerdis. So then this was the Smerdis whose head was to touch the heaven: and the despot wept for his brother whom he had so uselessly done to death. Presently he said that he would march on at once against the usurper, and leaping on his horse gashed his thigh (the part where he had wounded the calf-god) with his sword from which the sheath had accidentally fallen off. 'What is the name of this place?' asked Kambyses, when he felt that the wound was serious. They told him that he was at Agbatana; and the tyrant, knowing now that only a misinterpretation of the oracle from Bouto which said that he must die at Agbatana had led him to indulge in pleasant dreams of an old age spent among the Median hills, confessed that his brother had been righteously avenged.

Such is the dramatic version of Herodotos, which absolutely needs the doubling of the names Agbatana and Smerdis. The Behistun inscription, it is said, affirms that Kambyses killed himself purposely; that the name of the Magian was Gomates, not Smerdis; and that his usurpation was a religious, and not, as has been generally supposed, a national rebellion, its object

being to restore the ancient magism or element worship, which the predominance of the stricter monotheism of Zoroaster had placed under a cloud. The details of the sequel may be passed lightly over. The usurpation of the false Smerdis provoked a conspiracy which ended in his overthrow and death, and in the raising up of Dareios to the Persian throne. The circumstantial and vivid narrative of Herodotos is in great part set aside by the inscription of Behistun. But if this monument overthrows on important points a series of tales in the history of one of the most trustworthy of men, with what confidence may we receive any story which paints the course of intrigue and illustrates the secret history of a Persian or Assyrian court? We have arrived at a time in which such intrigues and hidden motives are said to be the mainspring of actions affecting all Hellas; and the answer to this doubt must seriously affect almost the whole history of Persia in its connexion with events which have changed the fortunes of the world.

CHAPTER II.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE UNDER DAREIOS.

THE death of the usurper who dethroned Kambyses was followed, it is said, by a general massacre of the Magians. This massacre seems in no way to have deterred the Medians from making a general effort to recover the supremacy of which they had been deprived by Cyrus. The fortune of war went against them. The revolt of Babylon may have appeared a matter even more serious; but our knowledge can scarcely be said to extend beyond the facts that it broke out and that it was with great difficulty suppressed, the walls of the city being now so far ⚫ dismantled as to leave the place henceforth at the mercy of the conqueror.

But the worst enemies of Dareios came sometimes from his own people. Among the most formidable of these antagonists was Oroites, the satrap of Lydia, who has a wider fame as the murderer of Polykrates the despot of Samos. In the emphatic words of Herodotos, this unscrupulous tyrant was lord of the most magnificent city in the world, and in spite of all his iniquities enjoyed an unbroken good fortune. His well-doing became,

we are told, a cause of grief and misgiving to his ally Amasis, who reminded him of the Divine Jealousy, and counselled him to inflict some pain on himself, if none were sent to him by the gods. This counsel Polykrates thought that he could not follow more effectually than by rowing out into the deep sea and casting into the water a seal-ring of emerald set in gold. A few days later a fisherman brought to him as a gift a fish which seemed to him too fine to be taken to the market. Polykrates in requital bade the man to supper: but before the time for the meal came, his servants had found the seal-ring in the fish. In great astonishment Polykrates sent to Amasis a letter telling him what had happened. The Egyptian king, feeling now that no man could deliver another from that which was to come upon him, sent a herald to Samos and broke off the alliance, in order that, when some evil fate overtook Polykrates, his own heart might not be grieved as for a friend.

It is possible, as some have thought, that the alliance was broken off not by Amasis but by Polykrates himself, for the next thing which Herodotos relates of him is an offer to furnish troops for the army of Kambyses. The Persian king eagerly accepted the offer, and Polykrates as eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to get rid of those Samians whom he regarded as disaffected towards himself. But in the epical method of Herodotos the time was now come when the man who had been victorious over all his enemies should exhibit in his own person the working of that law which keeps human affairs in constant flow and ebb. We can, therefore, only say, as he tells us, that Oroites whom Cyrus had left as satrap in Sardeis had made up his mind to intrap and slay Polykrates. A promise to aid him with money roused the greed of Polykrates, and Maiandrios his scribe was sent to test the words of Oroites who, when he had heard that the Samian was nigh at hand, filled eight vessels with stones all but a little about the brim, and having placed gold on the stones fastened the vessels and kept them ready. The trick succeeded. Polykrates sailed from Samos, taking with him a physician named Demokedes, the son of Kalliphon of Kroton. But he reached Magnesia, the historian adds, only to perish with an end befitting neither himself nor his great designs; and his death was followed at Samos by a miserable period of intrigues and violent revolutions, the result being that the first whether of Hellenic or of barbarian

cities passed in a state of desolation under the yoke of the Persian king.

The tragedy of Polykrates brings us to two stories from which it is no easy task to extract much historical fact. Of these stories the former is associated with the name of the Krotonian physician Demokedes, who, on the death of Oroites, was carried to Sousa along with the other slaves found in his household and for some time remained there unknown and uncared for. At length it happened, so the story ran, that Dareios in a hunt leaped from his horse, and so twisted his foot that the ankle bone was moved from its socket. The Egyptian physicians, whom he kept about him, made the mischief worse than they found it; and it was not until he had passed eight wretched and sleepless nights that some one, who had heard in Sardeis of the great skill of Demokedes, told the king, at whose bidding the friend of Polykrates was brought before him, dragging his chains and clothed in rags. This man's heart, we are told, was filled with the one absorbing desire to see his birthplace once more. By his means the king's injured limb was so handled that in a little while it was as sound as it had ever been. Persian despots are seldom ungrateful for benefits which add to their own comfort; and Demokedes was rewarded with a great house in Sousa and with the privilege of eating at the king's table. He had, in short, every wish of his heart, but one. The king would not part with him; and Demokedes would rather starve in Hellas than feast in Sousa. But the illness of Atossa, the ruling spirit in the seraglio of Dareios, brought him an opportunity of escape. Grateful for the healing of a tumour which had long tortured her, this daughter of Cyrus, following the instructions of the physician, went to Dareios and reproached him with sitting idle on his throne without making an effort to gain nations or kingdoms for the Persians. Dareios hastened to answer that he had just resolved to do as she now desired him, and that he was making ready to go against the Scythians. 'Nay,' replied Atossa, in words which to the Athenians who heard or read the narrative of the great historian conveyed an exquisite irony, 'go not against the Scythians first. I have heard of the beauty of the women of Hellas, and I desire to have Laconian and Argive and Athenian and Corinthian maidens to be my servants. Go then against Hellas: and thou hast here one who above all men can show thee how thou mayest do this

-I mean him who has healed thy foot.' Dareios so far yielded as to say that Demokedes should serve as a guide to the Persians whom he would send to spy out Hellas. Accordingly fifteen Persian officers left Sidon with Demokedes, and sailing along the coasts of Hellas, made a record of all that they saw until they came to Taras, which the Latins called Tarentum, in Italy. From this place Demokedes managed to make his escape to Kroton. The Persians, returning home, were wrecked on the Iapygian coast; but a Tarantine exile ransomed them from slavery and took them to Dareios.

This story must take its place amongst the tales of which we can neither affirm nor deny the reality. The plan of Demokedes was to obtain his freedom at the possible cost of the ruin of his country: the plan of Atossa clearly was to precipitate the whole power of Persia upon Hellas at a time when Hippias was still tyrant of Athens, and when the Persian could have encountered no serious resistance, unless perhaps from the mountaineers of the Peloponnesos. This plan confessedly failed; but there is no record that Dareios expressed any indignation at the treatment of his officers. As a political motive, these intrigues are thus superfluous, and all that can be said in favour of the narrative is that it is, at least in its earlier scenes, so strictly Oriental in its colouring as to come before us with a specially deceptive force. The very completeness of the picture drawn for us in the story of the Krotoniate physician may reasonably lead us to question whether these are the genuine movements which stirred the ancient world. Polykrates is undoubtedly an historical person: but the tale of his life is in great part a romance to illustrate an ethical or theological theory; and the image of Demokedes already grows more indistinct, when we see that his career is almost more legendary than that of his master.

When from the story of Demokedes we turn to the second tale, that, namely, of the Scythian expedition, the residuum of fact is found to be scarcely less scanty. With 600 ships and an army of 700,000 men Dareios, it is said, reached the bridge of boats thrown across the Thrakian Bosporos, and thence marched on to the spot where the Ionians had prepared another bridge of boats by which he was to cross the Istros, or Danube. This bridge, after all had crossed over, Dareios, it is said, gave orders to break up; but Kôês of Mytilene warned him of the danger of starvation in a country where there were no settled