Kitap 3
695
Ath. Let us follow the story and see how things went.Cf. Hdt. 3.68-88. Darius was not a king’s son, nor was he reared luxuriously. When he came and seized the kingdom, with his six companions, he divided it into seven parts, of which some small vestiges remain even to this day; and he thought good to manage it by enacting laws into which he introduced some measure of political equality, and also incorporated in the law regulations about the tribute-money which Cyrus had promised the Persians, whereby he secured friendliness and fellowship amongst all classes of the Persians, and won over the populace by money and gifts; and because of this, the devotion of his armies won for him as much more land as Cyrus had originally bequeathed. After Darius came Xerxes, and he again was brought up with the luxurious rearing of a royal house: O Darius—for it is thus one may rightly address the father—how is it that you have ignored the blunder of Cyrus, and have reared up Xerxes in just the same habits of life in which Cyrus reared Cambyses? And Xerxes, being the product of the same training, ended by repeating almost exactly the misfortunes of Cambyses. Since then there has hardly ever been a single Persian king who was really, as well as nominally, Great.The Persian monarch was commonly styled the Great King.
