At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise.  These were sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established, during which men remained silent through fear.  But at length some of the principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the circumstances.  Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the capital of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation in the existing crisis.  This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a prince of the blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the succession, failing the issue of Cyrus.  At the early age of twenty he had attracted the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then of a design to seize the throne.  He was now about twenty-eight years of age, and therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise; which was probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still alive, sent him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person.  Youth and vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle against the holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those advantages.  He therefore yielded to his son that headship of the movement to which his position would have entitled him; and, with the leadership in danger, he yielded necessarily his claim to the first place, when the time of peril should be past and the rewards of victory should come to be apportioned.

Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of the conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters to an immediate decision.  Overruling the timidity of a party among the conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded, without a moment’s pause, to the attack.  According to the Greek historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him after a brief struggle.  But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course of events must have been very different.  The Magus was not slain in the privacy of his palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small and insignificant fort in the part of Media called “the Maesan plain,” or, more briefly, “Nisaea,” whither he appears to have fled with a band of followers.  Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened to be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt, we have no means of determining.  We only know that the scene of the last struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his adherents, who were involved in the fall of their master.