The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the.  Magus began.  It would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy.  When Darius reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his seat upon the vacant throne.  No opposition was offered to him.  The Persians gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power.  The provincials were too far off to interfere.  Such malcontents as might be present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the streets.  The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only anxious to escape notice.  The reign of the new king no doubt commenced amid those acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a sovereign first shows himself to his subjects.

The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for their object the re-establishment of the old worship.  He rebuilt the Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies.  It may be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who, under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm.  His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their conduct would be consonant with his wishes.  This trust was not misplaced:  for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to induce the new king to put a stop to the work, the only result was a fresh edict, confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding interference, and assigning a further grant of money, cattle, corn, etc., from the royal stores, for the furtherance of the pious undertaking.  Its accomplishment was declared to be for the advantage of the king and his house, since, when the temple was finished, sacrifices would be offered in it to “the God of Heaven,” and prayer would be made “for the life of the king and of his sons.”  Such was the sympathy which still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship of Jehovah.  But the reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be auspiciously begun, was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to encounter armed hostility, in various quarters.  In the loosely organized empires of the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if accompanied by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an opportunity for rebellion.  Doubt as to the condition of the capital paralyzes the imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking advantage of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of the chaos which they see around them.  The more remote provinces are especially liable to be thus