All places of much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.  Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing, but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.

Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian.  Occasionally it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native prince a divided authority.  This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia.  Tribes also, included within the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and their neighbors.  Robber bands in many places infested the mountains, owing no allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the standing army.

The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional.  Persia paid no tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy.  Its inhabitants were, however, bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him gifts according to their means.  This burthen may have been felt sensibly by the rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could not afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a few dates, or a handful of wild fruit.  On the other hand, the king was bound, whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman who appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about sixteen shillings of our money.  This custom commemorated the service rendered by the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the forces of Astyages.

The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.  This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown.  A definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to 1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign, and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital.  Besides this, a payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which it was most celebrated.  This latter burthen must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire, if the statement of Herodotus be true