* This is the town which later on under the Lagidae received
     the name of Berenice, and which is now called Benghazi.

** It is doubtless to these acts of personal authority on the part of Aryandes that Darius alludes in the Behistun Inscription, when he says, “While I was before Babylon, the following provinces revolted against me—­Persia and Susiana, the Medes and Assyria, and the Egyptians...”

But this tardy homage availed him nothing.  Darius himself visited Egypt and disembarrassed himself of ’his troublesome subject by his summary execution, inflicted, some said, because he had issued coins of a superior fineness to those of the royal mint,* while, according to others, it was because he had plundered Egypt and so ill-treated the Egyptians as to incite them to rebellion.

* It is not certain that Aryandes did actually strike any coinage in his own name, and perhaps Herodotus has only repeated a popular story current in Egypt in his days.  If this money actually existed, its coinage was but a pretext employed by Darius; the true motive of the condemnation of Aryandes was certainly an armed revolt, or a serious presumption of revolutionary intentions.

After the suppression of this rival, Darius set himself to win the affection of his Egyptian province, or, at least, to render its servitude bearable.  With a country so devout and so impressed with its own superiority over all other nations, the best means of accomplishing his object was to show profound respect for its national gods and its past glory.  Darius, therefore, proceeded to shower favours on the priests, who had been subject to persecution ever since the disastrous campaign in Ethiopia.  Cambyses had sent into exile in Elam the chief priest of Sais—­that Uza-harrisniti who had initiated him into the sacred rites; Darius gave permission to this important personage to return to his native land, and commissioned him to repair the damage inflicted by the madness of the son of Cyrus.  Uzaharrisniti, escorted back with honour to his native city, re-established there the colleges of sacred scribes, and restored to the temple of Nit the lands and revenues which had been confiscated.  Greek tradition soon improved upon the national account of this episode, and asserted that Darius took an interest in the mysteries of Egyptian theology, and studied the sacred books, and that on his arrival at Memphis in 517 B.C., immediately after the death of an Apis, he took part publicly in the general mourning, and promised a reward of a hundred talents of gold to whosoever should discover the successor of the bull.  According to a popular story still current when Herodotus travelled in Egypt, the king visited the temple of Pthah before leaving Memphis, and ordered his statue to be erected there beside that of Sesostris.  The priests refused to obey this command, for, said they, “Darius has not equalled the deeds of Sesostris:  he has not conquered the Scythians, whom Sesostris overcame.”  Darius replied that “he hoped to accomplish as much as Sesostris had done, if he lived as long as Sesostris,” and so conciliated the patriotic pride of the priests.  The Egyptians, grateful for his moderation, numbered him among the legislators whose memory they revered, by the side of Menes, Asykhis, Bocchoris, and Sabaco.