organise and build up a solid fabric out of the materials which his predecessors had left in a state of chaos; if Persia maintained her rule over the East for two entire centuries, it was due to him and to him alone.  The question of the succession, with its almost inevitable popular outbreaks, had at once to be dealt with.  Darius had had several wives, and among them, the daughter of Gobryas, who had borne him three children:  Artabazanes, the eldest, had long been regarded as the heir-presumptive, and had probably filled the office of regent during the expedition in Scythia.  But Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who had already been queen under Cambyses and Gaumata, was indignant at the thought of her sons bowing down before the child of a woman who was not of Achaemenian race, and at the moment when affairs in Egypt augured ill for the future, and when the old king, according to custom, had to appoint his successor, she intreated him to choose Khshayarsha, the eldest of her children, who had been borne to the purple, and in whose veins flowed the blood of Cyrus.  Darius acceded to her request, and on his death, a few months after, Khshayarsha ascended the throne.  His brothers offered no opposition, and the Persian nobles did homage to their new king.  Khshayarsha, whom the Greeks called Xerxes, was at that time thirty-four years of age.  He was tall, vigorous, of an imposing figure and noble countenance, and he had the reputation of being the handsomest man of his time, but neither his intelligence nor disposition corresponded to his outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent, narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and mistresses.  The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was inclined to shirk it.  His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave the disgrace of Marathon unpunished, or he would lower the respect attached to the name of Persia throughout the world.  He wished, at all events, to bring Egyptian affairs to an issue before involving himself in a serious European war.  Khabbisha had done his best to prepare a stormy reception for him.  During a period of two years Khabbisha had worked at the extension of the entrenchments along the coast and at the mouths of the Nile, in order to repulse the attack that he foresaw would take place simultaneously with that on land, but his precautions proved fruitless when the decisive moment arrived, and he was completely crushed by the superior numbers of Xerxes.

[Illustration:  224.jpg Xerxes]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a daric in the Cabinet des
     Medailles.