was a thorn in the side of Artaxerxes during the half of his reign.  He had ended his campaign in Egypt by engaging to preserve the lives of Inaros and the 6000 Greeks who had capitulated at Byblos, and, in spite of the anger of the king, he succeeded in keeping his word for five years, but at the end of that time the demands of Amestris prevailed.  She succeeded in obtaining from him some fifty Greeks whom she beheaded, besides Inaros himself, whom she impaled to avenge Achaemenes.  Megabyzos, who had not recovered from the losses he had sustained in his last campaign against Cimon, at first concealed his anger, but he asked permission to visit his Syrian province, and no sooner did he reach it, than he resorted to hostilities.  He defeated in succession Usiris and Menostates, the two generals despatched against him, and when force failed to overcome his obstinate resistance, the government condescended to treat with him, and swore to forget the past if he would consent to lay down arms.  To this he agreed, and reappeared at court; but once there, his confidence nearly proved fatal to him.  Having been invited to take part in a hunt, he pierced with his javelin a lion which threatened to attack the king:  Artaxerxes called to mind an ancient law which punished by death any intervention of that kind, and he ordered that the culprit should be beheaded.  Megabyzos with difficulty escaped this punishment through the entreaties of Amestris and of his wife Amytis; but he was deprived of his fiefs, and sent to Kyrta, on the shores of the Persian Gulf.  After five years this exile became unbearable; he therefore spread the report that he was attacked by leprosy, and he returned home without any one venturing to hinder him, from fear of defiling themselves by contact with his person.  Amestris and Amytis brought about his reconciliation with his sovereign; and thenceforward he regulated his conduct so successfully that the past was completely forgotten, and when he died, at the age of seventy-six years, Artaxerxes deeply regretted his loss.*

* These events are known to us only through Ctesias.  Their date is uncertain, but there is no doubt that they occurred after Cimon’s campaign in Cyprus and the conclusion of the peace of Callias.

Peace having been signed with Athens, and the revolt of Megabyzos being at an end, Artaxerxes was free to enjoy himself without further care for the future, and to pass his time between his various capitals and palaces.

[Illustration:  258.jpg VIEW OF THE ACHAEMENIAN RUINS OF ISTAKHR]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving of Flandin and Coste.