and Caria merely the two ports of Halicarnassus and Notium, and the three islands of Cos, Samos, and Lesbos:  from that time the power of the great king increased from year to year, and weighed heavily on the destinies of Greece.  Meanwhile Darius II. was growing old, and intrigues with regard to the succession were set on foot.  Two of his sons put forward claims to the throne:  Arsaces had seniority in his favour, but had been born when his father was still a mere satrap; Cyrus, on the contrary, had been born in the purple, and his mother Parysatis was passionately devoted to him.* Thanks to her manouvres, he was practically created viceroy of Asia Minor in 407 B.C., with such abundant resources of men and money at his disposal, that he was virtually an independent sovereign.  While he was consolidating his power in the west, his mother endeavoured to secure his accession to the throne by intriguing at the court of the aged king; if her plans failed, Cyrus was prepared to risk everything by an appeal to arms.

     * Cyrus was certainly not more than seventeen years old in
     407 B.C., evening admitting that he was born immediately
     after his father’s accession in 424-3 B.C.

[Illustration:  279.jpg CYRUS THE YOUNGER]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the coins in the
     Cabinet des Medailles.

He realised that the Greeks would prove powerful auxiliaries in such a contingency; and as soon as he had set up his court at Sardes, he planned how best to conciliate their favour, or at least to win over those whose support was likely to be most valuable.  Athens, as a maritime power, was not in a position to support him in an enterprise which especially required the co-operation of a considerable force of heavily armed infantry.  He therefore deliberately espoused the cause of the Peloponnesians, and the support he gave them was not without its influence on the issue of the struggle:  the terrible day of AEgos Potamos was a day of triumph for him as much as for the Lacedaemonians (405 B.C.).

His intimacy with Lysander, however, his constant enlistments of mercenary troops, and his secret dealings with the neighbouring provinces, had already aroused suspicion, and the satraps placed under his orders, especially Tissaphernes, accused him to the king of treason.  Darius summoned him to Susa to explain his conduct (405 B.C.), and he arrived just in time to be present at his father’s death (404), but too late to obtain his designation as heir to the throne through the intervention of his mother, Parysatis; Arsaces inherited the crown, and assumed the name of Artaxerxes.

[Illustration:  280.jpg ARTAXERXES MNEMON]