* Most of the ancient writers shared this opinion, and have been followed therein by many modern writers.  Rawlinson was the first to show that Gaumata’s movement was not Median, and that he did not in the least alter the position of the Persians in the empire:  but he allows the Magian usurpation to have been the prelude to a sort of religious reform.

Here, however, the reform touched less upon a question of belief than on one of fact.  The unity of the empire presupposed the unity of the royal fire, and where-ever that fire was burning another could not be lighted without sacrilege in the eyes of the faithful.  The pyres that Gaumata desired to extinguish were, no doubt, those which the feudal families had maintained for their separate use in defiance of the law, and the measure which abolished them had a political as well as a religious side.  The little we can glean of the line of action adopted by Smerdis does not warrant the attribution to him of the vast projects which some modern writers credit him with.  He naturally sought to strengthen himself on the throne, which by a stroke of good fortune he had ascended, and whatever he did tended solely to this end.  The name and the character that he had assumed secured him the respect and fidelity of the Iranians:  “there was not one, either among the Medes or the Persians, nor among the members of the Achaemenian race, who dreamed of disputing his power” in the early days of his reign.  The important thing in his eyes was, therefore, to maintain among his subjects as long as possible the error as to his identity.  He put to death all, whether small or great, who had been in any way implicated in the affairs of the real Smerdis, or whom he suspected of any knowledge of the murder.  He withdrew from public life as far as practicable, and rarely allowed himself to be seen.  Having inherited the harem of his predecessors, together with their crown, he even went so far as to condemn his wives to a complete seclusion.  He did not venture to hope, nor did those in his confidence, that the truth would not one day be known, but he hoped to gain, without loss of time, sufficient popularity to prevent the revelation of the imposture from damaging his prospects.  The seven great houses which he had dispossessed would, in such a case, refuse to rally round him, and it was doubtless to lessen their prestige that he extinguished their pyres; but the people did not trouble themselves as to the origin of their sovereign, if he showed them his favour and took proper precautions to secure their good will.  He therefore exempted the provinces from taxes and military service for a period of three years.  He had not time to pursue this policy, and if we may believe tradition, the very precautions which he took to conceal his identity became the cause of his misfortunes.  In the royal harem there were, together with the daughters of Cyrus, relatives of all the Persian nobility, and the order issued to stop all their communications