seven boldly drew their swords and forced their way to the apartment occupied by the two Magi.  The usurpers defended themselves with bravery, but succumbed at length to the superior number of their opponents, after having wounded two of the conspirators.  Gobryas pinioned Gaumata with his arms, and in such a way that Darius hesitated to make the fatal thrust for fear of wounding his comrade; but the latter bade him strike at all hazards, and by good fortune the sword did not even graze him.  The crime accomplished, the seven conspirators agreed to choose as king that member of their company whose horse should first neigh after sunrise:  a stratagem of his groom caused the election to fall on Darius.  As soon as he was duly enthroned, he instituted a festival called the “magophonia,” or “massacre of the Magi,” in commemoration of the murder which had given him the crown.

His first care was to recompense the nobles to whom he owed his position by restoring to them the privileges of which they had been deprived by the pseudo-Smerdis, namely, the right of free access to the king, as well as the right of each individual to a funeral pyre; but the usurper had won the affection of the people, and even the inhabitants of those countries which had been longest subject to the Persian sway did not receive the new sovereign favourably.  Darius found himself, therefore, under the necessity of conquering his dominions one after the other.*

* The history of the early part of the reign of Darius is recorded in the great inscription which the king caused to be cut in three languages on the rocks of Behistun.  The order of the events recorded in it is not always easy to determine.  I have finally adopted, with some modifications, the arrangement of Marquart, which seems to me to give the clearest “conspectus” of these confused wars.

The Persian empire, like those of the Chaldaeans and Medes, had consisted hitherto of nothing but a fortuitous collection of provinces under military rule, of vassal kingdoms, and of semi-independent cities and tribes; there was no fixed division of authority, and no regular system of government for the outlying provinces.  The governors assigned by Cyrus and Cambyses to rule the various provinces acquired by conquest, were actual viceroys, possessing full control of an army, and in some cases of a fleet as well, having at their disposal considerable revenues both in money and in kind, and habituated, owing to their distance from the capital, to settle pressing questions on their own responsibility, subject only to the necessity of making a report to the sovereign when the affair was concluded, or when the local resources were insufficient to bring it to a successful issue.  For such free administrators the temptation must have been irresistible to break the last slender ties which bound them to the empire, and to set themselves up as independent monarchs.  The two successive revolutions which had taken place