[Atossa is constantly mentioned as the favorite wife of Darius, and be appointed her son Xerxes to be his successor, though he had three elder sons by the daughter of Gobryas.  Herodotus (VII. 3.) speaks with emphasis of the respect and consideration in which Atossa was held, and Aeschylus, in his Persians, mentions her in her old age, as the much-revered and noble matron.]

As a general he was circumspect and brave, and at the same time understood so thoroughly how to divide his enormous realm, and to administer its affairs, that he must be classed with the greatest organizers of all times and countries.  That his feeble successors were able to keep this Asiatic Colossus of different countries together for two hundred years after his death, was entirely owing to Darius.  He was liberal of his own, but sparing of his subjects’ treasures, and made truly royal gifts without demanding more than was his due.  He introduced a regular system of taxation, in place of the arbitrary exactions practised under Cyrus and Cambyses, and never allowed himself to be led astray in the carrying out of what seemed to him right, either by difficulties or by the ridicule of the Achaemenidae, who nicknamed him the “shopkeeper,” on account of what seemed, to their exclusively military tastes, his petty financial measures.  It is by no means one of his smallest merits, that he introduced one system of coinage through his entire empire, and consequently through half the then known world.

Darius respected the religions and customs of other nations.  When the writing of Cyrus, of the existence of which Cambyses had known nothing, was found in the archives of Ecbatana, he allowed the Jews to carry on the building of their temple to Jehovah; he also left the Ionian cities free to govern their own communities independently.  Indeed, he would hardly have sent his army against Greece, if the Athenians had not insulted him.

In Egypt he had learnt much; among other things, the art of managing the exchequer of his kingdom wisely; for this reason he held the Egyptians in high esteem, and granted them many privileges, amongst others a canal to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, which was greatly to the advantage of their commerce.

[Traces of this canal can be found as early as the days of Setos I; his son Rameses ii. caused the works to be continued.  Under Necho they were recommenced, and possibly finished by Darius.  In the time of the Ptolemies, at all events, the canal was already completed.  Herod.  II. 158.  Diod.  I. 33.  The French, in undertaking to reconstruct the Suez canal, have had much to encounter from the unfriendly commercial policy of the English and their influence over the internal affairs of Egypt, but the unwearied energy and great talent of Monsr. de Lesseps and the patriotism of the French nation have at last succeeded in bringing their great work to a successful close.  Whether it will pay is another question.  See G.