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Updated: June 22, 2025
No word of his parting with his friends; no word of his reluctance to give up his missionary work. But there is, I think, a good deal more in these words written on 18th September than meets the eye: In his journey through Teheraun and thence to Tabreez, he passed through the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures there are said to represent the conquest of Darius Hystaspis.
That no advantage in any respect was allowed to the Persians over the rest of the conquered peoples, notwithstanding that they had for so many years exercised supremacy over Western Asia, and given to the list of Asiatic worthies such names as those of Cyrus and Darius Hystaspis.
In the early portion of the reign of Darius Hystaspis they took part in a revolt raised by a Mede called Phraortes, and were not reduced to obedience without some difficulty. After Arbela they submitted without a struggle to Alexander; and when in the division of his dominions, which followed upon the battle of Ipsus, they fell naturally to Seleucus, they acquiesced in the arrangement.
Of these, while Susa had from the time of Darius Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the court, and consequently as the usual seat of government, there were three others which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes from time to time, either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally at the caprice of the monarch.
It fronted a little west of north, and commanded a magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the mountains of Lauristan. An inscription, repeated on four of its pillar-bases, showed that it was originally built by Darius Hystaspis, and afterwards repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus.
It maintained its rank under the Persians, and is mentioned by Darius Hystaspis as the scene of the struggle which terminated the great Median revolt. The last Darius seems to have sent thither his heavy baggage and the ladies of his court, when he resolved to quit Ecbatana and fly eastward.
According to Herodotus these houses derived their special dignity from the accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators with Darius Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank of the families was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain families conspiring because they were great, and not becoming great because they conspired.
The priests of the Zoroastrians, from a time not long subsequent to Darius Hystaspis, were the Magi. This tribe, or caste, originally perhaps external to Zoroastrianism, had come to be recognized as a true priestly order; and was intrusted by the Sassanian princes with the whole control and direction of the religion of the state.
Artaxerxes, like other founders of great empires, entertained lofty views of his abilities and his destinies; the monarchy which he had built up in the space of some five or six years was far from contenting him; well read in the ancient history of his nation, he sighed after the glorious days of Cyrus the Great and Darius Hystaspis, when all Western Asia from the shores of the AEgean to the Indian desert, and portions of Europe and Africa, had acknowledged the sway of the Persian king.
The expeditions of Cyrus against the Massagetse, of Darius Hystaspis against the European Scyths, of Alexander against the Getee, of Trajan and Probus across the Danube, were designed to check and intimidate the northern nations, to break their power, and diminish the likelihood of their taking the offensive.
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