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Updated: June 11, 2025
The robber chief was struck by this answer. He thought of the number of times that he himself had been a coward. Then he said, "You are a brave boy, and you may keep your gold. Here it is. Mount your horse, and my own men will ride with you and see that you reach the end of your journey in safety." Otanes, in time, became one of the famous men of his country.
The aged Hystaspes, father of Darius, governor of Persia proper and cousin to the king; Pharnaspes, Cambyses' grandfather on the mother's side; Otanes, his uncle and father-in-law.
"When the king is gone upon an expedition," she said, "there is no head in the palace. Otanes is a weak man. The king will not give me the control of the household, neither will he give it to any one else." "There is no one whom I can trust," answered Darius. "Can you not dwell together in peace for a month?"
Forty pieces, in my hat, said Otanes. "You are a brave lad to be joking with robbers" said the man; and he also hurried on to a more promising field. At length the chief of the band called to Otanes and said, "Young fellow, have you anything worth taking?" Otanes answered, "I have already told two of your men that I have forty pieces of gold in my hat. But they wouldn't believe me."
This was a very unreasonable proposition, unless, indeed, Otanes was willing to withdraw altogether from the community to which he thus refused to be subject; for, by residing within it, he necessarily enjoyed its protection, and ought, therefore, to bear his portion of its burdens, and to be amenable to its laws.
"Short-sighted fool! listen to my reasons and obey. I want especially to excite the Achaemenidae against our enemy. How it will enrage your grandfather Intaphernes, and your father Otanes to see you in the dust before a stranger!
The suspicions of Otanes and his associates were excited, but no one dared to communicate his thoughts to the others. At length, however, Otanes, who was a man of great energy as well as sagacity and discretion, resolved that he would take some measures to ascertain the truth.
A third was Phædyma, the daughter of Otanes, the lady who had been so instrumental, in connection with Atossa, in the discovery of the magian imposture. It happened that, some time after the curing of Darius's sprain, Atossa herself was sick. He said that he could cure her, but she must first promise to grant him, if he did so, a certain favor which he should ask.
Syloson, a Greek of Samos, brother to Polycrates, the tyrant of that state, who, after a career of unexampled felicity and renown, fell a victim to the hostile treachery of Oretes, the satrap of Sardis, induced Darius to send over Otanes at the head of a Persian force to restore him to the principality of his murdered brother; and when, subsequently, in his Scythian expedition, Darius was an eyewitness of the brilliant civilization of Ionia, not only did Greece become to him more an object of ambition, but the Greeks of his respect.
After Cambyses' death the heads of the seven Persian tribes held a council, and resolved, as a first measure, on obtaining certain information as to the person of the usurper. With this view, Otanes sent a confidential eunuch to his daughter Phaedime, who, as they knew, had come into the possession of the new king with the rest of Cambyses' harem.
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