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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Nay," replied Phraortes, "for we have no arms. But if the king will give us swords and spearheads " "To what end?" asked Atossa. She was perfectly calm since she saw that there was no fear of Phraortes making a mistake upon this vital point. "What need have I of a force to protect lands that are all within a day's journey of the king's fortress?
She had not a doubt that Darius had despatched him at once to Ecbatana to meet Phraortes, or at least to inquire into the state of affairs in the city. She knew that no one could outride Zoroaster, and that there was nothing to be done but to await the issue.
The spearmen sprang to their feet and filed into rank as the cry came down the steps that the king was approaching, and Zoroaster leaped lightly from his horse, and bid Phraortes do likewise; but the wretched Median could scarce move hand or foot without help, and would have fallen headlong, had not two stout spearmen lifted him to the ground, and held him upon his legs.
Darius sat upright upon the edge of his couch; the knotted veins upon his temples swelled with sudden anger and his brow flushed darkly. "Doubtless it is Phraortes who has set himself up as king," he said. Then, suddenly and fiercely, he turned upon Atossa. "Now is your hour come," he cried in uncontrollable anger.
At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a lineal descendant of the famous Porus and truly a porous personage, since he was renowned for drinking gave the philosopher a grand reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose temples he explored.
Darius succeeded to the throne of Persia as a lion coming into the place of jackals, as an eagle into a nest of crows and carrion birds untiring, violent, relentless and brave. "Knowest thou one Phraortes, of Ecbatana?" the king asked suddenly when he was alone with Zoroaster. "I know him," answered the prince. "A man rich, and powerful, full of vanity as a peacock, and of wiles like a serpent.
The Lemnos squadron endeavoured to stop them, as was last night determined upon in the Imperial Council of War. By a heavy discharge of the Greek fire, one or two of the crusaders' vessels were consumed, but by far the greater number of them pushed on their course, burnt the leading ship of the unfortunate Phraortes, and It is strongly reported he has himself perished, with almost all his men.
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.
By the king's relays I can ride there in six days, and I can bring back Phraortes in six days more if he die not of the riding," he added, with a grim smile. "Is he old, or young? Fat, or meagre?" asked the king, laughing. "He is a man of forty years, neither thin nor fat a good horseman in his way, but not as we are." "Bind him to his horse if he falls off from weariness.
I am satisfied with thee, Phraortes," said Atossa coldly. Once more the beautiful queen was left alone, and once more she looked at herself in the silver mirror, somewhat more critically than before. It seemed to her as she gazed and turned first one side of her face to the light and then the other, that she was a shade paler than usual.
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