Darius

Darius (Dāryavus, Heb. Dārēyāvash), the name of three kings of Persia. Darius I. (Hystaspis), born in 548 B.C., was the son of Hystaspes (Vish-tāspa, in the Babylonian cuneiform Ustaashpi), of the family of the Achæmenides (q.v.), and succeeded to the Persian throne in 521, after putting to death the Magian Gaumâtâ (the Pseudo-Smerdis of the Greeks), who gave himself out to be Bardes, brother of Cambyses. We possess accurate accounts of his reign through a contemporary monument, the great trilingual inscription on the rock of Behistun (q.v.). He is there represented with his foot on the body of Gaumâtâ, and with nine conquered rebels in front of him, the first three from Susiana, Babylon, and Media, the ninth a Sacian, with the characteristic pointed hat mentioned in Herodotus, vii. 64. The inscription states that his father, Hystaspes, was the great-grandson of Teises, who was the son of Achaemenes. Darius had for several years to contend with revolts in all parts of his empire. Babylon resisted him with especial obstinacy under Nidinta-Bel for nearly two years (520-19), and revolting a second time, under Arakha, was again taken (514). He then reorganised the Persian empire, removing the seat of government to Susa, dividing his dominions into more than twenty satrapies, establishing a regular system of taxation, and providing facilities for communication and trade; while he also pushed his conquests as far as the Caucasus and the Indus. The Indian province paid into the exchequer £1,290,000 a year; Babylonia, £290,000; while other eighteen satrapies contributed altogether £1,674,000. In his expedition against the Scythians in 515, after carrying 700,000 men across the Bosphorus on a bridge of boats, and subduing Thrace and Macedonia, he was led on by the retreating Scythians as far as the Volga, and returned to the Danube with the loss of 80,000 of his warriors. He returned to Susa, leaving Megabazos in Thrace with a large part of his army. His first expedition against the Athenians miscarried through the wreck of his fleet at Mount Athos in 492; the second was decisively defeated at Marathon (q.v.) in 490. He died in 485, before the Egyptian revolt (487) had been subdued, and in the midst of his preparations for a third expedition against the Athenians, and was succeeded by Xerxes (q.v.). Darius was a Persian by birth, and bred in the Zoroastrian faith, which under him and his successors became the state religion of the empire. He is mentioned in the Old Testament as permitting (520) the erection of the second temple at Jerusalem, which was completed in the sixth year of his reign (515).