whole court were divided into factions in favour of one or other of his sons, who pretended to the succession. He had a hundred and fifty by his concubines, who were in number three hundred and sixty, and three by his lawful wife Atossa; Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. To put a stop to these intrigues, he declared Darius, the eldest, his successor. And to remove all cause of disputing that prince's right after his death, he permitted him to assume from thenceforth the title of king, and to wear the royal * tiara. But the young prince was for having something more real. Besides which, the refusal of Artaxerxes to give him one of his concubines, whom he had demanded, had extremely incensed him, and he formed a conspiracy against his father's life, wherein he engaged fifty of his brothers.

It was Tiribasus, of whom mention has been made several times in the present volume, who contributed the most to his taking so unnatural a resolution, from a like subject of discontent against the king; who, having promised to give him first one of his daughters in marriage, and then another, broke his word both times, and married them himself! Such abominable incest was permitted at that time in Persia, the religion of the nation not prohibiting it.

The number of the conspirators was already very great, and the day fixed for the execution, when an eunuch, well informed of the whole plot, discovered it to the king. Upon that information, Artaxerxes thought it would be highly imprudent to despise so great a danger, by neglecting a strict inquiry into it; but that it would be much more so, to give credit to it without certain and unquestionable proof. He assured himself of it with his own eyes. The conspirators were suffered to enter the king's apartment, and then seized. Darius and all his accomplices were punished as they deserved.

After the death of Darius, the cabals began again. Three of his brothers were competitors; Ariaspes, Ochus, and Arsames. The two former pretended to the throne in right of birth, being the sons of the queen. The third had the king's favour, who tenderly loved him, though only the son of

*This tiara was a turban, or kind of headdress, with the plume of feathers standing upright upon it. The seven counsellors had also plumes of feathers, but these they wore aslant, and before. All others wore them aslant, and behind.

a concubine. Ochus, prompted by his restless ambition, studied perpetually the means to rid himself of both his rivals. As he was equally cunning and cruel, he employed his craft and artifice against Ariaspes, and his cruelty against Arsames. Knowing the former to be extremely simple and credulous, he made the eunuchs of the palace, whom he had found means to corrupt, threaten him so terribly in the name of the king his father, that, expecting every moment to be treated as Darius had been, he poisoned himself to avoid it. After this, there remained only Arsames to give him umbrage, because his father and all the world considered that prince as most worthy of the throne, from his ability and other excellent qualities. Him he caused to be assassinated by Harpates, son of Tiribasus.

This loss, which followed close upon the other, and the exceeding wickedness with which both were attended, gave the old king a grief that proved mortal: nor is it surprising, that at his age he should not have strength enough to support so great an affliction. It overpowered him, and brought A. M. him to the grave, after a reign of forty-three years, Ant. J. C which might have been called happy, if it had not been interrupted by many revolts. That of his successor will be no less disturbed with them.

3643.

361.

SECT. XII. CAUSES OF THe frequent InSURRECTIONS AND REVOLTS IN THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.-I have taken care in relating the seditions that happened in the Persian empire, to observe from time to time the abuses which occasioned them. But as these revolts were more frequent than ever in the latter years, and will be more so, especially in the succeeding reign, I thought it would be proper to unite here, under one point of view, the different causes of these insurrections, which foretell the approaching decline of the Persian empire.

I. After the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the kings of Persia abandoned themselves more and more to the charms of voluptuousness and luxury, and the delights of an indolent and inactive life. Shut up generally in their palaces, amongst women and a crowd of flatterers, they contented themselves with enjoying, in soft effeminate ease and idleness, the pleasure

of universal command, and made their grandeur consist in the splendid glare of riches and an expensive magnificence.

II. They were, besides, princes of no great talents for the conduct of affairs, of small capacity in the art of governing, and void of taste for glory. Not having a sufficient extent of mind to animate all the parts of so vast an empire, nor sufficient strength to support the weight of it, they transferred to their officers the cares of public business, the fatigues of commanding armies, and the dangers which attend the execution of great enterprises; confining their ambition to bearing alone the lofty title of the Great King, and the King of kings.

III. The great offices of the crown, the government of the provinces, the command of armies, were generally bestowed upon people without either the claim of service or merit. It was the influence of the favourites, the secret intrigues of the court, the solicitations of the women of the palace, which determined the choice of the persons who were to fill the most important posts of the empire, and appropriated the rewards due to the officers who had done the state real service, to their own creatures.

IV. These courtiers, frequently, through a base and mean jealousy of the merit that gave them umbrage and reproached their small abilities, removed their rivals from public employments, and rendered their talents useless to the state. * Sometimes they would even cause their fidelity to be suspected by false informations, bring them to trial as criminals against the state, † and force the king's most faithful servants, in order to defend themselves against their calumniators, to seek their safety in revolting, and in turning those arms against their prince, which they had so often made triumph for his glory and the service of the empire.

V. The ministers, to hold the generals in dependence, restrained them under such limited orders as obliged them to let slip the opportunities of conquering, and prevented them, by waiting for new orders, from pushing their advantages. They also often made them responsible for their bad success, after having let them want every thing necessary to conduce to it.

Pharnabasus, Tiribasus. + Datames, &c

VI. The kings of Persia had extremely degenerated from the frugality of Cyrus and the ancient Persians, who contented themselves with cresses and salads for their food, and water for their drink. The whole nobility had been infected with the contagion of this example. In retaining the single meal of their ancestors, they made it last during the greatest part of the day, and prolonged it far into the night by drinking to excess; and far from being ashamed of drunkenness, they made it their glory, as we have seen in the younger Cyrus.

VII. The extreme remoteness of the provinces, which extended from the Caspian and Euxine to the Red Sea and Æthiopia, and from the rivers Ganges and Indus to the Ægean Sea, was a great obstacle to the fidelity and affection of the people, who never had the satisfaction to enjoy the presence of their masters; who knew them only by the weight of their taxations, and by the pride and avarice of their satraps or governors; and who, in transporting themselves to the court, to make their demands and complaints there, could not hope to find access to princes, who believed it contributed to the majesty of their persons to make themselves inaccessible and invisible.

VIII. The multitude of the provinces in subjection to Persia did not compose an uniform empire, nor the regular body of a state whose members were united by the common ties of interest, manners, language, and religion, and animated with the same spirit of government, under the guidance of the same laws. It was rather a confused, disjointed, tumultuous, and even forced assemblage of different nations, formerly free and independent; of whom some, who were torn from their native countries and the sepulchres of their forefathers, saw themselves with grief transported into unknown regions, or amongst enemies, where they persevered in retaining their own laws and customs, and a form of government peculiar to themselves. These different nations, who not only lived without any common tie or relation between them, but with a diversity of manners and worship, and often with antipathy of characters and inclinations, desired nothing so ardently as their liberty and reestablishment in their own countries. All these people therefore were unconcerned for the preservation of an empire 20

VOL. III.

which was the sole obstacle to their so warm and just desires, and could not feel any affection for a government that treated them always as strangers and subjected nations, and never gave them any share in its authority or privileges.

IX. The extent of the empire, and its remoteness from the court, made it necessary to give the viceroys of the frontier provinces a very great authority in every branch of government; to raise and pay armies; to impose tributes; to adjudge the quarrels of cities, provinces, and vassal kings; and to make treaties with the neighbouring states A power so extensive and almost independent, in which they continued many years without being changed, and without colleagues or council to deliberate upon the affairs of their provinces, accustomed them to the pleasure of commanding absolutely, and of reigning. In consequence of which, it was with great repugnance they submitted to be removed from their governments, and often endeavoured to support themselves in them by force of arms.

X. The governors of provinces, the generals of armies, and all the other officers and ministers, gloried in imitating, in their equipages, tables, furniture and dress, the pomp and splendour of the court in which they had been educated. To support so destructive a pride, and to supply expenses so much above the fortunes of private persons, they were reduced to oppress the subjects under their jurisdiction with exorbitant taxes, flagrant extortions, and the shameful traffic of a public venality, that set those offices to sale for money, which ought to have been granted only to merit. All that vanity lavished, or luxury exhausted, was made good by mean arts and the violent rapaciousness of an insatiable avarice.

These gross irregularities, and abundance of others, which remained without remedy, and which were daily augmented by impunity, tired the people's patience, and occasioned a general discontent amongst them, the usual forerunner of the ruin of states. Their just complaints, long time despised, were followed by an open rebellion of several nations, who endeavoured to do themselves that justice by force, which was refused to their remonstrances. In such a conduct, they failed in the submission and fidelity which subjects owe to their