Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/82

76 them both a common progenitor. This progenitor was that Teïspes who in the Behistan inscription appears as the father of Ariaramnes and in the Cyrus cylinder as the father of the elder Cyrus, grandfather of Cyrus the Great. The relationship between Darius and his predecessor Cambyses is shown by a comparison of the Behistan inscription and the Cyrus cylinder:

We now ask, who are the eight kings of the family of the Achæmenidæ who were kings before Darius? In the table just given nine names appear besides that of Darius. It has been assumed that there were two lines of kings, one of which ruled in Anshan and the other in some other country, but such assumption has no warrant. Hystaspes, the father of Darius, according to Herodotus (III., 70), was not a king, but only a governor in some part of Persia.

In the second place it appears that the name of Achæmenes, as the eponymous hero, should be stricken from the list of kings; for the dynasty of the Achæmenidæ, like that of the Ejjubidæ and Sassanidæ, is