Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/244

 228 HISTORY OF GREECE- new king was to exact from the people a body of guards selected by himself; next, he commanded them to build the city of Ekba- tana, upon a hill surrounded with seven concentric circles of walls, his own palace being at the top and in the innermost. He farther organized the scheme of Median despotism ; the king, though his person was constantly secluded in his fortified palace, inviting written communications from all aggrieved persons, and admin- istering to each the decision or the redress which it required, informing himself, moreover, of passing events by means of ubi- quitous spies and officials, who seized all wrong-doers and brought them to the palace for condign punishment. Deiokes farther con- strained the Medes to abandon their separate abodes and concen- trate themselves in Ekbatana, from whence all the powers of government branched out ; and the seven distinct fortified circies in the town, coinciding as they do with the number of the Me- dian tribes, were probably conceived by Herodotus as intended each for one distinct tribe$ the tribe of Deiokes occupying the innermost along with himself. 1 Except the successive steps of this well-laid political plan, we hear of no other acts ascribed to Deiokes : he is said to have held the government for fifty-three years, and then dying, was succeeded by his son Phraortes. Of the real history of Deiokes, we cannot be said to know anything. For the interesting narra- tive of Herodotus, of which the above is an abridgment, presents to us in all its points Grecian society and ideas, not Oriental : it ia like the discussion which the historian ascribes to the seven Persian conspirators, previous to the accession of Darius, whether they shall adopt an oligarchical, a democratical, or a monarchical form of government ; 2 or it may be compared, per- haps more aptly still, to the Cyroptedia of Xenophon, who beau- tifully and elaborately works out an ideal which Herodotus 1 Hcrodot. i, 98, 99, 100. OiKo de TTUVTUV, Koa/iov rovde K?/f nyjurof ecrnv 6 KaraaTr/aapevoc p.i)TE iatevat Ttapil f3aai^sa [tydeva, 61' uyyi'Xuv Jt Truvra pee<7i?at, opuadai 6e flaaihsa vrcb [irjdevof Trpof 6e rov- TOIOL Ti yehpv re Kal irrveiv uvnov, /cat uTraai elvai TOVTH ye alaxpov, etii and. . . . ol KaruffKOTTol re KOI KO.TTJKOOI qaav uvu Triiaav TTJV upriv r7/f fyf-xe. 2 Herodot. iii, 80-82. Herodotus, while he positively asserts the genuine' aess of these deliberations, lets drop the intimation that many of his conten? poraries regarded thorn as of Grecian coinage.