Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/65

 THE BATTIADS SUBMIT TO PERSIA. 47 of Aglomachus, wherein Arkesilaus caused them all to be burned, heaping wood around and setting it on fire. But afler this career of triumph and revenge, he became conscious that he had de- parted from the mildness enjoined to him by the oracle, and sought to avoid the punishment which it had threatened by retiring from Kyi'ene. At any rate, he departed from Kyrene to Barka, to the residence of the Barkaean prince, his kinsman Alazir, whose daughter he had married. But he found in Barka some of the unfortunate men who had fled from Kyrene to escape him : these exiles, aided by a few Barkaeans, watched for a suitable moment to assail him in the market-place, and slew him, together with his kinsman the prince Alazir. 1 The victory of Arkesilaus at Kyrene, and his assassination at Barka, are doubtless real facts ; but they seem to have been compressed together and incorrectly colored, in order to give to the death of the Kyrenaean prince the appearance of a divine judgment. For the reign of Arkesilaus cannot have been very short, since events of the utmost importance occurred within it. The Persians under Kambyses conquered Egypt, and both the Kyrenaean and the Barkaean prince sent to Memphis to make their submission to the conqueror, offering presents and impos- ing upon themselves an annual tribute. The presents of the Kyrena3ans, five hundred minae of silver, were considered by Kambyses so contemptibly small, that he took hold of them at once and threw them among his soldiers. And at the moment when Arkesilaus died, Aryandes, the Persian satrap after the death of Kambyses, is found established in Egypt. 2 During the absence of Arkesilaus at Barka, his mother Phere- time had acted as regent, taking her place at the discussions in the senate ; but when his death took place, and the feeling against the Battiads manifested itself strongly at Barka, she did not feel powerful enough to put it down, and went to Egypt to solicit aid from Aryandes. The satrap, being made to believo that Arkesilaus had met his death in consequence of steady devotion to the Persians, sent a herald to Barka to demand the men who had slain him. The Barkaeans assumed the collective llcrodot iv, 163-164. * Hercxlot, ii' 13 ; iv, 16&-166