Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/26

 2 mSTORT OF GREECE. his determination abated bj a revolt of the Egyptians, which broke out about the time when his preparations were completed. He was on the point of undertaking simultaneously the two en- terprises, — the conquest of Greece and the reconquest of Egypt, — when he was surprised by death, after a reign of thirty-six years. As a precaution previous to this intended march, he had nominated as successor Xerxes, his son by Atossa ; for the ascen- dency of that queen insured to Xerxes the preference over his elder brother Artabazanes, son of Darius by a former wife, and born before the latter became king. The choice of the reigning monarch passed unquestioned, and Xerxes succeeded without opposition.' It deserves to be remarked, that though we shall meet with several acts of cruelty and atrocity perpetrated in the Persian regal family, there is nothing like that systematic fratri- cide which has been considered necessary to guarantee succession in Turkey and other Oriental empires. The intense wrath against Athens, which had become the pre- dominant sentiment in the mind of Darius, was yet unappeased at the time of his death, and it was fortunate for the Athenians that his crown now passed to a prince less obstinately hostile as well as in every respect inferior. Xerxes, personally the hand- without believing it himself — that Demaratus the exiled king of Sparta was at Susa at the moment when Darius was about to choose a successor among his sons (this cannot consist ■with Ktesias, Persic, c. 23) : and that he suggested to Xerxes a convincing argument by which to determine the mind of his father, urging the analogy of the law of regal succession at Sparta, whereby the son of a king, bom after his father became king, was prefen-ed to an elder son bom before that event. The existence of such a custom at Sparta may well be doubted. Some other anecdotes, not less difficult of belief than this, and alike cal- culated to bestow a factitious importance on Demaratus, will be noticed in the subsequent pages. The latter received from the Persian king the grant of Pergamus and Teuthrania, with their land-revenues, which his descend- ants long aftcnvards continued to occupy (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1-6) : and perhaps these descendants may have been among the persons fro; i whom Herodotus derived his information respecting the expedition of Xerxes. See vii, 2.39. Plutarch (De Fratemo Amore, p. 488) gives an account in many respects different concerning the circumstances which determined the succession of Xerxes to the throne, in preference to his elder brother.
 * Herodot. vii, 1-4. He mentions — simply as a report, and seemingly