Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/384

 362 HISTORY OF GREECE. had recently died. Under such circumstances, it was not judged expedient to prosecute the mission, and the Athenians dropped fheir design. 1 Respecting the great monarchy of Persia, during this long interval of fifty-four years since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece, we have little information before us except the names of the successive kings. In the year 465 B.C. Xerxes was assas- sinated by Artabanus and Mithridates, through one of those plots of great household officers, so frequent in oriental palaces. He left two sons, or at least two sons present and conspicuous among a greater number, Darius and Artaxerxes. But Artabanus per- suaded Artaxerxes that Darius had been the murderer of Xerxes, and thus prevailed upon him to revenge his father's death by be- coming an accomplice in killing his brother Darius : he next tried to assassinate Artaxerxes himself, and to appropriate the crown. Artaxerxes however, apprized beforehand of the scheme, either slew Artabanus with his own hand or procured him to be slaiii and then reigned (known under the name of Artaxerxes Longi. manus) for forty years, down to the period at which we are now arrived. 2 Mention has already been made of the revolt of Egypt from the dominion of Artaxerxes, under the Libyan prince Inanes, actively aided by the Athenians. After a few years of success, this revolt was crushed and Egypt again subjugated, by the energy of the Persian general Megabyzus, with severe loss to the Athenian forces engaged. After the peace of Kallias, erro- neously called the Kimonian peace, between the Athenians and the king of Persia, war had not been since resumed. We read in Ktesias, am/dst various anecdotes seemingly collected at the court of Susa, romantic adventures ascribed to Megabyzus, his 1 Thucyd. iv, 50 ; Diodor. xii, 64. The Athenians do not appear to have ever before sent envoys or courted alliance with the Great King; though the idea of doing so must have been noway strange to them, as we may see by the humorous scene of Pseudartabas in the Acharneis cf Aristophanes, acted in the year before this event. ' Diodor. xi, 65; Aristotel. Polit. v, 8, 3 ; Justin, i i, 1 ; Ktesias, Persica. c. 29, 30. It is evident that there were contradictory stories current respect- ing the plot to which Xerxes fell a victim : but we have nc means of deter mining what the details were.