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educated by this honest man, who sent him to the wars, where he dis- 

 tinguished himself in fighting against the Greeks ; that, being intro- 

 duced to the queen as a brave youth, she knew him again by the 

 jewels which he wore, and which his reputed father had restored to 

 him *. w Sir William brands this story as an Eastern romance, the 

 predictions being supposed to have reference to the invasion of 

 Alexander, which, in fact, took place under a later Darius. The 

 astrologers who made them might possibly have meant by them to 

 excuse the rashness and impolicy of Darius, by imputing the 

 disasters of his reign to the stern inevitable decrees of destiny. I 

 have transcribed it on purpose that the reader may again ob- 

 serve, in this Legend, the usual magnified difficulties which the 

 Asiatic writers are habitually addicted to represent as surmounted, 

 in thev infancy and youth, by great personages celebrated in Eastern 

 annals. The whole seems nothing more than a repetition of those 

 undergone by Creeshna and the great Cyrus. The new prince, 

 named Darab, or Dara in Persian, began his reign with an appear- 

 ance of vigour and prompt decision that marked the ancient kings 

 of Persia, not without a considerable portion of brilliant success in 

 the field against the revolted provinces of Media, Arabia, and 

 Egypt, whose inhabitants seemed inclined to take advantage of the 

 debilitated state of the empire and the inexperience of the monarch, 

 entirely to shake off their dependance on Persia-f-. In either cir- 

 cumstance they were deceived, nor did the principals of the Grecian 

 commonwealth less effectually impose upon themselves, when they 

 conceived that a power which had recently experienced such a 

 humiliating reverse of fortune, from their joint exertions, would 

 heartily join with either to effect the complete reduction of the 

 other. The experience of half a century had taught the court of 



* Short Hist, of Persia, p. 53. f Thucydidcs, lib. ii. cap. 15. Diod. Sic. lib. xiii. p. 160. 



