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place, to be a chasm of many years in the annals of the Persians, 

 for they say nothing of Ardeshir, son of Dara, by Parizadeh, or 

 Parysatis, whose brother Cyrus led the Greeks to Babylon ; nor of 

 the third Ardeshir, whom our historians call Ochus; nor of Arogus, 

 whose true name it has not been in my power to discover. Now, 

 if we suppose, as we reasonably may, that these three kings reigned 

 about twenty-one years each, we shall bring the reign of Dara the 

 younger to the year 337 before Christ, which will agree tolerably 

 well with the chronologers both of Asia and Europe*." Of a 

 monarch terrible in vengeance, and treacherous in friendship, like 

 Ochus, neither Lacedaemon nor Athens courted the alliance, or 

 dared in their weakened state to rouse the resentment; especially 

 as he was a formidable warrior, and, in the beginning of his reign, 

 reduced both Egypt and Phoenicia, which had revolted, once more 

 beneath the Persian yoke. His sanguinary reign was at length ter- 

 minated by a death as violent, and torments as painful, as any he 

 had inflicted on the numerous victims of his undistinguishing furyf-. 

 The Egyptian slave Bagoas, who, in pious revenge for his murder 

 of the god Apis, had compelled Ochus to drink the poisoned bowl, 

 immediately raised to the vacant throne Arses, the youngest son of 

 the deceased emperor ; but this new pageant of royalty, being either 

 not sufficiently callous in iniquity, or not compliant enough with 

 his patron's designs, was speedily assassinated. Darius Codoman- 

 nus, a direct descendant of Darius Nothos, was then exalted by 

 this tyrannical arbiter of the fate of kings, to the imperial honours. 

 The character of Darius is very differently drawn by the Persian 

 and Greek historians ; the former representing him as a severe, 

 cruel, and implacable, despot ; the latter as a prince, mild, magna- 

 nimous, and amiable J. It is possible that character might have 



* Short Hist, of Persia, p. 54. t Diod. Sic. lib. xvii. sect. 5. J Short Hist, of Persia, p. 56. 



