have been dissipated and broken, had this advice been followed. But Nectanebus mistrusting it to be given with an ill design, and growing jealous that Agesilaus intended to betray him, as he had Tachos before, would not hearken to him, but delayed the matter to gain more strength. In the interim, his adversary having brought his army into form and order, grew too strong for him; whereon he was forced to coop himself up, with all his forces, in one of his towns; and the other sat down before it to besiege him therein, and began to draw lines of circumvallation about it. Nectanebus, seeing the danger, would then have had Agesilaus engage the enemy to extricate him out of it. This he refused for some time to do; which increased the jealousy of that prince against him. But when the lines were so far drawn round as only to leave a sufficient space for the besieged to draw up their army in it, then Agesilaus told Nectanebus, that this was his only time to fall on; that the lines which the enemy had drawn, secured him from being encompassed; and that the gap, which was still left void, allowed room enough for him to bring all his forces to the battle; whereon an engagement ensuing, the besiegers were put to the route, and after this Agesilaus managed the rest of the war with that success, that he every where vanquished the other king, and at length took him prisoner. And thereon, having settled Nectanebus in full and quiet possession of the kingdom, returned homeward in the ensuing winter; but being in his way driven by contrary winds on the African shore, at a place called the haven of Menelaus, he there sickened and died, being full eighty-four years old.

Towards the latter end of the reign of Artaxerxes,

An. 360.
Artax. 45.

great disturbances grew in the Persian court;

which were occasioned by the contention of his sons, in making parties among the nobility about the succession. For he had one hundred and fifteen sons by his concubines, and three by his queen; the names of the latter were Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. For the stilling of these commotions, Artax

t Plutarch. in Artaxerxe. Gtesias. Justin. lib. 10, c. 1, 2..

Ar

erxes declared Darius the eldest of them to be his successor; and for the firmer settling of the matter, allowed him to assume the name of king, and wear the" royal tiara even in his life-time. But this not contenting him, and there being also some disgust about one of the king's concubines which he would have had from him, he formed a design against his father's life, and drew in fifty of his brothers into the same conspiracy with him. He was chiefly excited to this by Tiribazus, whose name hath been often abovementioned. taxerxes had promised him one of his daughters; but falling in love with her, he had married her himself, and, to make him amends, having promised him another of his daughters, he married this also; such abominable incest was in those times allowed in Persia, by the religion which they then professed. These two disappointments greatly discontenting Tiribazus, and provoking his resentments against the king for them, to be revenged of him, he excited the young king to this flagitious act. But the whole being discovered, Darius was cut off in such manner as he deserved, and all his accomplices with him.

An. 359.

Artax. 46.

After the death of Darius, the same contention was again revived which was in the Persian court before his being declared king; three of his surviving brothers in the same manner making parties for the succession. These were Ariaspes, Ochus, and Arsames; the two former being the king's sons by his queen, claimed as the lawful heirs; but the other only by the favour of his father, to whom he was the most beloved of the three, though born to him only by one of his concubines. But the restless ambition of Ochus prompting him to all manner of ways to obtain the crown, he carried it from the other two by the wickedest and the worst of means. For Ariaspes being an easy and credulous prince, he terrified him so by menaces, which he suborned the

u This tiara was a turbant or cap with the peak upright. For the seven counsellors wore their turbant with the peak forward; all others with the peak backward, excepting the king, who wore it always with the peak upright.

Ctesias & Plutarch. ibid.

eunuchs of the court to bring to him as from his father, that, apprehending himself to be just ready to be used by him in the same manner as Darius had been, he poisoned himself to avoid it. But Arsames still remaining to rival him in his pretensions, and being, in the opinion of his father, as well as of all others, both for his wisdom and all other accomplishments, the worthiest of the throne, to remove this obstacle, he caused him to be assassinated by Harpates the son of Tiribazus. This loss, added to the former, and both aggravated by the wickedness whereby they were caused, so overwhelmed the old king with grief, that, being now ninety-four years old, he had not strength enough to support himself under it, but broke his heart and died. He wasy a mild and generous prince, and governed with great clemency and justice; and therefore, being honoured and revered through the whole empire, he had a fixed and thorough settled authority in all the parts of it, which Ochus being sensible of, and knowing that it would be quite otherwise with him on his succeeding, (the death of his two brothers having rendered the generality of the people, as well as the nobility, ill affected to him,) for the avoiding of the inconveniences which might from hence follow, he dealt with the eunuchs, and all others that were about the dead king, to conceal his death, and took on him to govern as under his direction; and giving out orders and sealing decrees in his name, as if he had still been alive; in one of these decrees he caused himself, as by his father's command, to be proclaimed king through the whole empire. And when he had governed in this manner about ten months, thinking now his authority fully established, he owned his father's death, and openly ascending the throne, took the name of Artaxerxes. But by the name of Ochus is he mostly spoken of in history.

An. 358.
Ochus 1.

2

But this artifice had not that full success which he proposed. For as soon as it was known that the old king was dead, and that

y Plutarch. in Artaxerxe. Diodorus Siculus, lib. 15, p. 506. Polyænus Stratagem, lib. 7.

Ochus had taken possession of the throne, all Lesser Asia, Syria, and Phoenicia, and several other provinces of the empire, refused him their obedience, and fell off from him; which very much distressed him. For hereby one half of the revenues of his crown were cut off, and the remainder could not have sufficed to carry on the war against so many revolters, had they continued firm to each other. But this union being wanting, they had not long been in the revolt, ere those who were the first promoters of it were at a strife which should soonest betray each other, and thereby reconcile themselves to the king. The provinces of Lesser Asia, when they first fell off from him, resolving on a joint confederacy for their mutual defence, chose Orontes, governour of Mysia, for their common head, and, having agreed on the raising of twenty thousand mercenaries, to be added to their other for ces, they committed the care of it to him; but when he had received for this purpose a sum sufficient, both for the raising of these forces, and also for the maintaining of them for a year's time, he put the money in his own pocket, and betrayed those to the king that brought it to him from the revolted provinces. Rheomithres, another prime leader in this revolt in Lesser Asia, being sent from thence into Egypt to gain succours in that kingdom, for the carrying on of this rebellion, practised the same treachery; for, on his return, with five hundred talents and fifty ships of war, having called together at Leucas, a city in Lesser Asia, several of the prime ringleaders of the revolt, on pretence of giving them an account of his agency, he there seized them all, and made his peace with the king, by betraying them into his hands, and kept the money for a prey unto himself. And by these means the danger of this formidable revolt, which threatened the Persian empire with absolute ruin, was all blown over, and Ochus became settled in the throne much firmer than he deserved; for he was the cruellest and the worst of all that had reigned of that race in Persia, which his actions soon made appear; for he had a Diodorus Siculus, lib. 15, p. 504-506.

And

not been long on the throne ere he filled the palace and all parts of the empire with a great number of murders. That the revolted provinces might have none other of the royal family to set up in his stead, and that there might not be any of them left on any other pretence whatsoever to give him any disturbance, he cut them all off, without having any regard to sex, age, or nearness of blood; for he caused Ocha his own sister, who was also his mother-in-law, (for he had married her daughter,) to be buried alive; and, having shut up one of his uncles, with one hundred of his sons and grandsons, in an empty yard, he there caused them by his archers to be all shot to death. This seems to have been the father of Sysigambis the mother of Darius Codomannus. For Quintius Curtius tells us, that Ochus slew eighty of his brothers, together with their father, in one day. And with the same cruelty he proceeded against all others through the whole empire of whom he had any suspicion, leaving none of the nobility alive whom he thought to be any way ill-affected towards him. Diodorus Siculus placeth this revolt in the last year of Artaxerxes; but he being a prince, whose conduct in the government had thoroughly settled him in the esteem and affection of all his people, it is not likely that so great an insurrection against the royal authority should have hap pened in his days. But Ochus giving reason enough for it, when the next year after he ascended the throne, I have rather chosen here to place it. For his ill dispositions, and the wicked means whereby be made away with two of his brothers to come at the throne, were causes sufficient to make many of the nobility, who had the government of the provinces of the em pire, to abhor the man, and refuse their submission to him. And he having taken the name of Artaxerxes, this might lead Diodorus into the mistake of placing that in the father's reign, which was done in the son's. But this revolt was soon again quashed by the means I have mentioned. Only Datames, governour of Cappadocia, having siezed also Paphlagonia, gave him

b Justin, lib. 10, c. 3. Valerius Maximus, lib. 9, c. 2. Q. Curtius, lib. 10, c. 8. c Lib. 10, c. 8.