Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 59
decline of the Persian supremacy in \\ estern Asia was
delayed yet a little longer.
Xerxes was succeeded (B.C. 466-5) by his third son
Artaxerxes I
l
(Longimanus) , who was at once involved
in two important wars, in both of which he was
successful. In the first, B.C. 460, he crushed a revolt
of the Bactrians headed by his brother Hystaspes ; in
the second, he reduced Inarus and Amyrtaeus, who
had thrown off the Persian yoke in Egypt ; moreover
he had the yet greater glory of humbling the pride of
Athens, who had sent a considerable fleet to the aid
of the Egyptians, B.C. 455.
Peace having been made between Athens and
Persia, Artaxerxes had no further trouble to the end
of his reign, with the exception of the revolt of Syria,
in which the satrap Megabyzus showed the growing
weakness of the Persian monarchy by dictating his
own form of submission, and remaining afterwards
on intimate terms with the monarch he had suc-
cessfully defied in arms. Of the private life of
Artaxerxes we know little, except that he seems
to have been personally of a kind disposition. He
led no expedition in person, and did little during
a long reign to increase the dignity of his position
or to enlarge the boundaries of his empire. The peace
with Athens was perhaps necessary, but by no means
creditable to the might of Persia, while his condonation
of Megabyzus's rebellion gave fatal evidence of the
feeble grasp with which he held the once proud sceptre
of the Achmenidae.
1 Artaxerxes I was the Monarch who sent Ezra and Nehemiah to
Jerusalem. Ezra vii. I, Nehemiah ii. 1-8.