herodotus

lightning and thunder from a clear sky: and the happening of thesethings to Dareios consummated his claim, for they seemed to have cometo pass by some design, and the others leapt down from their horsesand did obeisance to Dareios. 87. Some say that the contrivance ofOibares was this, but others say as follows (for the story is told bythe Persians in both ways), namely that he touched with his hands theparts of this mare and kept his hand hidden in his trousers; and whenat sunrise they were about to let the horses go, this Oibares pulledout his hand and applied it to the nostrils of the horse of Dareios;and the horse, perceiving the smell, snorted and neighed.88. So Dareios the son of Hystaspes had been declared king; and inAsia all except the Arabians were his subjects, having been subdued byCyrus and again afterwards by Cambyses. The Arabians however werenever obedient to the Persians under conditions of subjection, but hadbecome guest-friends when they let Cambyses pass by to Egypt: foragainst the will of the Arabians the Persians would not be able toinvade Egypt. Moreover Dareios made the most noble marriages possiblein the estimation of the Persians; for he married two daughters ofCyrus, Atossa and Artystone, of whom the one, Arossa, had before beenthe wife of Cambyses her brother and then afterwards of the Magian,while Artystone was a virgin; and besides them he married the daughterof Smerdis the son of Cyrus, whose name was Parmys; and he also tookto wife the daughter of Otanes, her who had discovered the Magian; andall things became filled with his power. And first he caused to be acarving in stone, and set it up; and in it there was the figure of aman on horseback, and he wrote upon it writing to this effect:"Dareios son of Hystaspes by the excellence of his horse," mentioningthe name of it, "and of his horse-keeper Oibares obtained the kingdomof the Persians."89. Having so done in Persia, he established twenty provinces, whichthe Persians themselves call /satrapies/; and having established theprovinces and set over them rulers, he appointed tribute to come tohim from them according to races, joining also to the chief racesthose who dwelt on their borders, or passing beyond the immediateneighbours and assigning to various races those which lay moredistant. He divided the provinces and the yearly payment of tribute asfollows: and those of them who brought in silver were commanded to payby the standard of the Babylonian talent, but those who brought ingold by the Euboïc talent; now the Babylonian talent is equal toeight-and-seventy Euboïc pounds.[74] For in the reign of Cyrus, andagain of Cambyses, nothing was fixed about tribute, but they used tobring gifts: and on account of this appointing of tribute and otherthings like this, the Persians say that Dareios was a shopkeeper,Cambyses a master, and Cyrus a father; the one because he dealt with