BABYLON AND PERSIA

DAREIOS I. : CIVIL WARS. 381tians. Yet it seems that all troubles were not evenyet at an end in Asia. The last column of theBehistun inscription, though injured beyond allhope of decipherment, allows a glimpse of a third,though short-lived, rising in Elam and a war in thefar east, against a Scythian people distingushed fromother tribes by the name "Saki of the pointedcaps." We can just make out that their chief,Sakunka, was taken prisoner, and probably put todeath. Fortunately for Dareios, Asia Minor, thePhoenician cities, and the Ionian Greeks had notbroken the peace through all these eventful years.The only attempt at rebeUion was made by thePersian Satrap at Sardis, who tried to set up an in¬dependent principality for himself by uniting Lydiaand Phrygia under his rule and refusing allegiance.This attempt is not mentioned in the great inscrip¬tion, probably because it was not put down by forceof arms, but by the assassination of the culprit, whowas put to death by his own guard in obedience toa written order from the king.12. It is the story of the almost superhumanstruggle of these first years of his reign that Dareiosconfided to the great rock at Bagistana. The sculp¬tured panel at the top of the inscription is a forcibleillustration of the narrative. (See ill. 39.) It rep¬resents the king, protected as usual by the hoveringemblem of Ahura-Mazda, and attended by two dig¬nitaries, one of whom is Gobryas, his father-in-law,in an impetuous attitude, one foot firmly planted onthe prostrate form of a man who stretches out hishands as though imploring, mercy, while a proces-