BABYLON AND PERSIA

XIV.DAREIOS I. SECOND PERIOD :YEARS OF PEACE.I. Six years had been absorbed by the civil wars;all the provinces needed rest, and Dareios adjournedthe plans of conquest which his ambitious spirit wasmaturing until the wounds of the state should behealed and the growing generation should havereached manhood, For seven years he devoted him¬self to works of peace, and showed a genius for ad¬ministration and statesmanship, suchas has neversince been surpassed and seldom equalled by thegreatest organizers and founders of states.His sys¬tem was based on the simplest principle : the great¬est possible prosperity of the subject, as conduciveto the greatest possible joower and wealth of the state,represented by a vigilant, active, and absolute cen¬tral government.The means, which he used, theinstitutions which he created in order to achievethis great result, are startlingly modern inspirit, andeven in the technical details of execution. In the firstplace he divided the empire into twenty provinces or"satrapies ; " for, in the words of an eminent modernhistorian,'* " the insurrections which hjid marred thebeginning of his reign had shown him how apt a bun-' Justi, " Geschichte des alten Persiens."384