whom he is bound to debate all matters of importance; and by the army: while in the hands of the messengers (Pers. ἀστάνδαι or ἄγγαροι—a Babylonian word: see Angaria) the government dispatches travel “swifter than the crane” along the great imperial highways, which are all provided with regular postal stations (cf. the description of the route from Susa to Sardis in Herod. v. 52).
Within the satrapies the subject races and communities occupied a tolerably independent position; for instance, the Subject Communities. Jews, under their elders and priests, who were even able to convene a popular assembly in Jerusalem (cf. the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah). Obviously also, they enjoyed, as a rule, the privilege of deciding law-suits among themselves; their general situation being similar to that of the Christian nationalities under the Ottomans, or to that of many tribes in the Russian Empire at the present day. The pressure of despotism was manifest, not so much in that the king and his officials consistently interfered in individual cases, but that they did so on isolated and arbitrary occasions, and then swept aside the privileges of the subject, who was impotent to resist.
For the rest, the subject population falls into a number of distinct groups. In the desert (as among the Arabian and Turanian nomads), in wild and sequestered mountains (as in Zagros in north Media, and Mysia, Pisidia, Paphlagonia and Bithynia in Asia Minor), and also in many Iranian tribes, the old tribal constitution, with the chieftain as its head, was left intact even under the imperial suzerainty. The great majority of the civilized provinces were subdivided into local administrative districts governed by officials of the king and his satraps. These the Greeks named ἔθνη, “peoples.” Within these, again, there might lie large town settlements whose internal affairs were controlled by the elders or the officials of the community: as, for instance, Babylon, Jerusalem, the Egyptian cities, Tarsus, Sardis and others. On the same footing were the spiritual principalities, with their great temple-property; as Bambyce in Syria, the two Comanas in Cappadocia, and so forth. Besides these, however, vast districts were either converted into royal domains (παράδεισοι) with great parks and hunting grounds under royal supervision, or else bestowed by the king on Persians or deserving members of the subject-races (the “benefactors”) as their personal property. Many of these estates formed respectable principalities: e.g. those of the house of Otanes in Cappadocia, of Hydarnes in Armenia, Pharnabazus in Phrygia, Demaratus in Teuthrania, Themistocles in Magnesia and Lampsacus. They were absolute private property, handed down from father to son for centuries, and in the Hellenistic period not rarely became independent kingdoms. These potentates were styled by the Greeks δυνάσται or μόναρχοι.
The last class, quite distinct from all these organizations, was formed by the city-states (πόλεις) with an independent The City States. constitution—whether a monarchy (as in Phoenicia), an aristocracy (as in Lycia), or a republic with council and popular assembly (as in the Greek towns). The essential point was that they enjoyed a separate legalized organization (autonomy). This was only to be seen in the extreme western provinces of the empire among the Phoenicians, Greeks and Lycians, whose cities were essentially distinct from those of the east; which, indeed, to Greek eyes, were only great villages (κωμοπόλεις). It is readily intelligible that their character should have proved practically incomprehensible to the Persians, with whom they came into perpetual collision. These sought, as a rule, to cope with the difficulty by transferring the government to individual persons who enjoyed their confidence: the “tyrants” of the Greek towns. Mardonius, alone, after his suppression of the Ionic revolt—which had originated with these very tyrants—made an attempt to govern them by the assistance of the democracy (492 B.C.).
The provinces of the Persian Empire differed as materially in economy as in organization. In the extreme west, a money currency in its most highly developed form—that of coinage minted by the state, or an autonomous community—had developed since the Commerce and Finance. 7th century among the Lydians and Greeks. In the main portion, however, of the Oriental world—Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia and Babylonia—the old mode of commerce was still in vogue, conducted by means of gold and silver bars, weighed at each transaction. Indeed, a money currency only began to make headway in these districts in the 4th century B.C. In the eastern provinces, on the other hand, the primitive method of exchange by barter still held the field. Only in the auriferous and civilized frontier districts of India (the Punjab) did a system of coinage find early acceptance. There Persian and Attic money was widely distributed, and imitations of it struck, in the fifth and fourth pre-Christian centuries.
Thus the empire was compelled to grapple with all these varied conditions and to reconcile them as best it might. At the court, “natural economy” was still the rule. The officials and Oriental troops received payment in kind. They were fed “by the table of the king,” from which 15,000 men daily drew their sustenance (cf. Heraclides of Cyme in Athen. iv. 145 B, &c.) and were rewarded by gifts and assignments of land. The Greek mercenaries, on the contrary, had to be paid in currency; nor could the satraps of the west dispense with hard cash. The king, again, needed the precious metals, not merely for bounties and rewards, but for important enterprises in which money payment was imperative. Consequently, the royal revenues and taxes were paid partly in the precious metals, partly in natural produce—horses and cattle, grain, clothing and its materials, furniture and all articles of industry (cf. Theopomp. fr. 124, 125, &c). The satraps, also, in addition to money payments, levied contributions “for their table,” at which the officials ate (Nehem. v. 14).
The precious metals brought in by the tribute were collected in the great treasure-houses at Susa, Persepolis, Pasargadae and Money and Coinage. Ecbatana, where gigantic masses of silver and, more especially, of gold, were stored in bullion or partially wrought into vessels (Herod, iii. 96; Strabo xv. 731, 735; Arrian iii. 16, &c.); exactly as is the case to-day in the shah's treasure-chamber (Curzon, Persia, ii. 484). It is also observable that the conjunction of payments in kind and money taxes still exists. The province of Khorasan, for instance, with some half million inhabitants, paid in 1885 £154,000 in gold, and in addition natural produce to the value of £43,000 (Curzon, op. cit. i. 181, ii. 380). When the king required money he minted as much as was necessary. A reform in the coinage was effected by Darius, who struck the Daric (Pers. Zariq, i.e. “piece of gold”; the word has nothing to do with the name of Darius), a gold piece of 130 grains (value about 23s.); this being equivalent to 20 silver pieces (“Median shekels,” σίγλοι) of 86.5 grains (value according to the then rate of silver—13⅓ silver to 1 gold—about 1s. 2d.). The coining of gold was the exclusive prerogative of the king; silver could be coined by the satraps, generals, independent communities and dynasts.
The extent of the Persian Empire was, in essentials, defined by the great conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses. Darius was Imperial Policy. no more a conquistador than Augustus. Rather the task he set himself was to round off the empire and secure its borders: and for this purpose in Asia Minor and Armenia he subdued the mountain-tribes and advanced the frontier as far as the Caucasus; Colchis alone remaining an independent kingdom under the imperial suzerainty. So, too, he annexed the Indus valley and the auriferous hill-country of Kafiristan and Cashmir (Κάσπιοι or Κάσπειροι, Herod. iii. 93, vii. 67, 86; Steph. Byz.), as well as the Dardae in Dardistan on the Indus (Ctesias, Ind. fr. 12. 70, &c.). From this point he directed several campaigns against the Amyrgian Sacae, on the Pamir Plateau and northwards, whom he enumerates in his list of subject races, and whose mounted archers formed a main division of the armies dispatched against the Greeks. It was obviously an attempt to take the nomads of the Turanian steppe in the rear and to reduce them to quiescence, which led to his unfortunate expedition against the Scythians of the Russian steppes (c. 512 B.C.; cf. Darius).
Side by side, however, with these wars, we can read, even in the scanty tradition at our disposal, a consistent effort to further the great civilizing mission imposed on the empire. In the district of Herat, Darius established a great water-basin, designed to facilitate the cultivation of the steppe (Herod. iii. 117). He had the course of the Indus explored by the Carian captain Scylax (q.v.) of Caryanda, who then navigated the Indian Ocean back to Suez (Herod. iv. 44) and Wrote an account of his voyage in Greek. The desire to create a direct communication between the seclusion of Persis and the commerce of the world is evident
