gradually to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the
provinces. Allowed the use of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the
provincials, they themselves maintained their self-respect, and showed,
even towards the close of their Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom
exhibited by any but a free people. But there was nevertheless a dark
side to the picture--a lurking danger which must have thrown a shadow
over the lives of all the nobler and richer of the nation, unless
they were utterly thoughtless. The irresponsible authority and cruel
dispositions of the kings, joined to the recklessness with which they
delegated the power of life and death to their favorites, made it
impossible for any person of eminence in the whole Empire to feel sure
that he might not any day be seized and accused of a crime, or even
without the form of an accusation be taken and put to death, after
suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this result, it was
enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the performance of
a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too great a service,
the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough to have
provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or jealousy of
one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would sometimes
pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
guiltless--even, it may be, unconscious--of the offence given.
Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if
he preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial
or inquiry. His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same
pleasing liberty of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to
their proceedings, sometimes without consulting him. It may be said
that the sufferers could at no time be very many in number, and that
therefore no very wide-spread alarm can have been commonly felt; but
the horrible nature of many of the punishments, and the impossibility
of conjecturing on whom they might next fall, must be set against their
infrequency; and it must be remembered that an awful horror, from which
no precautions can save a man, though it happen to few, is