y of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals
against the rebels, and in this way to gauge the strength of the
outbreak, before adventuring his own person into the fray. Hydarnes,
one of the Seven conspirators, was sent into Media with an army, while
Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched into Armenia, and Vomises, a
Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria into the same country.
All three generals were met by the forces of the pretender, and several
battles were fought, with results that seem not to have been very
decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for his own
generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress, and
that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a bold
front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field
in person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive.
He fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and
made prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept
him for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there
might be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable
existence. He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the
eyes of those who had seen his former glory.

The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia
and Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius's
father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father's assistance, and
dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops t