s was the eldest of them. He was not,
however, the eldest of the sons of Darius, as there were other sons, the
children of another wife, whom Darius had married before he ascended the
throne. The oldest of these children was named Artobazanes. Artobazanes
seems to have been a prince of an amiable and virtuous character, and
not particularly ambitious and aspiring in his disposition, although, as
he was the eldest son of his father, he claimed to be his heir. Atossa
did not admit the validity of this claim, but maintained that the oldest
of _her_ children was entitled to the inheritance.

It became necessary to decide this question before Darius's death; for
Darius, in the prosecution of a war in which he was engaged, formed the
design of accompanying his army on an expedition into Greece, and,
before doing this, he was bound, according to the laws and usages of the
Persian realm, to regulate the succession.

There immediately arose an earnest dispute between the friends and
partisans of Artobazanes and Xerxes, each side urging very eagerly the
claims of its own candidate. The mother and the friends of Artobazanes
maintained that he was the oldest son, and, consequently, the heir.
Atossa, on the other hand, contended that Xerxes was the grandson of
Cyrus, and that he derived from that circumstance the highest possible
hereditary rights to the Persian throne.

This was in some respects true, for Cyrus had been the founder of the
empire and the legitimate monarch, while Darius had no hereditary
claims. He was originally a noble, of high rank, indeed, but not of the
royal line; and he had been designated as Cyrus's successor in a time of
revolution, because there was, at that time, no prince of the royal
family who could take the inheritance. Those, therefore, who were
disposed to insist on the claims of a legitimate hereditary succession,
might very plausibly claim that Darius's government had been a regency
rather than a reign; that Xerxes, being the oldest son of Atossa,
Cyrus's daughter, was the true representative of the royal line; and
that, although it might not be expedient to disturb the possession of
Darius during his lifetime, yet that, at his death, Xerxes was
unquestionably entitled to the throne.

There was obviously a great deal of truth and justice in this reasoning,
and yet it was a view of the subject not likely to be very agreeable to
Darius, since it seemed to deny the existence of any real and valid