ss
hoping to reach the recesses of Mount Elburz, and to continue there
the struggle; but he was captured at Baga and carried to Ecbatana. His
horrible punishment was proportionate to the fear he had inspired: his
nose, ears, and tongue were cut off, and his eyes gouged out, and in
this mutilated condition he was placed in chains at the gate of the
palace, to demonstrate to his former subjects how the Achaemenian'
king could punish an impostor. When the people had laid this lesson
sufficiently to heart, Khshatrita was impaled; many of his principal
adherents were ranged around him and suffered the same fate, while
the rest were decapitated as an example. Babylon and Media being thus
successfully vanquished, the possession of the empire was assured to
Darius, whatever might happen in other parts of his territory, and
henceforth the process of repressing disaffection went on unchecked.
Immediately after the decisive battle of Kundurush, Vaumisa accomplished
the pacification of Armenia by a victory won near Autiyara, and
Artavardiya defeated Vahyazdata for the first time at Eakha in Persia.
Vahyazdata had committed the mistake of dividing his forces and sending
a portion of them to Arachosia. Vivana, the governor of this province,
twice crushed the invaders, and almost at the same time the Persian
Dadardish of Bactriana was triumphing over Frada and winning Margiana
back to allegiance. For a moment it seemed as if the decisive issue of
the struggle might be prolonged for months, since it was announced that
the appearance of a new pseudo-Smerdis on the scene had been followed
by the advent of a second pseudo-Nebuchadrezzar in Chaldaea. Darius left
only a weak garrison at Babylon when he started to attack Khshatrita:
a certain Arakha, an Armenian by birth, presenting himself to the
Babylonian people as the son of Nabonidus, caused himself to be
proclaimed king in December, 519 B.C.; but the city was still suffering
so severely from the miseries of the long siege, that it was easy for
the Mede Vindafra to reduce it promptly to submission after a month or
six weeks of semi-independence. This was the last attempt at revolt.
Chitran-takhma expiated his crimes by being impaled, and Hystaspes
routed the Hyrcanian battalions at Patigrabana in Parthia: Artavardiya
having defeated Vahyazdata, near Mount Paraga, on the 6th of Garmapada,
618 B.C., besieged him in his fortress of Uvadeshaya, and was not long
in effecting his capture. The