The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [130]
20. He married also Parmys, daughter of Smerdis, son of Cyrus; and he likewise took to wife the daughter of Otanes, who had made the discovery about the Magus.
21. And now when Darius’ power was established firmly throughout all the kingdoms, the first thing he did was to set up a carving in stone,
22. Which showed a man mounted on a horse, with an inscription in these words following:
23. ‘Darius, son of Hystaspes, by aid of his good horse and of his good groom Oebares, got himself the kingdom of the Persians.’
24. Darius arranged his empire into twenty satrapies, reaching from Egypt to Armenia,
25. From the subjected eastern Greeks to India, this last the wealthiest of all the satrapies; and great treasures flowed into his keeping from them.
26. And from the nations that were not in his empire but on its borders he received gifts:
27. From the Ethiopians two choenices of virgin gold, two hundred logs of ebony, five boys and twenty elephant tusks.
28. From the Colchians and their neighbours as far north as the Caucasus he received every five years a hundred boys and a hundred maidens.
29. The Arabs gave him a thousand talents of frankincense every year.
30. All this shows the greatness and wealth of the Persian empire.
Chapter 34
1. And so we come to the period at which Persia’s greatness was at its height, having conquered and subjected Asia and Egypt, and spread its dominion across the East;
2. At which time Darius turned his eyes west, towards the happy lands of the Greeks, and proposed to himself to conquer them and all that lay beyond them,
3. And thus to rule all the world according to the Persian way.
4. The immediate prompt for launching this adventure in which the future of the world hung in the balance, was as so often in history, an accident.
5. Leaping to his horse one day, Darius missed his step and fell, injuring his ankle severely, for the bone came out of the socket.
6. The Egyptian doctors about the court attempted to set the injury, but by the violence of their methods made it worse, leaving the king in agony and unable to sleep for five days.
7. Darius asked in his suffering whether there was no one who could help him, whereupon a member of the court said that among those kept prisoner in the palace was a Greek believed to be a notable physician.
8. This was Democedes, who, brought before the king in his rags and fetters, at first tried to deny his skill for fear that if he failed to cure the king he would never again see his beloved Greece.
9. But Darius, suspecting deceit, called for the instruments of torture to test whether Democedes spoke truly;
10. And at this the Greek confessed that he had some skill, and would try to help Darius.
11. This he successfully did, first by giving the king a concoction that helped him to sleep,
12. And then, in the following weeks, by the gentle Greek arts of manipulating and setting the bones, he soothed the inflamed swelling of the joint and healed its dislocation.
13. Darius had quite lost hope of ever using his foot again, and, being restored, was filled with gratitude.
14. He gave Democedes two sets of golden fetters, which made the Greek ask whether his reward for helping him was to have the sufferings of captivity doubled?
15. Darius was pleased with this speech, and told the eunuchs to take Democedes to see his wives, each of whom plied the Greek with further gifts of gold.
16. Thereafter Democedes dwelt at Susa, dining every day at the king’s table, and having everything he wished except the one thing he desired most:
17. Namely, his liberty, so that he could return to his native Greece, which he yearned for.
18. Now one day Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, once wife to both Cambyses and the usurper Magus, and now wife to Darius, had a boil form on her breast.
19. At first she kept quiet about the sore, but when it burst and spread she sent for Democedes. He said he would make her well if she would grant him whatever he asked,
20. Assuring her that what he asked she would not blush to hear.
21. On these