Peace was hardly signed with Greece when Megabyzus, governor of Syria, discontented with the way the king had treated Inarus after his victory, raised an army under his command. He defeated two generals, one after the other, and only disbanded his force after having dictated the terms of peace.
Some years later his son Zopyrus headed a rebellion in Caria and Lydia, and the success of the revolt was so fatal to the other satraps that their fidelity henceforth was only a question of caprice or circumstance. Artaxerxes died in 424, and the intrigues which had cost so much blood at the beginning of his reign now recommenced. His eldest legitimate son, Xerxes II, was assassinated at the end of forty-five days by Sogdianus, one of his illegitimate brothers; he in his turn was dethroned and killed after a reign of six months and a half by Ochus, another bastard of the old king, who, on ascending the throne, took the name of Darius, and whose life was one long tissue of miseries and crimes. His reign from the beginning was disturbed by the rebellion of his brother Arsites and Artyphius, son of Megabyzus, who took up arms in Asia Minor, enrolled Greek mercenaries, and gained two important victories. Persian gold now compassed what was beyond Persian bravery, and the rebels, abandoned by their soldiers, surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared.
DARIUS II
Darius II had married his aunt Parysatis, one of the cruellest and most depraved women that ever entered an Eastern harem, and it was by her advice that he broke his word and Arsites was burnt to death. But this example did not deter Pissuthenes, the satrap of Lydia, who had been in office for twenty months, from rebelling; however, he, like Arsites, fell by treachery; for Tissaphernes having bribed the mercenaries in his pay to desert him, he was obliged to surrender. Darius had him put to death, and made his conqueror his successor.
But this was not the last of the troubles in Asia Minor, for Amorges, the natural son of Pissuthenes excited Caria to revolt, and after abrogating the title of King, he held out till 412.
It was at this time that the whole of Greece was laid waste by the Peloponnesian war. Athens had just lost in Sicily the best part of her fleet and the bravest of her soldiers, and when the news of her defeat reached the East, Darius saw that it was a favourable time to break the treaty of 449. He sent orders to the satraps of Mysia and Lydia to collect the taxes from the Greek towns on the coast and to treat with the Lacedæmonians. Sparta accepted the alliance offered her, and henceforth the different Hellenic states were but playthings in the hands of the Great King and his agents. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus tried at first to keep the balance equal between the Dorians and Athenians, without allowing either of the rival races to deal the mortal blow; but this equalising policy did not last long. Darius had two sons, and the second one, named Cyrus after the founder of the empire, obtained through the influence of Parysatis the supreme rulership of the provinces of Asia Minor.
Cyrus was ambitious of reigning, and he hoped that his mother would manage by intrigues to obtain for him the succession which rightfully belonged to his eldest brother, Arsaces; and in the event of failure by those means he intended to win the throne by force of arms.
[405-399 B.C.]
Athens being a maritime power was not likely to help him in an expedition against the provinces of Upper Asia, so he turned to Sparta and supported her so efficaciously that in two years the war ended in favour of the Peloponnesians, by their decisive victory at Ægospotami in 405.