Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/252

234 HISTORY OF GREECE. the mouth of the Persians this latter epithet must be construej as no insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to introduce some methodical order into the imperial admin- istration and finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of tribute levied upon the subject provinces : which furnished what were called presents, subject to no fixed limit except such as 'might be satisfactory to the satrap in each district. But Darius succeeding as he did to Smerdis, who had rendered himself popular with the provinces bj large finan- cial exemptions, and having farther to encounter jealousy and dissatisfaction from Persians, his former equals in rank prob- ably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole empire into twenty departments, imposing upon each a fixed annual tax. and a fixed contribution for the maintenance of the court. Thi? must doubtless have been a great improvement, though the limi- tation of the sum which the Great King at Susa would require, did not at all prevent the satrap in his own province from in- definite requisitions beyond it. The latter was a little king, who acted nearly as he pleased' in the internal administration of his province, subject only to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute, of keeping off foreign enemies, and of furnishing an adequate military contingent for the foreign enterprises of the Great King. To every satrap was attached a royal secre- tary, or comptroller, of the revenue, 1 who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap himself. It is not to be supposed that the Persian authorities in any province meddled with the details of taxation, or contribution, as they bore upon individuals. The court having fixed the entire sum payable by the satrapy in the aggregate, the satrap or the secre- i56/Ua irui'Ta Kafal /cu-^P.a " Ku~ rj/*a Trpoafyepuv re^v^uara." (^Eschylus, Fragment. 328, ed. Dindorf : compare Euripid. Hippolyt. 953.) 1 Herodot. iii, 128. This division of power, and double appointment by the Great King, appears to have been retained until the close of the Per- sian empire: see Qnintus Curtius, v, 1, 17-20 (v, 3, 19-21, Zumpt). Thfl present Turkish government nominates a Defterdar as finance administra- tor inea;h province, with authority derived directly from itself, and rro fessedly independent of the Pacha.