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312 HISTORY OF GREECE. jectert, tried to prevail on the satrap to perform the promise which he had originally given, but had not been able to fulfil The hopes of the sanguine exile, reverting back to the history of Themistokles, led him to anticipate the same success at Susa as had fallen to the lot of the latter ; nor was the design impracti- cable, to one whose ability was universally renowned, and whc had already acted as minister to Tissaphernes. The court of Susa was at this time in a peculiar position. King Darius Nothus, having recently died, had been succeeded by his eldest son Artaxerxes Mnemon ; l but the younger son Cyrus, whom Darius had sent for during his last illness, tried after the death of the latter to supplant Artaxerxes in the suc- cession, or at least was suspected of so trying. Being seized and about to be slain, the queen-mother Parysatis prevailed upon Artaxerxes to pardon him, and send him again down to his satrapy along the coast of Ionia, where he labored strenuously, though secretly, to acquire the means of dethroning his brother ; a memorable attempt, of which I shall speak more fully here- after. But his schemes, though carefully masked, did not escape the observation of Alkibiades, who wished to make a merit of revealing them at Susa, and to become the instrument of defeat- ing them. He communicated his suspicions as well as his purpose to Pharnabazus ; whom he tried to awaken"by alarm of danger to the empire, in order that he might thus get himself forwarded to Susa as informant and auxiliary. Pharnabazus was already jealous and unfriendly in spirit towards Lysander and the Lacedaemonians, of which we shall soon see plain evidence, and perhaps towards Cyrus also, since such were the habitual relations of neighboring satraps in the Persian empire. But the Lacedasmonians and Cyrus were now all-powerful on the Asiatic coast, so that he probably did not dare to exasperate them, by identifying himself with a mission so hostile and an enemy so dangerous to both. Accordingly, he refused compliance with the request of Alkibiades ; granting him, nevertheless, permission to live in Phrygia, and even assigning to him a revenue. But the objects at which the exile was aiming soon became more or less fully divulged, to those against 1 Xenoph. Anab. i, 1 ; Diodor. xiii, 108.