76 HISTORY Oi^ GKEF.UE. Thrace ; ^ that an Asiatic chief, who Avas intriguing to facilitate Philip's intended invasion of Asia, was seized and sent prisoner to the Persian court ; and that envoys from Athens, soliciting aid against Philip, were forwarded to the same place.- Ochus, though successful in regaining the full extent of Per- sian dominion, was a sanguinary tyrant, Avho shed by wholesale the blood of his family and courtiers. About the year 338 b. c, he died, poisoned by the eunuch Bagoas, Avho placed upon the throne Arses, one of the king's sons, killing all the rest. After two years, however, Bagoas conceived mistrust of Arses, and put him to death also, together Avith all his children ; thus leav ing no direct descendant of the regal family alive. He then ex- alted to the throne one of his friends named Darius Codomannus (descended from one of the brothers of Artaxerxes Memnon,) Avho had acquired glory, in a recent war against the Kadusians, by killmg in single combat a formidable champion of the enemy's army. Presently, hoAvever, Bagoas attempted to poison Darius also ; but the latter, detecting the snare, forced him to drink the deadly draught himself.^ In spite of such murders and change in the line of succession, which Alexander afterAvards reproached to Darius^ — the authority of Darius seems to have been recog- nized, Avithout any material opposition, throughout all the Per- sian empire. Succeeding to the throne in the early pai-t of B. c. 336, Avhen Philip was organizing the projected invasion of Persia, and Avhen the first Macedonian division vmder Pai-menio and Att^lus Avas already making Avar in Asia — Darius prepared measures of de- fence at home, and tried to encourage anti-Macedonian move- ments in Greece.^ On the assassination of Philip by Pausanias, the Persian king publicly proclaimed himself (probably untruly) as having instigated the deed, and alluded in contemptuous tei'ms ' Letter of Alexander, addressed to Darius after the battle of Issus, npud Arrian, ii, 14, 7. Other troops sent by the Persians into Thrace (besides those despatched to the relief of rcrinthus), are here alluded to.
- Demosthenes, rhilippic. iv. p. 139, 140; Epistola Philippi apud De-
mosthen. p. 160. ■' Diodor. xvii. 5 ; Justin, x. 3 ; Curlius, x. 5, 22.
- Arrian, ii. 14, 10. * Diodor. xvii. 7.
