l hung in the balance--a fresh danger threatened. Encouraged
by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which had at
length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for the
second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice
of personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
"Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus." Less alarmed on this occasion than
at the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a
Median general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called
Intaphres, speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking
Aracus prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the
rebel leader.

A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it
may have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise
the remoter governors, who without formally declaring themselves
independent, or assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of
rebellion. Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself
strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to
death an ally of that monarch's, Polycrates of Samos, had from the
time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a
subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring
province, he murdered him and annexed his territory. When Darius sent a
courier to him with a message the purport of which he disliked, he set
men to waylay and assassinate him. It was impossible to overlook such
acts; and Darius must have sent an army into Asia Minor, if one of
his nobles had not undertaken to remove Oroetes in another way. Arming
himself with several written orders bearing the king's seal, he went
to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the guard which the satrap
kept round his person. When he found them full of respect for the royal
authority and ready to do whatever the king commanded, he produced
an order for the governor's execution, which they carried into effect
immediately.

The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to
the Ori