clothed with a
portion of his majesty--they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks
or "paradises," vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled,
seraglios. They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the
tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction
at their pleasure, and appointed deputies--called sometimes, like
themselves, satraps--over cities or districts within their province,
whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They exacted from
the provincials, for their own support and that of their Court, over and
above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they regarded them as
capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to be purchased
from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross outrages on the
persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained their tyranny
but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of
removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch.

Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless
upon rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and
numerous garrisons of foreign troops--Persians and Medes--quartered
on the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they
lived, and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of
much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon
the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.
Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood
everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no
doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing,
but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.

Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within
the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and
thei