ded
from about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
unwarlike monarch--if not a mere "peddler," as his subjects said, yet,
at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of Hystaspes
was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his domestic
foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them was
completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to carry
on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great predecessors,
and like them to extend in one direction or another the boundaries of
the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law of the
Empire's being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to become
extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole guarantee of
their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find him, after
he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great wars
both towards his eastern and his western frontier--wars which in both
instances had results of considerable importance.

The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting
the attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock
to the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way
some knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an
expedition into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely
reducing it. The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was
annexed, and remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The
results of this conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable
of making