n illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who stood high
in his favor. Assassination was the weapon employed to get rid of this
rival. It is said that this last blow was too much for the aged and
unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving intelligence of the murder.

Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was
mild in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate
and well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The
wife and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his
eyes; and he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge
their fate. Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted
boons which he ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it
would have been proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most
just resentment, but remitted punishments even when they were far milder
than the crime deserved. He was fairly successful in the management
of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of
disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable
of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and
re-invigorate the Empire. If he held together the territories which he
inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than
diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his
merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or
sagacity.

Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty
by temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.
359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood
royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may
believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses,
whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having
taken these measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself
more active and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was
now nearly half a century since one of the important provinces of the
Empire--Egypt--had successfully asserted its independence and restored
the throne of