let the horse mount.

86. Now at dawn of day the six came to the place as they had agreed,
riding upon their horses; and as they rode through by the suburb of the
city, when they came near the place where the mare had been tied up on
the former night, the horse of Dareios ran up to the place and neighed;
and just when the horse had done this, there came lightning and
thunder from a clear sky: and the happening of these things to Dareios
consummated his claim, for they seemed to have come to pass by some
design, and the others leapt down from their horses and did obeisance to
Dareios.

87. Some say that the contrivance of Oibares was this, but others say
as follows (for the story is told by the Persians in both ways), namely
that he touched with his hands the parts of this mare and kept his hand
hidden in his trousers; and when at sunrise they were about to let
the horses go, this Oibares pulled out his hand and applied it to the
nostrils of the horse of Dareios; and the horse, perceiving the smell,
snorted and neighed.

88. So Dareios the son of Hystaspes had been declared king; and in Asia
all except the Arabians were his subjects, having been subdued by
Cyrus and again afterwards by Cambyses. The Arabians however were never
obedient to the Persians under conditions of subjection, but had become
guest-friends when they let Cambyses pass by to Egypt: for against the
will of the Arabians the Persians would not be able to invade Egypt.
Moreover Dareios made the most noble marriages possible in the
estimation of the Persians; for he married two daughters of Cyrus,
Atossa and Artystone, of whom the one, Arossa, had before been the
wife of Cambyses her brother and then afterwards of the Magian, while
Artystone was a virgin; and besides them he married the daughter of
Smerdis the son of Cyrus, whose name was Parmys; and he also took to
wife the daughter of Otanes, her who had discovered the Magian; and all
things became filled with his power. And first he caused to be a carving
in stone, and set it up; and in it there was the figure of a man on
horseback, and he wrote upon it writing to this effect: "Dareios son of
Hystaspes by the excellence of his horse," mentioning the name of it,
"and of his horse-keeper Oibares obtained the kingdom of the Persians."

89. Having so done in Persia, he established twenty provinces, which the
Persians themselves call satrapies; and having established the provinces
and set over them rule