were to be
found. Here they were resisted by a few eunuchs, headed by Boges, but
these were overpowered and killed to a man. Darius became furious on
seeing Boges, and killed him at once. Hearing the dying cries of these
eunuchs, the Magi rushed to the spot and prepared to defend themselves.
Oropastes snatched a lance from the fallen Boges, thrust out one of
Intaphernes' eyes and wounded Aspatines in the thigh, but was stabbed
by Megabyzus. Gaumata fled into another apartment and tried to bar
the door, but was followed too soon by Darius and Gobryas; the latter
seized, threw him, and kept him down by the weight of his own body,
crying to Darius, who was afraid of making a false stroke in the
half-light, and so wounding his companion instead of Gaumata, "Strike
boldly, even if you should stab us both." Darius obeyed, and fortunately
only hit the Magian.

Thus died Oropastes, the high-priest, and his brother Gaumata, better
known under the name of the "pseudo" or "pretended Smerdis."

A few weeks after Darius' election to the throne, which the people
said had been marvellously influenced by divine miracles and the
clever cunning of a groom, he celebrated his coronation brilliantly at
Pasargadae, and with still more splendor, his marriage with his beloved
Atossa. The trials of her life had ripened her character, and she proved
a faithful, beloved and respected companion to her husband through
the whole of that active and glorious life, which, as Prexaspes had
foretold, made him worthy of the names by which he was afterwards
known--Darius the Great, and a second Cyrus.

[Atossa is constantly mentioned as the favorite wife of Darius, and
be appointed her son Xerxes to be his successor, though he had three
elder sons by the daughter of Gobryas. Herodotus (VII. 3.) speaks
with emphasis of the respect and consideration in which Atossa was
held, and Aeschylus, in his Persians, mentions her in her old age,
as the much-revered and noble matron.]

As a general he was circumspect and brave, and at the same time
understood so thoroughly how to divide his enormous realm, and to
administer its affairs, that he must be classed with the greatest
organizers of all times and countries. That his feeble successors were
able to keep this Asiatic Colossus of different countries together for
two hundred years after his death, was entirely owing to Darius. He was
liberal of his own, but sparing of his subjects' treasures, a