es of
the Macedonian prince; Chersobleptes of Thrace and the town of Perinthus
receiving from him such succour as enabled them to repulse Philip
successfully (340). Unfortunately, while Bagoas was endeavouring
to avert danger in this quarter, his rivals at court endeavoured to
prejudice the mind of the king against him, and their intrigues were so
successful that he found himself ere long condemned to the alternative
of murdering his sovereign or perishing himself. He therefore poisoned
Ochus, to avoid being assassinated or put to the torture, and placed on
the throne Arses, the youngest of the king's sons, while he caused the
remaining royal children to be put to death (336).* Egypt hailed
this tragic end as a mark of the vengeance of the gods whom Ochus had
outraged. A report was spread that the eunuch was an Egyptian, that he
had taken part in the murder of the Apis under fear of death, but that
when he was sure of his own safety he had avenged the sacrilege. As soon
as the poison had taken effect, it was said he ate a portion of the dead
body and threw the remainder to the cats: he then collected the bones
and made them into whistles and knife-handles.**

* Plutarch calls the successor of Ochus Oarses, which
recalls the name which Dinon gives to Artaxerxes II.
Diodorus says that Bagoas destroyed the whole family of
Ochus, but he is mistaken. Arrian mentions a son of Ochus
about 330, and several other members of the royal Achaemenian
race are known to have been living in the time of Alexander.

** The body of the enemy thrown to the cats to be devoured
is a detail added by the popular imagination, which crops up
again in the Tale of Satni Khamois.

Ochus had astonished his contemporaries by the rapidity with which he
had re-established the integrity of the empire; they were pleased to
compare him with the heroes of his race, with Cyrus, Cambyses, and
Darius. But to exalt him to such a level said little for their moral or
intellectual perceptions, since in spite of his victories he was merely
a despot of the ordinary type; his tenacity degenerated into brutal
obstinacy, his severity into cruelty, and if he obtained successes,
they were due rather to his generals and his ministers than to his own
ability. His son Arses was at first content to be a docile instrument
in the hands of Bagoas; but when the desire for independence came to him
with the habitual exercise of power