The World

Cambyses planned to finish his father’s work and take Egypt. He had to prove himself fast. First he married his two elder sisters, Atossa and Roxane, to prevent them marrying anyone else, appointing his strapping brother Bardiya, a muscled bowman extraordinaire known as Strongbody, as satrap of Bactria – and culling all opposition. Accompanied by Strongbody and a well-connected young courtier Darius, and raising a force that reflected his family’s astonishing multinational empire, pointy-hatted Scythians, Medes, Persians and a Phoenician navy, he conquered Egypt and killed the pharaoh yet treated Egyptian traditions respectfully. He planned to attack Carthage (a plan vetoed by his Phoenician sailors, who refused to attack their compatriots) and instead marched down the Nile and into Nubia and Ethiopia. His successes were remarkable, yet he did not inspire loyalty.^* Jealous of Strongbody, Cambyses sent him back to Persia, then, tormented by stories of his treason, ordered his killing. In 522, Strongbody declared himself king, while in Cambyses’ own retinue a cabal of seven respected khans, all related to the dynasty, plotted against him. The youngest of them was Darius (Da¯rayavauš, or Holder of Good), aged twenty-two, grandson of the khan of the Haxamanishiya clan who had served Cyrus as quiver bearer and was now Cambyses’ lance bearer. Even though he was the junior member, he was tall, charismatic, athletic and remarkably confident: he emerged as the candidate for king.

As Cambyses rushed home, he met with an unfortunate accident: dismounting from his horse, he cut himself with his dagger and died of gangrene. Darius later wrote that Cambyses ‘died his own death’ – whatever that means. One has to wonder if the Seven quietly killed him. Now they galloped for home, where Strongbody had married his surviving sister Atossa but alienated his own nobles. The Seven arrived at his fortress near the sacred mountain Bisitun, where Strongbody was cavorting with a concubine. A eunuch let the hit squad into the royal chamber where the half-naked Strongbody put up such a fight with a stool that it took all Seven to subdue him. Darius’ brother Artafarna delivered the fatal stab. The Seven met at dawn on horseback to decide who was to be king. Whosever horse neighed first would be he. Darius ordered his groom to dip his fingers into a mare’s vulva first and then, just as sun rose, to wave them temptingly under the nose of his stallion, which then neighed. The other six fell to their knees before the prince, who now adopted the throne name Darius. More likely he had been the king-designate from the start.^* The Seven agreed that the rest of them could always have access to Darius even if he was in bed with a girl.

The empire was in ruins; nine contenders rose to claim the throne. But blessed with irrepressible energy and invincible luck, claiming to be the warrior of Truth, manifestation of Ahura-Mazda, and aided by his six compadres, within two years Darius defeated all contenders, whom he dubbed ‘agents of the Lie’, definition of evil in Zarathustrianism. They were skinned and stuffed, crucified and rectally impaled on the walls of Ecbatana near Mount Bisitun. There, on a blood-red cliff-face, with a winged Ahura-Mazda, chief god of truth, order and war, hovering above him, Darius himself appears, brandishing his bow, sporting the kidaris, the bejewelled robe, and a square-cut plaited beard scented with oil, as he crushes a pretender beneath his foot – ‘I cut off his nose, ears, tongue and tore out one eye’ – while the others writhe in chains awaiting their impalement. The message, in three languages, was pure fake news, obscuring the killings of Cambyses and Strongbody and the usurping of the throne and merging his ancestry with that of Cyrus: ‘I am Darius, King of Kings … a Haxamanishiya. Whoever helped my family, I favoured; whoever was hostile, I eliminated.’