On his native soil Cyrus had built a town, with a palace and a tomb, in the district of Pasargadae (now the ruins of Murghab). This Darius replaced by a new capital, deeper in the centre of the country, which bore the name "Persian" (Pdrsa), the Persepo lis (q.v.) of the later Greeks. But the district of Persis was too remote to be the administrative centre of a world-empire. The natural centre lay, rather, in the ancient fertile tract on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The actual capital of the empire was therefore Susa, where Darius I. and Artaxerxes II. erected their magnificent palaces. The winter months the kings chiefly spent in Babylon : the hot summer, in the cooler situation of Ecbatana, where Darius and Xerxes built a residence on Mt. Elvend, south of the city. From a palace of Artaxerxes II. in Ecbatana itself, the fragments of a few inscribed columns (now in the possession of Lindo Myers and published by Evetts in the Zeitschr. f. Assyr. V.) have been preserved. To Persis and Persepolis the kings paid only occasional visits especially at their coronations.
Method of Government.—Within the empire, the two great civilized states incorporated by Cyrus and Cambyses, Babylon and Egypt, occupied a position of their own. After his defeat of Nabonidus, Cyrus proclaimed himself "king of Babel"; and the same title was borne by Cambyses, Smerdis and Darius. So, in Egypt, Cambyses adopted in full the titles of the Pharaohs. In this we may trace a desire to conciliate the native population, with the object of maintaining the fiction that the old state still continued. Darius went still farther. He encouraged the efforts of the Egyptian priesthood in every way, built temples, and enacted new laws in continuance of the old order. In Babylon his procedure was presumably similar, though here we possess no local evidence. But he lived to see that his policy had missed its goal. In 486 B.C. Egypt revolted and was only reduced by Xerxes in 484. It was this, probably, that induced him in 484 to renounce his title of "king of Babel," and to remove from its temple the golden statue of Bel-Marduk (Merodach), whose hands the king was bound to clasp on the first day of each year. This proceeding led to two insurrections in Babylon (probably in 484 and 479 B.c.), which were speedily repressed. After that the "kingship of Babel" was definitely abolished. In Egypt the Per sian kings still retained the style of the Pharaohs; but we hear no more of concessions to the priesthood or to the old institu tions, and, apart from the great oasis of el-Kharga, no more temples were erected.
At the head of the court and the imperial administration stands the commandant of the body-guard—the io,000 "Immortals," often depicted in the sculptures of Persepolis with lances sur mounted by golden apples. This grandee, whom the Greeks termed "Chiliarch," corresponds to the modern vizier. In addi tion to him, we find seven councillors (Ezra vii. 14 ; cf. Esther i. 14). Among the other officials, the "eye of the king" is fre quently mentioned. To him was entrusted the control of the whole empire and the superintendence of all officials.
The orders of the court were issued in a very simple form of the cuneiform script, probably invented by the Medes. This corn prised 36 signs, almost all of which denote single sounds. In the royal inscriptions, a translation into Susan (Elamitic) and Baby lonian was always appended to the Persian text. In Egypt one in hieroglyphics was added, as in the inscriptions of the Suez canal; in the Grecian provinces, another in Greek (e.g., the in scription of Darius on the Bosporus, Herod iv. 37, cf. iv. 91).
The cuneiform script could only be written on stone or clay. Thus there has been discovered in Babylon a copy of the Behistun (q.v.) inscription preserved on a block of dolerite (Weissbach,
Babylonische Miscellen., p. 24). For administrative purposes. however, it would seem that this inconvenient material was not employed, its place being taken by skins (6LcApat, parchment), the use of which was adopted from the western peoples of the empire. On these were further written the journals and records kept at the court (cf. Diod. i 1. 22, 3 2 ; Ezra iv. 15, v. 17, vi. 2 ; Esther vi. I, ii. 23). With such materials the cuneiform script could not be used ; instead, the Persian language was written in Aramaic characters, a method which later led to the so-called Pahlavi, i.e., Parthian script. This mode of writing was employed in the state-services since Darius I. ; and so may be explained the fact that, under the Achaemenids, the Persian language rap idly declined, and, in the inscriptions of Artaxerxes III., only appears in an extremely neglected guise (see CUNEIFORM INSCRIP TIONS ; ALPHABET).
Side by side with the Persian, the Aramaic, which had long been widely diffused as the speech of commerce, enjoyed cur rency in all the western half of the empire as a second dominant language. Thus all deeds, enactments and records designed for these provinces were furnished with an official Aramaic version (Ezra iv. 7). To tile three cuneiform inscriptions of his tomb at Nakshi Rustem Darius added an Aramaic version ; and of the account of his deeds in the inscription in Behistun he distributed copies in Aramaic over his empire; of one of these, written in beautiful characters, large fragments have been preserved in the papyri of the Jewish garrison at Elephantine, together with nu merous documents in the same tongue.' The coins minted by the satraps and generals usually bear an Aramaic inscription. (So, also, a lion-weight from Abydos, in the British Museum). The Demotic in Egypt was employed in private documents. In the Hellenic provinces only of the empire Greek replaced Aramaic (cf. the letter to Pausanias in Thuc. i. 129; an edict to Gadatas in Magnesia, Cousin et Deschamps, Bulletin de corresp. hellenique, xii. 530 ; Dittenberger, Sylloge 2; so, also, on coins)—a clear proof that the Persians had already begun to recognize the inde pendent and important position of Greek civilization.' Provincial Organization.—Darius I. divided the Persian em pire into 20 great provinces, satrapies, with a "guardian of the country" (khshathrapavan; see SATRAP) at the head of each. A list is preserved in Herodotus (iii. 89 sqq.) ; but the boundaries were frequently changed. Each satrapy was again subdivided into several minor governorships. The satrap is the head of the whole administration of his province. He levies the taxes, controls the legal procedure, is responsible for the security of roads and prop erty, and superintends the subordinate districts. The heads of the great military centres of the empire and the commandants of the royal fortresses are outside his jurisdiction: yet the satraps are entitled to a body of troops of their own, a privilege which they used to the full, especially in later periods. The satrap is held in his position as a subject by the controlling machinery of the empire, especially the "eye of the king"; by the council of Per sians in his province with whom he is bound to debate all mat ters of importance ; and by the army : while in the hands of the messengers (Pers. Itaravoat or aryapoc—a Babylonian word: see ANGARIA) the government despatches travel "swifter than the crane" along the great imperial highways, which are all provided with regular postal stations (cf. the description of the route from Susa to Sardis in Herod. v. 52).