After the death of Dáráb, his son Dárá ascends the throne and administers the realm. Meanwhile Failakús dies, and Sikandar succeeds him in Rúm. Dárá sends to demand tribute of Rúm, and Sikandar replies by invading Írán. He visits the camp of Dárá as his own ambassador, and is recognised, but escapes. Three great battles are fought, in which Dárá is defeated, and subsequently murdered by his own ministers. Sikandar finds Dárá mortally wounded, promises to carry out his last wishes, executes his murderers, and universally is recognised as Sháh.

With Dárá we enter upon the historic period of the Sháhnáma.*

In the last reign he was represented as being the younger son of Dáráb, with Sikandar for his elder brother. Historically, Dárá's prospect of ever becoming Sháh had been remote in the extreme. Artaxerxes Ochus, who had put Nectanebus to flight and con­quered Egypt, was murdered in B.C. 338, with all his sons, by the eunuch Bagoas, with the exception of the youngest, Arses, whom Bagoas made Sháh. Two years later Bagoas murdered him also, and all his family, and raised a distant collateral of the royal house to the throne, who is the Dárá of the Sháhnáma and the Darius Codomanus of Greek writers. Him too in his turn Bagoas tried to do away with, but was put to death himself instead. Historically, Dárá reigned six years, not fourteen.

§ 2. When Alexander was fourteen years old, his father Philip sent for Aristotle to become his son's tutor.

For the tribute due from Rúm see p. 24. In the Pseudo-Callisthenes and the Syriac and Ethiopic versions the ambassadors come in Philip's lifetime and are interviewed by Alexander.*

The golden eggs are mentioned in the Syriac, which, with the Greek, also says that the ambassadors employed a painter to take Alexander's portrait, which they presented to Darius. The Syriac makes the further addition that Darius ordered the picture to be carried to his daughter Roxana, and their several heights to be compared, after which he flung it away in scorn, but Roxana secured it, honoured it greatly, and from that time fell in love with the original.*

Sikandar in the text is represented as beginning his expedi­tion to the East by the invasion of Misr (Egypt), but a good deal happened first both in history and romance. Historically, he spent the first eighteen months of his reign in Greece, and crossed into Asia Minor in the spring of B.C. 334, where, having won the battle of the Granicus, he established his power suffi­ciently to allow him to advance through the passes into Syria. Having encountered and defeated Darius at Issus in the autumn of B.C. 333, he proceeded to make himself master of the coasts of Syria and Palestine, the sieges of Tyre and Gaza together taking about nine months, after which he invaded Egypt. Romantically, after the Granicus and Asia Minor, Alexander sails to Sicily and Italy, where he is well received by the Romans, who present him with a jewelled crown, thence voyages to Africa, where he inter­views the Carthaginians, and proceeds by way of the oasis of Ammon to Egypt.*

§ 3. This corresponds with the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes*

and with the Syriac version*

in general, but these texts add the picturesque incidents that, after Alexander's flight from the feast, the efligy of King Xerxes, which Darius loved, fell from the wall or ceiling of the banquet-hall, and that Alexander in his flight had to cross a frozen river, on which the ice gave way as he reached the other side, his horse being carried off by the current and drowned, while the pursuing Persians were unable to follow him across.

§§ 4-6. The Syriac version only mentions one battle between Alexander and Darius, at which both were present.*

In the Sháhnáma there are three, of which the first corresponds with the one in the Syriac. According to Tabarí, who quotes Hisham bin Muhammad, the two kings fought for a year in Mesopotamia.*

Firdausí places the scene of at least two of the battles of which he speaks to the west of the Euphrates. He was drawing probably from Arabic sources of information. The three battles cannot be regarded as in any way intended for those of the Granicus, of Issus, and of Gaugamela. The number is perhaps a tribute to the importance of the occasion.*

In the Sháhnáma Dárá, after his final defeat, goes to Kirmán. According to the Pseudo-Callisthenes*

and the Syriac version,*

he withdrew to his palace, and next is heard of locally in connexion with Ekbatana and the Caspian Gates.*

This is more accurate historically. Arrian says that Darius, after his defeat at Gauga-mela (October 1st, B.C. 331), fled towards Media, rightly supposing that Alexander would march upon Susa and Babylon.*

§ 7. In the Pseudo-Callisthenes Darius, in his letter, asks for the return of his wife and family, offering land and treasures in exchange;*

in the Syriac version he is ready to surrender every­thing if he may have mercy shown to him.*

Alexander's reply is softened in the Persian. In the Greek and Syriac he takes the view that he is only recovering his own, Darius having been the aggressor, and in the latter makes no reply to him. Alexander's honourable treatment of Darius' family, whom he had taken at Issus, is a matter of history,*

and the same sentiment toward them is preserved in the Pseudo-Callisthenes.

§§ 8-9. In the Greek and Syriac versions the letter to Porus is given at somewhat greater length. Darius invites Porus to meet him with an army at the Caspian Gates, and promises him half the spoil and Alexander's horse Bucephalus.*

Porus, of which the Arabic form Fúr is used in the Sháhnáma, is a dynastic or family name, and represents the Pauravas who are mentioned in the Mahábhárata as reigning in the neighbourhood of Kashmír.*

The Porus of Alexander's time ruled between the Hydaspes (Jhílam) and the Akesines (Chináb), and was allied to the king of Kashmír.

With regard to the death of Darius at the hands of two of his satraps,*

the historical account is that, after Gaugamela, he went, accompanied by remnants of his broken army, to Ekbatana (Hamadán), where he endeavoured to raise fresh forces. Alexander, in the meantime, had made himself master of Babylon and Per-sepolis, and, hearing of Darius' doings, advanced northward against him in the spring of B.C. 330. Darius did not wait for Alexander's arrival, but left Ekbatana, intending to take refuge with his cousin Bessus, the satrap of Bactria. Darius went, of course, by the well-known route that connects western with eastern Irán.*

He had considerable forces with him, but his counsels were distracted, and his troops gradually deserted him. Alexander reached Rai by forced marches from Ekbatana, but, hearing that Darius was far ahead, abandoned the pursuit, and rested for five days. He then resumed his march, and halted in the neighbourhood of Girduni Sirdarra, which appears to be the Caspian Gates of Arrian, passed through them the second day and heard, when encamped beyond them, that Darius was a prisoner in the hands of Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, of Bar-saentes, the satrap of Arachosia and Drangiana (Sístán), and of Nabarzanes, the commander of Darius' cavalry. On this Alexander resumed the pursuit, and, four or five days later, came up with the fugitives, whereupon Nabarzanes and Barsaentes mortally wounded Darius and abandoned him. He was dead before Alexander reached him.*

This was in July B.C. 330. Nabarzanes soon after surrendered to Alexander, and was pardoned.*

Bessus and Barsaentes escaped to their own satrapies, where the former assumed royal state and the name of Artaxerxes. Ultimately both were captured and executed.*

Their resistance to Alexander seems to have been a more serious crime than their removal of his chief opponent. An Arabic account*

affirms that the death of Darius was brought about with the connivance of Alexander, and although Firdausí's version naturally omits this feature, it in other respects follows the Arabic very closely with regard to the scene between the two kings. The names of the two assassins are in the Pseudo-Callisthenes Bessus and Ariobarzanes,*

in the Syriac version Bágíz and Ánábdéh, and in the Ethiopic Háshísh and Arsalás. The names in Firdausí seem to be of his own invention. The arrangement made between the two kings that Alexander should marry Roxana or Rúshanak appears in all the versions, and is not historical. She was not the daughter of Darius, but of Oxyartes, a Bactrian chief, whose stronghold Alexander escaladed. He fell in love with her at sight, and married her,*

B.C. 328. Subsequently, on his return from his Indian expedition, he did marry a daughter of Darius—Barsine or Stateira—at Susa in B.C. 324. Rúshanak, the Persian form of Roxana, is a diminutive from the adjective “rúshan,” bright.

For the feast of Sada see Vol. i. p. 123. Naurúz, New Year's Day, was also the name of a feast then held. Cf. id. 74. For Mihr see id. 175 and note.

The corpse of Darius was sent to Párs.*

In the Romance the punishment of his assassins follows quickly. In the Greek, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions of it, Alexander announces his intention of “exalting” the doers of the deed, and so induces the culprits to declare themselves, who thereupon are “exalted” on the gibbet, set up over the grave of Darius.*

Firdausí's version relieves Sikandar from all imputation of sharp practice. In the Arabic account mentioned above, Alexander gives the murderers all that they bargained for, but they had forgotten to include their lives in the compact, and are put to death.

§ 10. Sikandar's proclamation to the Persians and his cor­respondence with the women-folk of Dárá appear in the other versions,*

but the correspondence is reserved for the next reign. Here we have a message only. The passage about the hand­maids in Firdausí's version of the proclamation runs in the Syriac: “And we command that damsels … shall enter into the temple of the god whom my mother Olympias worships, for the space of one year for the service of the gods; and when they have arrived at the age for marriage, they shall go forth from the ministry, and shall receive a dowry of five thousand dínárs from the treasury of the god, and shall marry.” Expressions in Firdausí's version show that it came to him, in part at least, through the Arabic.