DARIUS. - Name of three Persian kings, belonging
to a cadet branch of the Achaemenids (v.).
DARIUS I
King of Persia from 522 to 485 B.C., after Cyrus and Cambyses, son of Hystaspes. He consolidated the Empire with internal reforms, the most important of which was the division of the entire domain, especially for fiscal purposes, into 20 districts, civilly and militarily autonomous ("satrapies"). To secure the frontiers with new conquests, especially in the West, he undertook the expedition against the Scythians (516-515), practically fruitless because of the elusiveness of the enemy; he was later responsible for various actions to quell revolts in Ionia (499 and 494) and for the first Greco-Persian war (492-90), which ended in the disaster of Marathon.
In the second year of his reign the repatriated Jews, moved by the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, undertook the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem: the difficulties that arose against the enterprise, because of the hostility of the Samaritans, were overcome following the discovery of the decree of Cyrus, which allowed the Jews to rebuild their Temple (Ezra 6:3 ff.). D. too declared himself in favor of continuing the works and even had a contribution of his sent, both for the construction in progress and for the cult (Ezra 6:8-10).
DARIUS II NOTHUS (424-405 B.C.). - Illegitimate son (Nothos) of Artaxerxes I (465-424), whom he succeeded on the throne of Persia, after his brothers Xerxes II (424: 1 month) and Sogdianus (6 months). A weak man, he left the affairs of the kingdom at the mercy of his highly ambitious and intriguing wife Parysatis, who worked especially to bring her younger son Cyrus to the throne.
The most important of the papyri of the Jewish garrison, stationed at Elephantine (v.) on behalf of Persia, and about half of the cuneiform tablets, in which the activity of the great Jewish commercial house of the "sons of Murashu", based at Nippur, is documented, are dated by the years of the reign of D. II.
DARIUS III CODOMANNUS (335-330). - Last king of Persia, placed on its throne by the powerful eunuch Bagoas. It seems he was not devoid of ability: but the changed historical conditions rendered ineffective his attempts to defend the old empire against the aggression of Alexander the Macedonian, and it was subdued in a rapid series of defeats. D. III was killed by his satrap Bessus, while the invading army was spreading through the heart of Persia. In the Bible he is mentioned precisely as the last "king of the Persians and the Medes" (1 Macc. 1:1).