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ἐν Πέρσῃσι goes with ποιήσας ταῦτα; the contrast is between the acquisition of royal power and the organization of the empire. H. only here and in i. 192. 2 uses σατραπηίη, in both cases with an explanation (ἀρχή); his usual word is νομός. Aeschylus uses no form of the word at all, and Thucydides only σατραπεία; Xenophon is the first to use σατράπης; the ruler in H. is ὕπαρχος (cf. vii. 194 n.). σατράπης, i.e. ‘Khšátrapâvan’, is found twice in the B. I. and seems = ‘upholder of the crown’: it is found first in Sargon's list of Median chiefs, apparently as a proper name. The office existed before Darius; cf. B. I. u. s.; i. 153. 3 (Tabalus); iii. 120 (twice, Oroetes and Mitrobates); iii. 70. 3 (Hystaspes) and iv. 166 (Aryandes). The innovation of Darius (for its importance cf. App. VI. 4) consisted in his introducing a regular tribute for the whole empire; perhaps also he substituted government officials for native feudal princes (so Stein, who compares i. 134. 3, and says the Median system there described lasted to the time of Darius). The main, though not the entire, source of Persian revenue, was the land tax (vi. 42. 2). The sums given by H. are those due to the royal treasury, not the whole amount raised in the provinces. προστάσσων. Rawlinson (and others) takes this as opposed to ὑπερβαίνων, ‘generally he joined, but sometimes he passed over the nearer tribes.’ He (ii. 563) argues that this was done because the divisions were ‘ethnical rather than geographical’, an arrangement especially convenient among the nomadic tribes of the far East. But grammar (there is no μέν, δέ) and political sense alike render this impossible; and as a fact H.'s list of tribes is geographically arranged, except perhaps for the Utii (93. 2 n.) and the sixteenth satrapy (93. 3 nn.). ὑπερβαίνων τοὺς π. therefore must be taken parenthetically, and τὰ ἑκαστέρω . . . νέμων repeats κατὰ ἔθνεα . . . προστάσσων in another form. Translate ‘he fixed the tributes to come in to him, nation by nation, while he joined their neighbours with each nation, and, as he got further from the centre (ὑπερβαίνων τ. π.), he distributed the more remote nations in various groups’. Thus each satrapy consisted of the ἔθνος whose name it bore (e.g. Ionia), and of the tribes grouped with it (e. g. with Ionia went Magnesia, Aeolis, &c., 90. 1).
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