Such sedition could hardly be kept quiet for long. Spies were everywhere. Cambyses, his African conquests by now secured, woke abruptly to the menace at his rear. Despite all his great achievements, which had seen him extend the supremacy of the Persian people far into the Libyan desert and even into the land of the fabled Ethiopians, “the tallest and best-looking of all men in the world,”37 he had been too long away from home. By early 522 BC, having set out at last on the long road back to Persia, Cambyses found himself in a desperate race against time. Although he still had his crack troops with him—and much of the nobility as well—events were slipping out of his control. On March 11, Bardiya openly laid claim to the throne. A month later, he was being hailed as king throughout the eastern provinces.38 Would the empire of the Persian people, raised up to such splendor by Cyrus, now be shattered on the ambitions of his rival sons, break into separate halves, or maybe crumble away entirely? There seemed no escape from the looming fratricide.
And then accident—or something very like an accident—intervened.39 Cambyses, as he leaped onto his horse to continue his advance through Syria, was said to have wounded himself in the thigh with his sword. Gangrene set in. Within days he was dead. A startling misadventure—and most convenient in its timing, if true. The obvious beneficiary, of course, was Bardiya, now left as Cyrus’ only surviving male heir, and therefore king by right as well as might. All had been foreseen by the Magi, who had glimpsed, in the spectacle of a headless baby born to Rhoxsane, the extinction of Cambyses’ line, although the Egyptian priests, more malicious and inventive, would whisper that Cambyses had brought the horror on himself—for he was said to have kicked his sister-bride in the stomach, killing not only the fetus but the queen. Now, in Cambyses’ childlessness, there seemed a welcome chance of peace—and Bardiya moved quickly to seize it. In July, he was formally invested by the Magi, dressed in the robes of his father and the royal kidaris. At the same time, he married Atossa, Cambyses’ surviving sister-bride. Succession and bloodline: both now seemed secured. Who else was there, after all, to challenge Bardiya for the monarchy of the world?
But while the new king, confident of his supremacy, withdrew for the summer to the cool of Ecbatana, conspiracy and rumor still swirled across the baking lowland plains.40 Whether accident or not, the death of Cambyses presented a fearsome temptation to others aside from Bardiya. On the trunk road which led from Syria to the Zagros, the royal army now stood leaderless. But for how long? The highest-ranking officers, scions of great families, had returned from the African adventure battle-hardened and intimate with the workings of power, often beyond their years. Cambyses’ “lance-bearer,” for instance, a distant cousin of the king by the name of Darius, was a mere twenty-eight. Rank, in the Persian court, was measured by proximity to the royal person, so the young Darius’ title, far from implying menial status, had been a splendid and prestigious honorific. It marked him out publicly as a major player at court, and left him privy to the most sensitive royal secrets. In the weeks leading up to Cambyses’ death, he could not have been better placed to sift intelligence on the coup.
To sift—and to analyze. For Darius could see, with the pitiless eye of a born politician, that Bardiya’s position might not be as strong as it had originally appeared. The clan chiefs’ loyalty was divided and unsure. A manifesto of tribute reform, however welcome to the subject nations, was unlikely to prove popular with the Persian ruling class. Bardiya, if his coffers were not to be emptied, would have to recoup the loss of revenue somehow. Since he had no wish to commit political suicide, the new king could hardly put the squeeze on his own supporters; but with much of the nobility far away in Syria, and in Cambyses’ camp, an alternative source of income appeared ready to hand. The orders duly went out. The estates of those regarded as Bardiya’s opponents, their “pastures and herds, their slaves and houses,”41 all were confiscated. This windfall, however, urgently needed though it was, came at a fearful cost. The split in the nobility was confirmed. In the eyes of many Persians, Bardiya had branded himself “a disgrace to his country, and to his ancient throne.”42 One king that summer had already passed away; now plans were hurriedly made for the disposal of a second.
The conspirators were seven in total. All were of the highest rank. Among them was Darius, the young lance-bearer of Cambyses—and an Achaemenid. Not that membership in Persia’s foremost clan necessarily guaranteed him leadership of the plotters, for it was shared by a second conspirator, a wealthy grandee by the name of Otanes, who also appears to have had an eye on the throne. Furthermore, according to a later tradition, it was Otanes who had first organized the conspiracy—with Darius invited to join only as an after-thought. But this version does not quite add up. For a supposed late-comer, Darius was acknowledged as the conspiracy’s linchpin with remarkable speed. His status, right from the beginning, appears to have been preeminent. Linked by blood to Cyrus, he also stood at the heart of the web that bound together the seven conspirators. One of them, Gobryas, was both his father-in-law and the husband of his sister: marriage ties could hardly have bound the two any tighter. Darius’ brother, Artaphernes, a man of rare daring and intelligence, was also, although not one of the seven chief conspirators, ready to move on whatever was decided. More than a hint, then, of a family affair. Wherever one looks, Darius seems to loom as the ringleader of the plot.
Why, then, the insistence that he had not been in on it from the start? How might he have benefited from this apparent distortion of the time frame? What, to put it bluntly, might he have had to cover up? One obvious and fateful answer suggests itself—regicide. After all, who better placed than a king’s lance-bearer to plot the murder of a king? Such an act of treachery would have been regarded even by Cambyses’ enemies as beyond the pale. While Darius would soon prove himself as bold as he was ruthless, he was never one to flaunt his crimes. As a result, the truth of his guilt or otherwise is forever lost to us.43 Yet if Darius’ involvement in the death of Cambyses must be reckoned, not proven, his role in spurring forward the plot against Bardiya is far more certain. When Otanes, urging a course of prudence, suggested the recruitment of more conspirators, and playing for time, Darius argued for immediate action. They should rely, he insisted, not on force of numbers, but on speed and surprise. To waver would be to lose their advantage. The greater their daring, the greater their chances of success.
With his brother, Artaphernes, and a majority of the seven backing him, Darius had his way. His calculations had been precise. A rare opportunity was indeed now opening. As the conspirators and their train, following the Khorasan Highway, closed in on the foothills of the Zagros, they would have felt the violent heat of summer on the plains starting to diminish. Autumn was on its way. Soon, the king would be descending from the mountains. If the assassination squad could ambush him on open ground, somewhere on the road between Ecbatana and the heartland of royal power in Persia, then he might be dispatched with relative ease. Practiced horsemen all—for there had never been a Persian nobleman not raised in the saddle—the seven conspirators and their accomplices rode at a scorching pace, desperate not to lose their chance. By September, they had arrived at the borders of Media. Ahead of them lay the Khorasan Highway, twisting through the mountains up to Ecbatana. And descending it, approaching them, somewhere, was Bardiya.