One daughter of Cyrus still remained and the seven agreed that
one of them should marry her and reign. The rest should have the right
of visiting him whenever they pleased, and wearing the same sort of
tiara, or high cap, with the point upright, instead of having it turned
back like the rest of the Persians. The choice was to be settled by
Heaven, as they thought; namely, by seeing whose horse would first neigh
at the rise of their god, the sun. Darius Hystaspes, who thus became
king in 521, was a good and upright man, in whose reign the Jews
ventured to go on with the Temple. When the Samaritans came and stopped
them, they wrote to beg that search might be made among the records
of the kingdom for Cyrus's decree in their favour, which no one could
change, because the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be altered.
The decree was found, and Darius gave the Jews farther help, and forbade
anyone to molest them; but they were very poor, and the restoration went
on but feebly.
In Darius's reign Babylon revolted, and he laid siege to it. So
determined were the inhabitants to hold out, that they killed their
wives and children in order that the provisions might last longer, and
thus they fulfilled what Isaiah had foretold--that in one day the loss
of children and widowhood would come on them.
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