Ansermet, its initial musical director, was not pleased at being supplanted by a conductor of whom he was reportedly " ragingly jealous ", but the composer Darius Milhaud commented on how much better the orchestra played for Monteux " since Ansermet has been sent back to his Swiss pastures ".

Darius did attempt to restore his once great army after his defeat at the hands of Alexander, but he failed to raise a force comparable to that which had fought at Gaugamela, partly because the defeat had undermined his authority, and also because Alexander ’ s liberal policy, for instance in Babylonia and in Persis, offered an acceptable alternative to Persian domination.

Alexander was waiting for Darius to come south around the Amanus Mountain range because the pass Darius would have used, the Belen Pass, was much closer to Sochi and offered the quickest access to the area Alexander defended.

Just before the battle, Darius offered Alexander a generous peace agreement.

Aristagoras's uncle Histiaeus had accompanied Darius on campaign in 513 BC, and when offered a reward, had asked for part of the conquered Thracian territory.

* Darius and Alexandre, circa 1670, graphite on blue paper, study for the canvas offered to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand ( Paris ) by the King Louis XIV in 1674 ( rediscovered in 2006 by Prof. Alain Béjard & Dimitri Joannidès, Alicem Institute, Luxemburg )

" When the Persians, led by Darius the Great, campaigned against the Scythians, the Thracian tribes in the Balkans surrendered to Darius on his way to Scythia, and only the Getae offered resistance.

According to the Book of Daniel, Darius the Mede began ruling when he was 62 years old ,< sup ></ sup > appointed 120 satraps to govern over provinces or districts ,< sup ></ sup > was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans ,< sup ></ sup > and pre-dated Cyrus .< sup ></ sup > What is little known of Cyaxares II, from extra-Biblical sources, matches the above mentioned descriptions offered in the Book of Daniel.

As for the identity of Mordecai, the similar names Marduka and Marduku have been found as the name of officials in the Persian court in over thirty texts from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals, one of which might after all be Mordecai.

Darius the Great proclaimed himself victorious in all battles during the period of upheaval, attributing his success to the " grace of Ahura Mazda ".

Reggie Hayward, Greg Jones, Donovin Darius, Byron Leftwich, and Mike Peterson all suffered season-ending injuries.

* Darius I sends envoys to all Greek cities, demanding " earth and water for vassalage " which Athens and Sparta refuse however.

He completed the Apadana, the Palace of Darius and the Treasury all started by Darius as well as building his own palace which was twice the size of his father's.

Even though Darius did not have the support of the populace, Darius had a loyal army, led by close confidants and nobles ( including the six nobles with whom he removed Gaumata ) with whom he was able to suppress and quell all revolts within a year.

Darius began to fear for his own safety ; he thought that all seven noblemen had banded together to rebel against him and that the attack against his officers was the first sign of revolt.

These Greeks served as soldiers, artisans, statesmen and mariners for Darius ; however, Greek fear of the strength of Darius's kingdom became strong and the constant interference by the Greeks in Ionia and Lydia were all stepping stones in the conflict that was yet to come between Persia and Greece.

Although Artobarzanes was the first born of Darius, Xerxes became heir and next king through the influence of Atossa, who had great authority in the kingdom, as Darius loved her, of all of his wives, most.

In Pasargadae Darius finished all incomplete construction projects from the reign of Cyrus the Great.

After Artaxerxes III of Persia and all of his sons were killed by the vizier Bagoas, the vizier installed a cousin of Artaxerxes III, Artashata, to the Persian throne as Darius III.

Another source accounts that when Darius perceived the fierce attack of Alexander, as at Issus he turned his chariot around, and was the first to flee, once again abandoning all of his soldiers and his property to be taken by Alexander.

Afterwards he sent Darius ’ s body back to Persepolis, gave him a magnificent funeral and ordered that he be buried, like all his royal predecessors, in the royal tombs.

In 491 BC, Darius sent emissaries to all the Greek city-states, asking for a gift of ' earth and water ' in token of their submission to him.

The most notable of all the inscriptions is the Behistun Inscription written by Darius I which contain many references to Ahura Mazda.

* Before continuing his pursuit of Darius III, who has retreated into Bactria, Alexander assembles all the Persian treasure and entrusts it to Harpalus, who is to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer.

The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius, amid great rejoicings on the part of all the people although it was evident that the Jews were no longer an independent people, but were subject to a foreign power.

At the same time Darius fell ill and called his son to his deathbed ; Cyrus handed over all his treasures to Lysander and went to Susa.

This game contains the red, green and blue items, as in almost all Darius series and they do the same functions ( the red powers up the shots, the green powers up the bombs and the blue regenerates and powers up the arm shield ).

Darius often accused rebels and opponents of being impostors ( such as Nebuchadnezzar III ), and it could be straining credulity to say that they all were.

Xenakis, who was by that time well acquainted with music of Debussy, Béla Bartók, and Stravinsky, all of whom used such devices and much more experimental ones, was furious and left to study with Darius Milhaud, but these lessons also proved fruitless.

Around 500 BCE, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the conquerors as the " vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages.

The expedition was intended to bring the Cyclades into the Persian empire, to punish Naxos ( which had resisted a Persian assault in 499 BC ) and then to head to Greece to force Eretria and Athens to submit to Darius or be destroyed.

Darius introduced a reform of the administrative arrangements of the empire including the collection, codification and administration of local law codes, and it is reasonable to suppose that this policy lay behind the redaction of the Jewish Torah.

Alexander conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, within a short time-frame and died young, leaving an expansive empire of partly Hellenised culture without an adult heir.

* 500 BC — Darius I of Persia proclaims that Aramaic be the official language of the western half of his empire.

Artobazan was born to " Darius the subject ", while Xerxes was the eldest son born in the purple after Darius's rise to the throne, and Artobazan's mother was a commoner while Xerxes's mother was the daughter of the founder of the empire.

Some modern historians suspect that Cambyses may have been assassinated, either by Darius as the first step to usurping the empire for himself, or by supporters of Bardiya.

Also called Darius the Great, he ruled the empire at its peak, when it included much of West Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, parts of the Balkans ( Bulgaria-Romania-Pannonia ), portions of north and northeast Africa including Egypt ( Mudrâya ), eastern Libya, coastal Sudan, Eritrea, as well as most of Pakistan, the Aegean Islands and northern Greece / Thrace-Macedonia.

Darius expanded his empire by conquering Thrace and Macedon and invading Scythia, home of the Scythians, nomadic tribes who invaded Media and had previously killed Cyrus the Great.

Darius organized the empire by dividing it into provinces and placing satraps to govern it.

Darius also worked on construction projects throughout the empire, focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon and Egypt.

When Cyrus awoke from the dream, he inferred it as a great danger to the future security of the empire, as it meant that Darius would one day rule the whole world.

Several days after Gaumata had been assassinated, Darius and the other seven nobles discussed the fate of the empire.

After securing his authority over the entire empire, Darius embarked on a campaign to Egypt where he defeated the armies of the Pharaoh and secured the lands that Cambyses had conquered while incorporating a large portion of Egypt into the Achaemenid Empire.

Darius asserted his position as king by force, taking his armies throughout the empire, suppressing each revolt individually.

Early in his reign, Darius wanted to organize the loosely organized empire with a system of taxation he inherited from Cyrus and Cambyses.

Darius chose Aramaic as a common language, which soon spread throughout the empire.

Darius applied the coinage system as a transnational currency to regulate trade and commerce throughout his empire.

The daric was called dārayaka within the empire and was most likely named after Darius.

In the lands that were conquered by his empire, Darius followed the same Achaemenid tolerance that Cyrus had shown and later Achaemenid emperors would show.

Compared to his ancestors and his fellow heirs who had since perished, Darius had a distinct lack of experience ruling an empire, and a lack of any previous ambition to do so.

Darius was a ruler of entirely average stamp, without the striking talents and qualities which the administration of a vast empire required during that period of crisis.

The Ionian revolt threatened the integrity of his empire, and Darius thus vowed to punish those involved ( especially those not already part of the empire ).