The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.189

v1.c24.189

Cambyses, whose activities were almost wholly engaged in the conquest of Egypt, could hardly have extended the Persian dominions in the direction of India, even though he may have been occupied at the beginning of his reign in maintaining suzerainty over the extensive realm inherited from his father. Xenophon, or his continuator (*Cyrop.* VIII, 8, 2), speaks of almost immediate uprisings by subject nations after the death of Cyrus, and these revolutions may have caused the postponement of the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses until the fifth year of his reign, 526–525 B.C.; but it would be hazardous to suggest any direct connexion of India with these presumable campaigns. Herodotus makes two very broad statements; one (III, 88, cf. I, 177) to the effect that, when Darius became king, after the death of Cambyses and the assassination of the false Smerdis, ‘all the peoples of Asia, with the exception of the Arabians [who were already allied as friends], were subject to him, inasmuch as they had been subdued by Cyrus and afterwards by Cambyses in his turn.’ Again he says (III, 67), with reference to the death of the usurper Smerdis, that ‘all the peoples of Asia felt regret, except the Persians themselves.’ Although it would be a forced interpretation of these passages to construe them as including India proper among the subject nations of the Persian Empire¹, it seems clear, nevertheless, that Darius, when he assumed the sovereignty in 522 B.C., had, as an Achaemenian, an authentic claim to the realms immediately bordering upon India, if not to that land itself.