Darius the Great: Ancient Ruler of the Persian Empire (Makers of History #12)

Under his new reign, Cambyses undertook to expand his empire and conquer new lands. He set his sights on Egypt, whose king he felt, had betrayed his father in a convoluted scheme. While there he achieved great victories against the people of Egypt, however, on his way back, he heard of a conspiracy that his brother Smerdis had been killed and an impostor had usurped the throne back in Susa, the capital city. A local magician also named Smerdis who bore a remarkable likeness to the heir, had taken his place. In his haste to return to the capital, and with great irony, Cambyses suffered a nasty wound while mounting his horse as his blade fell from its sheath. Unfortunately, the wound turned out to be fatal, and the impersonator was then firmly in power.

Amongst the conspirators that helped put the false Smerdis in power, was
the distant cousin of Cambyses, and thus of Cyrus, the same Darius who
appeared in the prophetic vision which Cyrus had dreamt of some time
before. In the end, a contest was decided to determine the next king of
the Persian Empire. As the story goes, Darius played a deception at the
competition, and thus succeeded to the throne, and the rest, as they
say, is history. The narrative of his achievements were first found,
engraved in multiple scripts, high on a rock wall in on Behistun
mountain, on the main highway between present-day Iraq and Iran. First
discovered in 1621 by an Italian traveler, it wasn't until the early
18th century that Sir Henry Rawlinson was able to use the trilingual
translation to finally unlock the secrets of cuneiform writing, and thus
the fertile history of the Middle East. 286 pages o illustrated