Not that Darius, even as he ordered the invasion of Elam, had ever aimed to impose his religion at the point of a sword; such an idea was wholly alien to the spirit of the times. Nevertheless, a new age was dawning—and Darius was its midwife. His vision of empire as a fusion of cosmic, moral and political order was to prove stunningly fruitful: the foundation stone not only of his own rule but of the very concept of a universal order. The dominion raised by Cyrus, having been preserved from dissolution, was now, in effect, to be founded a second time—and a global monarchy, secured anew, was to
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