It was thus that the upright tiara, the privileged head-dress of the Persian kings,[403] passed away from the lineage of Cyrus, yet without departing from the great phratry of the Achæmenidæ,—to which Darius and his father Hystaspês, as well as Cyrus, belonged. That important fact is unquestionable, and probably the acts ascribed to the seven conspirators are in the main true, apart from their discussions and intentions. But on this as well as on other occasions, we must guard ourselves against an illusion which the historical manner of Herodotus is apt to create. He presents to us with so much descriptive force the personal narrative,—individual action and speech, with all its accompanying hopes, fears, doubts, and passions,—that our attention is distracted from the political bearing of what is going on; which we are compelled often to gather up from hints in the speeches of performers, or from consequences afterwards indirectly noticed. When we put together all the incidental notices which he lets drop, it will be found that the change of sceptre from Smerdis to Darius was a far larger political event than his direct narrative would seem to announce. Smerdis represents preponderance to the Medes over the Persians, and comparative degradation to the latter; who, by the installation of Darius, are again placed in the ascendent. The Medes and the Magians are in this case identical; for the Magians, though indispensable in the capacity of priests to the Persians, were essentially one of the seven Median tribes.[404] It thus appears that though Smerdis ruled as a son of the great Cyrus, yet he ruled by means of Medes and Magians, depriving the Persians of that supreme privilege and predominance to which they had become accustomed.[405] We see this by what followed immediately after the assassination of Smerdis and his brother in the palace. The seven conspirators, exhibiting the bloody heads of both these victims as an evidence of their deed, instigated the Persians in Susa to a general massacre of the Magians, many of whom were actually slain, and the rest only escaped by flight, concealment, or the hour of night. And the anniversary of this day was celebrated afterwards among the Persians by a solemnity and festival, called the Magophonia; no Magian being ever allowed on that day to appear in public.[406] The descendants of the Seven maintained a privileged name and rank,[407] even down to the extinction of the monarchy by Alexander the Great. [403] Compare Aristophan. Aves, 487, with the Scholia, and Herodot. vii, 61; Arrian, iv, 6, 29. The cap of the Persians generally was loose, low, clinging about the head in folds; that of the king was high and erect above the head. See the notes of Wesseling and Schweighaüser, upon πῖλοι ἀπαγέες in Herodot. _l. c._ [404] Herodot. i, 101-120.