Thus firmly established on the throne, Darius occupied it for thirty-six years, and his reign was one of organization, different from that of his two predecessors; a difference which the Persians well understood and noted, calling Cyrus the father, Kambysês the master, and Darius the retail-trader, or huckster.[420] In the mouth of the Persians this latter epithet must be construed as no insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to introduce some methodical order into the imperial administration and finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of tribute levied upon the subject provinces: which furnished what were called presents, subject to no fixed limit except such as might be satisfactory to the satrap in each district. But Darius—succeeding as he did to Smerdis, who had rendered himself popular with the provinces by large financial exemptions, and having farther to encounter jealousy and dissatisfaction from Persians, his former equals in rank—probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole empire into twenty departments, imposing upon each a fixed annual tax, and a fixed contribution for the maintenance of the court. This must doubtless have been a great improvement, though the limitation of the sum which the Great King at Susa would require, did not at all prevent the satrap in his own province from indefinite requisitions beyond it. The latter was a little king, who acted nearly as he pleased in the internal administration of his province,—subject only to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute, of keeping off foreign enemies, and of furnishing an adequate military contingent for the foreign enterprises of the Great King. To every satrap was attached a royal secretary, or comptroller, of the revenue,[421] who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap himself. It is not to be supposed that the Persian authorities in any province meddled with the details of taxation, or contribution, as they bore upon individuals. The court having fixed the entire sum payable by the satrapy in the aggregate, the satrap or the secretary apportioned it among the various component districts, towns, or provinces, leaving to the local authorities in each of these latter the task of assessing it upon individual inhabitants. From necessity, therefore, as well as from indolence of temper and political incompetence, the Persians were compelled to respect authorities which they found standing both in town and country, and to leave in their hands a large measure of genuine influence; frequently overruled, indeed, by oppressive interference on the part of the satrap, whenever any of his passions prompted,—but never entirely superseded. In the important towns and stations, Persian garrisons were usually kept, and against the excesses of the military