date; it must have been introduced by Cyrus or be of even more remote origin. It is not probable that such a mighty warrior prince as Cyrus would, after the reduction of the Medes, impose limitations on his power by sharing the symbols of royalty and hereditary privileges. According to the narrative of Herodotus, Cyrus does not simply command the Persians to take up arms against the Medes, but he assembles the tribes, and ascertains their feeling. In considering the peculiar position of these six families we may certainly assume, that under the ancestors of Cyrus there were chiefs among the Persians with whom the Achæmenids had to deal. If the Achæmenids were the heads of the tribe of the Pasargadae, the other tribes would have chiefs also. Yet we only hear of "six princes" besides the Achæmenids, though we have seen that the number of the Persian tribes was considerably more than seven. Following the indications thus given, we may sketch the course of events as follows. When Achæmenes had acquired the headship of the tribe of the Pasargadae, he must have combined the two neighbouring tribes, the Maraphians and Maspians, whom Herodotus classes with the Pasargadae as the most important among the Persians, into closer union, perhaps by some understanding with the chiefs. Supported by these three tribes, who possessed the favoured regions of Kazerun, Shiras, and Merdasht, Achæmenes must then have subjugated the remainder to his power. Herodotus told us above that the remaining tribes depended on the three mentioned. They must, therefore, have been combined into larger groups, and in fact into four communities. To the chiefs who became the heads of these new combinations, a position must have been accorded similar to that enjoyed by the Maraphians and Maspians beside Achæmenes--above all, the right to bequeath the chieftainship to their descendants. When the chiefs of the Persians, now seven in number, mutually guaranteed to each other their position, the foundation was laid of a community of interests, and thus of a community of the Persian nation. That the princes of the four new combinations of tribes belonged to those tribes, and not to the three first, is proved by the inscription of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustem, where one of the princes of the date of Darius is called a Pateischorean. In some such way as this Achæmenes may have brought about the union of the Persian tribes, and at the same time have obtained the leadership of them. His position thus rested essentially on the relation of the prince of the Pasargadae to the other six tribal princes, a relation of which we find no trace in the Medes. That the number seven was normal for the combinations of the tribes we may ascribe to the influence of the recently-introduced doctrine of Zarathrustra, of which we found echoes in the legend of Achæmenes.