Aeschylus represents the Persians as saying, "A great, prosperous, victorious life was granted to us by destiny, when King Darius, the lord of the bow, Susa's beloved captain, governed the land, without fault or failure, like a god. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he was filled with a godlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born god of Persia, lead our army. We were seen in splendid array; there was ready for him the unwearying might of armed men, and troops mingled from all nations, and the return from the wars was glorious. According to his will, he ruled the wealthy populous cities of the Greeks in the land of Ionia, and the wave-beaten islands of the seas, adjacent to that land, Chios, Lesbos and Samos rich in olives, and Lemnos between both shores, and the cities of Cyprus, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis. Many cities he took adjacent to the Thracian borders on the Strymonian Sea: even the walled cities, far from the shore, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the strait of Helle, on the bay of the Propontis, and the mouth of the Pontus. Beloved hero, thy like lies not in the land of Persia."[245] The rebellions were crushed, the kingdom of Cyrus was once more established. Darius took precautions to prevent the recurrence of such serious dangers, and to bring the nations into a lasting state of dependence. He created fixed districts for government, strengthened the action of the central power, secured the necessary means for this, and sought to arrange the taxes and tributes of the provinces and settle them at fixed contributions. Along with this improvement in the organization of the kingdom he kept in sight the extension of it; he did not wish to be left behind Cyrus and Cambyses in this respect. We cannot decide whether the northern boundary of the kingdom reached the Caucasus in the time of Cyrus; it is certain that under Darius the nations between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Colchians, the Tibarenes, Chalybes, Moschians, and Saspeires, were subject to the Persians. Herodotus observes that the Colchians and their neighbours paid the tribute which they had imposed upon themselves--which implies that these nations submitted voluntarily. "The empire of the Persians," Herodotus tells us, "extends to the Caucasus; the territory to the north pays no heed to them."[246] It was a considerable gain when the kingdom extended as far as the Caucasus, or included the whole range; for by this means it acquired a strong natural border, and at the same time controlled the trading road which ran from the east and the Caspian Sea through the valleys of the Cyrus (Kur) and the Phasis to the Black Sea.