feeling of dependence and responsibility were to be kept alive among them. Appeals from the jurisdiction of the satraps to the king were possible for the adjacent provinces and did occur, but for the inhabitants of more distant provinces they were extremely difficult; yet these were the provinces chiefly in point. If months elapsed before an order of the kings reached Memphis or Sardis, the Indus or the Caucasus, or the satraps of these provinces received an answer to their questions, the necessary result would be that these men would regard themselves as independent, withdrawn from all authority and obedience. And the distant provinces, no less than the satraps, had to be kept in order. If reinforcements were to be sent to them the march must not be too long; if the borders were to be defended at the right time, the advance of the army from the inner provinces must not occupy too much time. The larger the empire the more urgently were rapid communications required to give reality to the operation of the central force and secure the kingdom within and without. The distance from the Strymon to the Indus was enormous; from Ephesus to the Hindu Kush was 3000 miles, and from Memphis to Sogdiana 2500 miles. Darius perceived that the kingdom could not be governed or maintained without good communications. When the western border of the empire touched the Hellespont, the palaces in Persia were too far to the east; and the difficulty was increased when Africa, as far as the greater Syrtis, and the Thracian coast and Macedonia in Europe had been conquered. Reasons of this kind must have induced Darius to place the centre of administration as nearly as possible in the centre of the kingdom; yet he dared not venture to move too far from Persia. He did not hesitate to move his residence further to the west out of the native territory into Susiana, a region occupied by subjects of alien race and language, and make Susa the centre and metropolis of the kingdom. Strabo tells us that Cyrus and the Persians saw that, after the subjugation of the Medes, their land lay at the remote edge, while Susiana was more in the centre, and nearer the Babylonians and the other nations. For this reason they transferred the seat of the monarchy there, availing themselves of the proximity of the land and the fame of the city. The change was the more desirable because Susiana had never pursued an ambitious course of policy, but had always been part of a larger state, except perhaps in the times of the heroes.[349] It is a mistake in Strabo, which however Herodotus and Aeschylus had already made, to say that Cyrus transferred the residence from Persia to Susa. Aeschylus speaks of Darius as the Susa-born god of Persia; and Herodotus places the palace and government of the Pseudo-Smerdis at Susa; it is from the tower of the walls of the citadel of Susa that Prexaspes throws himself; there the Magian is assassinated, Darius is raised to the