The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius. This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to 1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign, and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which it was most celebrated. This latter burthen must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire, if the statement of Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid one-third of it. The payment seems to have been very considerable in amount. Egypt had to supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of 120,000 Persian troops quartered in the country. Media had to contribute 100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above number of each kind of animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia gave 360 white horses and a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu of further tribute in kind. Babylonia, besides corn, was required to furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These charges, however, were all fixed by the crown, and may have been taken into consideration in assessing the money payment, the main object of the whole arrangement evidently being to make the taxation of each province proportionate to its wealth and resources. The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his province was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he ordinarily proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were observed throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in places at least, the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax. The assessment upon individuals, and the actual collection from them, devolved, in all probability, on the local authorities, who distributed the burthen imposed upon their town, village, or district as they thought proper. Thus the foreign oppressor did not come into direct contact with the mass of the conquered people, who no doubt paid the calls made upon them with less reluctance through the medium of their own proper magistrates.