The later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat certain religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which occur in the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor.
He alone oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical notices and narratives of events profoundly interesting to the historian.
During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended from about B.C.516 to B.C.508 or 507, the general tranquillity was interrupted by at least one important expedition.

The administrational merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an unwarlike monarch--if not a mere "peddler," as his subjects said, yet, at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger.

But the son of Hystaspes was no carpet prince.

He had not drawn the sword against his domestic foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them was completed.

On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to carry on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great predecessors, and like them to extend in one direction or another the boundaries of the Empire.