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Before Darius had pronounced on the matter, it happened that
Demaratus, the son of Ariston, who had been deprived of his crown at
Sparta, and had afterwards, of his own accord, gone into
banishment, came up to Susa, and there heard of the quarrel of the
princes. Hereupon, as report says, he went to Xerxes, and advised
him, in addition to all that he had urged before, to plead - that at
the time when he was born Darius was already king, and bore rule over
the Persians; but when Artabazanes came into the world, he was a
mere private person. It would therefore be neither right nor seemly
that the crown should go to another in preference to himself. "For at
Sparta," said Demaratus, byway of suggestion, "the law is that if
a king has sons before he comes to the throne, and another son is born
to him afterwards, the child so born is heir to his father's
kingdom." Xerxes followed this counsel, and Darius, persuaded that
he had justice on his side, appointed him his successor. For my own
part I believe that, even without this, the crown would have gone to
Xerxes; for Atossa was all-powerful.
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