At that time the Eastern Roman had not risen...

At that time the Eastern Roman had not risen, but there was the Roman Empire in the west which had not till then gained any importance. In the time of Darius the two countries of importance were Greece and Egypt. When Iran conquered Egypt, it also brought Greece under pressure. In the wars of that time, Darius frequently waged against the Greeks, he had to employ the sea route since the Greek territory consisted of a number of islands and land campaign would not have been feasible.

As the Iranian ships had no access to the Mediterranean, Darius decided to open a sea way for the Iranian warships to reach the Greek shores. Thus he ordered a canal dug which was the precursor of the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea via the Nile River to the Red Sea.

Darius describes the history of this canal in an inscription as follows: "Ahura-Mazda, the great lord who created the lofty sky, created Man, created Man's good fortune, raised Darius to kingship, has assigned to King Darius this great empire with all these precious horses and multitudes of people.[^20] I am King Darius, great king, king over many varied races, king over extensive and remote domains, son of Vishtasb of the Achaemnids; so declares King Darius: I am a Parsi.

I govern Egypt from Pars. I decreed this canal be dug to link the between a river called Nile which flows in Egypt to the sea which reaches Iran.[^21] This canal has been dug by my command and the ships have sailed via this canal from Egypt to Iran as I had desired." Thus we see that twelve centuries before the rise of Islam in Arabia, a great and powerful government existed as its eastern neighbour.

There is little doubt that amongst the past rulers of Iran Darius was an outstanding figure from the standpoint of ideas, capabilities and policies. This is especially true in connection with his attitude towards the conquered lands since, unlike other great conquerors of the world, he gave more importance to the administration of his domains than merely to conquer them. After retrieving his ancestral territories i.e.

the domain of his ancestor Kurosh, he had no inclination to add further territory to his realm, and only wished to create to an extent a welfare administration for his subjects in the extensive realm of Iran of those days.