Artaxerxes survived the “Peace of Callias” twenty-four years.  His relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though, on the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to have nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities.  It was probably in retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the Athenians, late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against Caunus, which might have had important consequences, if the Caunians had not been firm in their allegiance.  A revolt of Lycia and Caria under Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved even more difficult to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his father.  Persia, however, escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt, saw with pleasure a few years later the Greeks turn their arms against each other—­Athens, his great enemy, being forced into a contest for existence with the Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.

The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible.  His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother, Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis, his sister, and Amestris, his mother—­both persons of ill-regulated lives—­are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in a monarch.  That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and good-natured, is probable.  But he had no other quality that deserves the slightest commendation.  In the whole course of his long reign he seems never once to have adventured himself in the field against an enemy.  He made not a single attempt at conquest in any direction.  We have no evidence that he patronized either literature or the arts.  His peace with Athens was necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia.  The disorders of the Court increased under his reign, from the license (especially) which he allowed the Queen-mother, who sported with the lives of his subjects.  The decay of the Empire received a fatal impulse from the impunity which he permitted to Megabyzus.

Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.  This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only legitimate son, Xerxes.  Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were the issue of various concubines, chiefly—­it would appear—­Babylonians.  Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C. 425), but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival, in which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or Sogdianus.  Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half a year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus, who on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to the Greeks as Darius Nothus.