Darius the Great of Persia was never meant to come to the throne. His connection to the throne was through his great-great grandfather king Teispes. Only through a swords through the knee, an earless imposter and… question decisions with a horse did Darius rise to the Persian throne. Surprisingly only the last one was done by him.

Our story starts off with Cambyses II and Smerdis. Cambyses was a cruel wrathful man. When looking him up there are two stories that demonstrate his cruelty. When an advisor of his father tried to give him advice he order the man to be killed and sent his officers after him. When the officers caught him they then hid the advisor thinking Cambyses would be regretful to kill the old man. The next day when Cambyses was regretful of his actions the officers brought the advisor back in he was over joyed… and then had the officers killed for disobeying him. Another story says that when a solider told him he drinks too much Cambyses order the man’s son to be brought to him, had his guard bring him is bow, turn back to the man, said “If I am so drunk then this shot will miss” and proceeded to shoot the man’s son through the heart.

Cambyses decided he wanted to go invaded Egypt and ordered his brother to come with him out of fear of him taking the throne while he was away. He found his brother too annoying and sent him home then remembered his reason for bringing his brother with him. Cambyses then order a soldier (supposedly it’s the same soldier who told him he had a drinking problem) and told him to kill Smerdis. The solider did so and all seemed well.

They then got word that Smerdis was on throne of Persia and Cambyses thought that it must be an imposter! He remembered years ago that his father had cut of the ears of priest who looked like Smerdis and who name… was… also Smerdis? Cambyses mounted his horse to confront the fake Smerdis back in Persia but was careless, stabbed himself with a sword on accident and died.

Anyways back in Persia some of the nobles found out the Smerrdis suddenly didn’t have any ears and knew he was a fake. This lead to a coup and the man who killed Smerdis dramatically declaring he had killed the real Smerdis and the one on the throne was a fake before throwing himself off a tower. The nobles then had to decide who would be king. Logically we would assume they elected one or traced back the blood line to find the next eldest male family member. Did they though? No they didn’t, they decided that whose never horse neighed at the rising sun first would get to be king.

It’s very, very, gross so if you would like to skip this part I wouldn’t blame you. So Darius’s slave snuck into Darius’s stallion’s favorite Mare’s stable and touched it in some spots. So his hand smelled like horse and when the sun rose he held his hand up to the Stallion’s nose and the Stallion, smelling his favorite Mare, let out a great neigh and rose on it’s rear legs.

And that’s how Darius the Great became king. If you’ve ever heard of the battle of Marathon where the Greeks fought the Persian army that’s when Darius was king. He lived until 486 B.C.E. But that’s one heck of a way to pick a king.