Here Bessus was at last Invasion of caught and treated with the barbaric cruelty which the rule of the old Persian monarchy prescribed for Indla.
The Turkish government also levies taxes on the inhabitants of the river valley, and for this purpose, and to maintain a caravan route from the Mediterranean coast to Bagdad, maintains stations of a few zaptiehs or gens d'armes, at intervals of about 8 hours (caravan time), occupying in general the stations of the old Persian post road.
Before this force the Persian monarchy went down, and when Alexander died eleven years later (323) a Macedonian empire which covered all the territory of the old Persian empire, and even more, was a realized fact.
The governors appointed by Alexander were, in the west of the empire, exclusively Macedonians; in the east, members of the Old Persian nobility were still among the satraps at Alexander's death, Atropates in Media, Phrataphernes in Parthia and Hyrcania, 1 For the events which brought this empire into being see Alexander The Great.
The custom of marriages between brothers and sisters, agreeable to old Persian as to old Egyptian ethics, was instituted in Egypt by the second Ptolemy when he married his full sister Arsinoe Philadelphus.
