Darius I was the first king who ruled over the world under a unified law; he did it by data. It is remarkable that data is mentioned in all the Achaemenid inscriptions (DB, DNa, DSe, XPh) which refer to reestablishment of the order of empire. data (<da- ‘set, make, create’) is the law ‘set’ by Ahuramazda to maintain the order restored from the chaos of draoga (‘the Lie’). This conception is old Iranian and we find a parallel in the Avesta (the Gathas). In the royal inscriptions data appears two-sided: ‘my data’ is coercive, while ‘data which Ahuramazda has set down’ is gracious. Babylonian and Aramaic sources show that there is a double system of laws in the empire, and that the king's law is superior to local laws, yet not applied to intracommunal matters of the population. Introduction of an imperial law-code by Darius is questioned under such conditions as co-existence of different laws in conquered lands on one hand, an early stage of legal development among the ruling class (e. g. a legal conception of religio-ethical character, legistration in a way of administrative decision, etc.) on the other hand. Persian kings prefer to permit the status quo, to order codification of local laws, and to settle matters necessary for keeping the imperial peace as occasion arises. Thus, data, always in the singular, represents not only a collective of king's decisions or ‘the law of the Medes and the Persians, which is not to be altered’ (Daniel 6: 9), i. d. what king's decisions have been formalized by a given procedure, but a legal principle of divine origin that gives ground for king's decision.

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