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.