He was fairly successful in the management of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and re-invigorate the Empire.

If he held together the territories which he inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or sagacity.
Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings.

He is indeed the only monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty by temperament.

His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.
359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear.

He even, if we may believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses, whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared.