Hippolytus of Rome : Then, having made one decision, they came to the king and said, "Darius, O king, live forever! Your captains and satraps and chiefs and governors have deliberated to set up a royal statute over your kingdom and to confirm an edict, that whoever asks a petition from any God and man for thirty days except from you, O king, shall be cast into the den of the lions. And so now O king, set up the edict and set out a writing because the decree of the Persians and Medes shall not be changed." [Daniel 6:6-8] Then Darius, not perceiving the machination of theirs, purposed a decision, he commended a decree to be written and it to be put forth publicly. For also later Haman wishing to kill Mordecai and his race went to king Artaxerxes and deliberated the same, that by royal decree on the fourteenth of the twelfth month on that one day, all the Jews shall be killed. [Esther 3] — Commentary on Daniel 3.20.3-5 Jerome : Verse 6. "Then the princes and satraps privily withdrew to the king and thus spoke to him." It was well said that they privily withdrew for they did not come right out with what they were aiming at, but contrived their plot against a private enemy on the pretext of honoring the king. — St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER SIX