 1 Herodotus and Xenophon BC 550–401 Cyrus was the founder of the ancient Persian Empire, a monarchy perhaps the most wealthy and magnificent which the world has ever seen, of that strange and incomprehensible principle of human nature under the influence of which vast masses of men notwithstanding the universal instinct of aversion to control combine under certain circumstances by millions and millions to maintain for many successive centuries the representatives of some one great family in a condition of exalted and absolute and utterly irresponsible ascendancy over themselves while they toil for them, watch over them, submit to endless and most humiliating privations in their behalf, and commit, if commanded, to do so the most inexcusable and atrocious crimes to sustain the demigods they have thus made in their lofty estate. We have, in the case of this Persian monarchy, one of the most extraordinary exhibitions. The Persian monarchy appears in fact even as we look back upon it from this remote distance both of space and of time as a very vast wave of human power and grandeur. It swelled up among the populations of Asia between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea about five hundred years before Christ and rolled on in undiminished magnitude and glory for many centuries. It bore upon its crest the royal line of estiages and his successors. This was, however, the first of the princes whom it held up conspicuously to the admiration of the world, and he rode so gracefully and gallantly on the lofty crest that mankind have given him the credit of raising and sustaining the magnificent bellow on which he was born. How far we are to consider him as founding the monarchy or the monarchy as raising and illustrating him will appear more fully in the course of this narrative contemporaneous with this Persian monarchy in the east. They're flourished in the west, the small but very efficient and vigorous republics of Greece. The Greeks had a written character for their language which could be easily and rapidly executed while the ordinary language of the Persians was scarcely written at all. There was it is true in this latter nation a certain learned character which was used by the priests for their mystic records and also for certain sacred books which constituted the only national archives. It was, however, only slowly and with difficulty that this character could be penned, and when penned it was unintelligible to the great mass of the population. For this reason, among others, the Greeks wrote narratives of the great events which occurred in their day, which narratives they so embellished and adorned by the picturesque lights and shades in which their genius enabled them to present the scenes and characters described as to make them universally admired. While these surrounding nations produced nothing but formal governmental records not worth to the community at large, the toil and labor necessary to decipher them and make them intelligible, thus the Greek writers became the historians not only of their own republics but also of all the nations around them. And with such admirable genius and power did they fulfill this function that while the records of all other nations contemporary with them have been almost entirely neglected and forgotten, the language of the Greeks has been preserved among mankind with infinite labor and toil by successive generations of scholars in every civilized nation for 2,000 years solely in order that men may continue to read these tales. Two Greek historians have given us a narrative of the events connected with the life of Cyrus, Herodotus, and Xenophon. These writers disagree very materially in the statements which they make, and modern readers are divided in opinion on the question which to believe. In order to present this question fairly to the minds of our readers, we must commence this volume with some account of these two authorities whose guidance conflicting as it is furnishes all the light which we have to follow. Herodotus was a philosopher and scholar, Xenophon was a great general. The one spent his life in solitary study or in visiting various countries in the pursuit of knowledge. The other distinguished himself in the command of armies and in distant military expeditions which he conducted with great energy and skill. They were both by birth men of wealth and high station so that they occupied from the beginning conspicuous positions in society and as they were both energetic and enterprising in character they were led each to a very romantic and adventurous career. The one in his travels the other in his campaigns so that their personal history and their exploits attracted great attention even while they lived. Herodotus was born in the year 484 BC which was about fifty years after the death of the Cyrus whose history forms the subject of this volume. He was born in the Grecian state of Karya in Asia Minor and in the city of Hala Karnassus. Karya as may be seen from the map at the commencement of this volume was in the southwestern part of Asia Minor near the shores of the Aegean Sea. Herodotus became a student at a very early age. It was the custom in Greece at that time to give to young men of his rank a good intellectual education in other nations. The training of the young men in wealthy and powerful families was confined almost exclusively to the use of arms to horsemanship to athletic feats and other such accomplishments as would give them a manly and graceful personal bearing and enable them to excel in the various friendly contests of the public games as well as prepare them to maintain their ground against their enemies in personal combats on the field of battle. The Greeks without neglecting these things taught their young men also to read and to write, explain to them the structure and the philosophy of language and trained them to the study of the poets, the orators and the historians which their country had produced. Thus a general taste for intellectual pursuits and pleasures was diffused throughout the community. The public affairs were discussed before large audiences assembled for the purpose by orators who felt a great pride and pleasure in the exercise of the power which they had acquired of persuading, convincing or exciting the mighty masses that listened to them and at the great public celebrations which were customary in those days in addition to the wrestlings, the races, the games and the military spectacles there were certain literary entertainments provided which constituted an essential part of the public pleasures. Tragedies were acted, poems recited, odes and lyrics sung and narratives of martial enterprises and exploits and geographical and historical descriptions of neighboring nations were read to vast throngs of listeners who having been accustomed from infancy to witness such performances and to hear them applauded had learned to appreciate and enjoy them. Of course these literary exhibitions would make impressions more or less strong on different minds as the mental temperaments and characters of individuals varied. They seemed to have exerted a very powerful influence on the mind of Herodotus in his early years. He was inspired when very young with a great zeal and ardor for the attainment of knowledge and as he advanced toward maturity he began to be ambitious of making new discoveries with a view of communicating to his countrymen in these great public assemblies what he should thus acquire. Accordingly as soon as he arrived at a suitable age he resolved to set out upon a tour into foreign countries and to bring back a report of what he should see and hear. The intercourse of nations was in those days mainly carried on over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and in times of peace almost the only mode of communication was by the ships and the caravans of the merchants who traded from country to country both by sea and on the land. In fact the knowledge which one country possessed of the geography and the manners and customs of another was almost wholly confined to the reports which these merchants circulated when military expeditions invaded a territory the commanders or the riders who accompanied them often wrote descriptions of the scenes which they witnessed in their campaigns and described briefly the countries through which they passed. These cases were however comparatively rare and yet when they occurred they furnished accounts that are authenticated and more to be relied upon and expressed moreover in a more systematic and regular form than the reports of the merchants though the information which was derived from both these sources combined was very insufficient and tended to excite more curiosity than it gratified. Herodotus therefore conceived that in thoroughly exploring the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the interior of Asia examining their geographical position inquiring into their history their institutions their manners customs and laws and writing the results for the entertainment and instruction of his countrymen he had an ample field before him for the exercise of all his powers. He went first to Egypt Egypt had been until that time closely shut up from the rest of mankind by the jealousy and watchfulness of the government but now on account of some recent political changes which will be hereafter more particularly alluded to the way was opened for travelers from other countries to come in. Herodotus was the first to avail himself of this opportunity he spent some time in the country and made himself minutely acquainted with its history its antiquities its political and social condition at the time of his visit and with all the other points in respect to which he supposed that his countrymen would wish to be informed. He took copious notes of all that he saw from Egypt he went westward into Libya and hence he traveled slowly along the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea as far as to the straits of Gibraltar noting with great care everything which presented itself to his own personal observation and availing himself of every possible source of information in respect to all other points of importance for the object which he had in view the straits of Gibraltar were the ends of the earth toward the westward in those ancient days and our traveler accordingly after reaching them returned again to the eastward he visited Tyre and the cities of Phoenicia on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and thence went still farther eastward to Assyria and Babylon it was here that he obtained the materials for what he has written in respect to the Medes and Persians and to the history of Cyrus after spending some time in these countries he went on by land still further to the eastward into the heart of Asia the country of Scythia was considered as at the end of the earth in this direction Herodotus penetrated for some distance into the almost trackless wilds of this remote land until he found that he had gone as far from the great center of light and power on the shores of the Aegean Sea as he could expect the curiosity of his countrymen to follow him he passed thence round toward the north and came down through the countries north of the Danube into Greece by way of the Epirus and Macedon to make such a journey as this was in fact in those days almost to explore the whole known world it ought however here to be stated that many modern scholars who have examined with great care the accounts which Herodotus has given of what he saw and heard in his wanderings doubt very seriously whether his journeys were really as extended as he pretends as his object was to read what he was intending to write at great public assemblies in Greece he was of course under every possible inducement to make his narrative as interesting as possible and not to detract at all from whatever there might be extraordinary either in the extent of his wanderings or in the wonderfulness of the objects and scenes which he saw or in the romantic nature of the adventures which he met with in his protracted tour. Cicero in lauding him as a writer says that he was the first who evinced the power to adorn a historical narrative between adorning and embellishing the line is not to be very distinctly marked and Herodotus has often been accused of having drawn more from his fancy than from any other source in respect to a large portion of what he relates and describes some do not believe that he ever even entered half the countries which he professes to have thoroughly explored while others find in the minuteness of his specifications something like conclusive proof that he related only what he actually saw in a word the question of his credibility has been discussed by successive generations of scholars ever since his day and strong parties have been formed who have gone to extremes in the opinions they have taken so that while some confer upon him the title of the father of history others say it would be more in accordance with his merits to call him the father of lies in controversies like this and in fact in all controversies it is more agreeable to the mass of mankind to take sides strongly with one party or the other and either to believe or disbelieve one or the other fully and cordially there is a class of minds however more calm and better balanced than the rest who can deny themselves this pleasure and who see that often in the most bitter and decided controversies the truth lies between by this class of minds it has been generally supposed that the narratives of Herodotus are substantially true though in many cases highly colored and embellished or as Cicero called it adorned as in fact they inevitably must have been under the circumstances in which they were written we cannot follow minutely the circumstances of the subsequent life of Herodotus he became involved in some political disturbances and difficulties in his native state after his return in consequence of which he retired partly a fugitive and partly an exile to the island of Somos which is at a little distance from Karya and not far from the shore here he lived for some time in seclusion occupied in writing out his history he divided it into nine books to which respectively the names of the nine muses were afterward given to designate them the island of Somos where this great literary work was performed is very near to Somos where a few hundred years later the evangelist John in a similar retirement and in the use of the same language and character wrote the book of Revelation when a few of the first books of his history were completed Herodotus went with the manuscript to Olympia at the great celebration of the 81st Olympiad the Olympiads were periods recurring at intervals of about four years by means of them the Greeks reckoned their time the Olympiads were celebrated as they occurred with games shows spectacles and parades which were conducted on so magnificent a scale that vast crowds were accustomed to assemble from every part of Greece to witness and join in them they were held at Olympia a city on the western side of Greece nothing now remains to mark the spot but some acres of confused and unintelligible ruins the personal fame of Herodotus and of his travels had preceded him and when he arrived at Olympia he found the curiosity and eagerness of the people to listen to his narratives extreme he read copious extracts from his accounts so far as he had written them to the vast assemblies which convened to hear him and they were received with unbounded applause and in as much as these assemblies comprised nearly all the statesmen the generals the philosophers and the scholars of Greece applause expressed by them became at once universal renown Herodotus was greatly gratified at the interest which his countrymen took in his narratives and he determined henceforth to devote his time assiduously to the continuation and completion of his work it was twelve years however before his plan was finally accomplished he then repaired to Athens at the time of a grand festive celebration which was held in that city and there he appeared in public again and read extended portions of the additional books that he had written the admiration and applause which his work now elicited was even greater than before in deciding upon the passages to be read Herodotus selected such as would be most likely to excite the interest of his Grecian hearers and many of them were glowing accounts of Grecian exploits in former wars which had been waged in the countries which he had visited to expect that under such circumstances Herodotus should have made his history wholly impartial would be to suppose the historian not human the Athenians were greatly pleased with the narratives which Herodotus thus read to them of their own and of their ancestors exploits they considered him a national benefactor for having made such a record of their deeds and in addition to the unbounded applause which they bestowed upon him they made him a public grant of a large sum of money during the remainder of his life Herodotus continued to enjoy the high degree of literary renown which his writings had acquired for him a renown which has since been extended and increased rather than diminished by the lapse of time as for Xenophon the other great historian of Cyrus it has already been said that he was a military commander and his life was accordingly spent in a very different manner from that of his great competitor for historic fame he was born at Athens about thirty years after the birth of Herodotus so that he was bought a child while Herodotus was in the midst of his career when he was about twenty two years of age he joined a celebrated military expedition which was formed in Greece for the purpose of proceeding to Asia Minor to enter into the service of the governor of that country the name of this governor was Cyrus and to distinguish him from Cyrus the great whose history is to form the subject of this volume and who lived about one hundred and fifty years before him he is commonly called Cyrus the younger this expedition was headed by a Grecian general named Clearchus the soldiers and the subordinate officers of the expedition did not know for what special service it was designed as Cyrus had a treasonable and guilty object in view and he kept it accordingly concealed even from the agents who were to aid him in the execution of it his plan was to make war upon and dethrone his brother Artaxerxes then king of Persia and consequently his sovereign Cyrus was a very young man but he was a man of a very energetic and accomplished character and of unbounded ambition when his father died it was arranged that Artaxerxes the older son should succeed him Cyrus was extremely unwilling to submit to this supremacy of his brother his mother was an artful and unprincipled woman and Cyrus being the youngest of her children was her favorite she encouraged him in his ambitious designs and so desperate was Cyrus himself in his determination to accomplish them that it is said he attempted to assassinate his brother on the day of his coronation his attempt was discovered and it failed his brother however instead of punishing him for the treason had the generosity to pardon him and sent him to his government in Asia Minor Cyrus immediately turned all his thoughts to the plan of raising an army and making war upon his brother in order to gain forcible possession of his throne that he might have a plausible pretext for making the necessary military preparations he pretended to have a quarrel with one of his neighbors and wrote hypocritically many letters to the king affecting solicitude for his safety and asking aid the king was thus deceived and made no preparations to resist the force which Cyrus was assembling not having the remotest suspicion that its destiny was Babylon the auxiliary army which came from Greece to enter into Cyrus's service under these circumstances consisted of about 13,000 men he had it was said 100,000 men besides but so celebrated were the Greeks in those days for their courage their discipline their powers of endurance and their indomitable tenacity and energy that Cyrus very properly considered this core as the flower of his army Xenophon was one of the younger Grecian generals the army crossed the hell's pond and entered Asia Minor and passing across the country reached at last the famous pass of Solicia in the southwestern part of the country a narrow defile between the mountains and the sea which opens the only passage in that quarter toward the Persian regions beyond here the suspicions which the Greeks had been for some time inclined to feel that they were going to make war upon the Persian monarch himself were confirmed and they refused to proceed their unwillingness however did not arise from any compunctions of conscience about the guilt of treason or the wickedness of helping an ungrateful and unprincipled wretch whose forfeited life had once been given to him by his brother in making war upon and destroying his benefactor soldiers have never in any age of the world anything to do with compunctions of conscience in respect to their work their commanders give them to perform the Greeks were perfectly willing to serve in this or in any other undertaking but since it was rebellion and treason that was asked of them they considered it as specially hazardous and so they concluded that they were entitled to extra pay Cyrus made no objection to this demand and arrangement was made accordingly and the army went on our desert seas assembled suddenly the whole force of his empire on the planes of Babylon and immense army consisting it is said of over a million of men such vast forces occupy necessarily a wide extent of country even when drawn up in battle array so great in fact was the extent occupied in this case that the Greeks who conquered all that part of the king's forces which was directly opposed to them supposed when night came at the close of the day of battle that Cyrus had been everywhere victorious and they were only undeceived when the next day messengers came from the Persian camp to inform them that Cyrus's whole force accepting themselves was defeated and dispersed and that Cyrus himself was slain and to summon them to surrender at once and unconditionally to the conquerors the Greeks refused to surrender they formed themselves immediately into a compact and solid body fortified themselves as well as they could in their position and prepared for a desperate defense there were about ten thousand of them left and the Persians seemed to have considered them to formidable to be attacked the Persians entered into negotiations with them offering them certain terms on which they would be allowed to return peaceably into Greece these negotiations were protracted from day to day for two or three weeks the Persians treacherously using toward them a friendly tone and even sing a disposition to treat them in a liberal and generous manner this through the Greeks off their guard and finally the Persians contrived to get clear chas and the leading Greek generals into their power at a feast and then they seized and murdered them or as they would perhaps term it executed them as rebels and traitors when this was reported in the Grecian camp the whole army was thrown at first into the utmost consternation they found themselves two thousand miles from home in the heart of a hostile country with an enemy nearly a hundred times their own number close upon them while they themselves were without provisions without horses without money and there were deep rivers and rugged mountains and every other possible physical obstacle to be surmounted before they could reach their own frontiers if they surrendered to their enemies a hopeless and most miserable slavery was their inevitable doom under these circumstances Xenophon according to his own story called together the surviving officers in the camp urged them not to despair and recommended that immediate measure should be taken for commencing a march toward Greece he proposed that they should elect commanders to take the places of those who had been killed and that under their new organization they should immediately set out on their return these plans were adopted he himself was chosen as the commanding general and under his guidance the whole force was conducted safely through the countless difficulties and dangers which be set their way to defend themselves at every step of their progress from an enemy so vastly more numerous than they and which was hanging on their flanks and on their rear and making the most incessant efforts to surround and capture them this retreat occupied two hundred and fifteen days it has always been considered as one of the greatest military achievements that has ever been performed it is called in history the retreat of the ten thousand Xenophon acquired by it a double immortality he led the army and thus attained to a military renown which will never fade and he afterward wrote a narrative of the exploit which has given him an equally extended and permanent literary fame sometime after this Xenophon returned again to Asia as a military commander and distinguished himself in other campaigns he acquired a large fortune to in these wars and at length retired to a villa which he built and adorned magnificently in the neighborhood of Olympia where Herodotus had acquired so extended a fame by reading his histories it was probably in some degree through the influence of the success which had attended the labors of Herodotus in this field that Xenophon was induced to enter it he devoted the latter years of his life to writing various historical memois the two most important of which that have come down to modern times are first the narrative of his own expedition under Cyrus the Younger and secondly a sort of romance or tale founded on the history of Cyrus the Great this last is called the Cyropedia and it is from this work and from the history written by Herodotus that nearly all our knowledge of the great Persian monarch is derived the question how far the stories which Herodotus and Xenophon have told us in relating the history of the great Persian king are true is of less importance than one would at first imagine for the case is one of those numerous instances in which the narrative itself which genius has written has had far greater influence on mankind than the events themselves exerted which the narrative professes to record it is now far more important for us to know what the story is which has for 1800 years been read and listened to by every generation of men than what the actual events were in which the tale thus told had its origin this consideration applies very extensively to history and especially to ancient history the events themselves have long since ceased to be of any great interest or importance to readers of the present day but the accounts whether they are fictitious or real partial or impartial honestly true or embellished and colored since they have been so widely circulated in every age and in every nation and have impressed themselves so universally and so permanently in the mind and memory of the whole human race and have penetrated into and colored the literature of every civilized people it becomes now necessary that every well informed man should understand in a word the real Cyrus is now a far less important personage to mankind than the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon and it is accordingly their story which the author proposes to relate in this volume the reader will understand therefore that the end and aim of the work is not to guarantee an exact and certain account of Cyrus as he actually lived and acted but only to give a true and faithful summary of the story which for the last two thousand years has been in circulation respecting him among mankind. End of chapter one Chapter two of Cyrus the Great by Jacob Abbott this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Dionne Giants, Celtic City Utah the birth of Cyrus BC 599 to 588 there are records coming down to us from the very earliest times of three several kingdoms situated in the heart of Asia, Assyria media and Persia the two latter of which at the period when they first emerge indistinctly into view were more or less connected with and dependent upon the former. Asstigies was the king of media, Cambysus was the name of the ruling prince or magistrate of Persia Cambysus married Mandane the daughter of Asstiges and Cyrus was their son in recounting the circumstances of his birth Herodotus relates with all seriousness extraordinary story while Mandane was a maiden living at her father's palace and home in media as Stigies awoke one morning terrified by a dream he had dreamed of a great inundation which overwhelmed and destroyed his capital and submerged a large part of his kingdom the great rivers of that country were liable very destructive floods and there would have been nothing extraordinary or alarming in the king's imagination being haunted during his sleep by the image of such a calamity were it not that in this case the deluge of water which produced such disastrous results seemed to be in some mysterious way connected with his daughter so that the dream appeared to pretend some great calamity which was to originate in her he thought it perhaps indicated that after her marriage she should have a son who would rebel against him and seize the supreme power thus overwhelming his kingdom as the inundation had done which he had seen in his dream against this imagined danger as Stigies determined that his daughter should not be married in media but that she should be provided with a husband in some foreign land so as to be taken away from media altogether he finally selected Campuses the king of Persia for her husband Persia was at that time a comparatively powerful and circumscribed dominion and Campuses though he seems to have been the supreme ruler of it was very far beneath as Stigies in rank and power the distance between the two countries was considerable and the institutions and customs of the people of Persia were simple and rude little likely to awaken or encourage the minds of their princes any treasonable or ambitious designs as Stigies thought therefore that in sending Mandane there to be the wife of the king he had taken effectual precautions to guard against the danger pretended by his dream Mandane was accordingly married and conducted by her husband to her new home about a year afterward her father had another dream he dreamed that a vine proceeded from his daughter and growing rapidly and luxuriously while he was regarding it extended itself over the whole land now the vine being a symbol of beneficence and plenty as Stigies might have considered this vision as an omen of good as it was good which was to be derived in some way from his daughter it naturally awakened his fears anew that he was doomed to find a rival and competitor for the possession of his kingdom in Mandane's son and heir he called together his soothsayers related his dream to them and asked for their interpretation they decided that it meant that Mandane would have a son who would one day become a king as Stigies was now seriously alarmed and he sent for Mandane to come home ostensibly because he wished her to pay a visit to her father and to her native land but really for the purpose of having her in his power that he might destroy her child as soon as one should be born Mandane came to media and was established by her father in a residence near his palace and such officers and domestics were put in charge of her household as Stigies could rely upon to do whatever he should command things being thus arranged a few months passed away and then Mandane's child was born immediately on hearing of the event as Stigies sent for a certain officer of his court an unscrupulous and hardened man who possessed as he supposed enough of depraved and reckless resolution for the commission of any crime and addressed him as follows I have sent for you her pages to commit to your charge a business of very great importance I confide fully in your principles of obedience and fidelity and depend upon your doing yourself with your own hands the work that I require if you failed to do it or if you attempt to evade it by putting it off upon others you will suffer severely I wish you to take Mandane's child to your own house and put him to death you may accomplish the object in any mode you please and you may arrange the circumstances of the burial of the body or the disposal of it in any other way as you think best the essential thing is that you see to it yourself that the child is killed her pages replied that however the king might command it was his duty to do and that as his master had never hitherto had occasion to censor his conduct he should not find him wanting now her pages then went to receive the infant the attendance of Mandane had been ordered to deliver it to him not at all suspecting the object for which the child was thus taken away but naturally supposing on the other hand that it was for the purpose of some visit they arrayed their unconscious charge in the most highly wrought and costly of the robes which Mandane his mother had for many months been interested in preparing for him and then gave him up to the custody of her pages expecting that he should be very speedily returned to their care although her pages had expressed already willingness to obey the cruel behest of the king at the time of receiving it he manifested as soon as he received the child an extreme degree of anxiety and distress he immediately sent for a herdsman named to come to him in the meantime he took the child home to his house and in a very excited and agitated manner related to his wife what had passed he laid the child down in the apartment leaving it neglected and alone while he conversed with his wife in a harried and anxious manner in respect to the dreadful situation in which he found himself placed she asked him what he intended to do he replied that he certainly should not himself destroy the child it is the son of Mandane said he she is the king's daughter if the king should die Mandane would succeed him and then what terrible danger would impend over me if she should know me to have been slayer of her son her pages said more over that he did not dare absolutely to disobey the orders of the king so far as to save the child's life and that he had sent for a herdsman whose pastures extended to wild and desolate forests and mountains the gloomy haunts of wild beasts and birds of prey intending to give the child to him with orders to carry it into those solitudes and abandon it there his name was Mitradades while they were speaking this herdsman came in he found her pages and his wife talking thus together with countenances expressive of anxiety and distress while the child uneasy under the confinement and inconveniences of its splendid dress and terrified at the strangeness of the scene and the circumstances around it and perhaps more over experiencing some dawning and embryo emotions of resentment at being laid down in neglect cried aloud and incessantly her pages gave the astonished herdsman his charge afraid as her pages had been in the presence of astigious to events any hesitation in respect to obeying the orders of his superior whatever they might be took up the child and bore it away he carried it to his hut it so happened that his wife whose name was Spocko had at that very time a newborn child but it was dead her dead son had in fact been born during the absence of Mitradades he had been extremely unwilling to leave his home at such a time but the summons of her pages must he knew the obeyed his wife to not knowing what could have occasioned so sudden and urgent a call had to bear all the day a burden of anxiety solicitude in respect to her husband in addition to her disappointment and grief at the loss of her child her anxiety and grief were changed for a little time into astonishment and curiosity at seeing the beautiful babe so magnificently dressed which her husband brought to her and at hearing his extraordinary story he said that when he first entered the house of her pages and saw the child lying there and heard the directions which her pages gave him to carry it into the mountains and leave it to die he supposed that the babe belonged to some of the domestics of the household and that her pages wished to have it destroyed in order to be relieved of a burden the richness forever of the infant stress and the deep anxiety and sorrow which was indicated by the countenances and by the conversation of her pages and his wife and which seemed altogether to earnest to be excited by the concern which they would probably feel for any servants offspring appeared at the time he said inconsistent with that supposition which perplexed and bewildered him he said more over that in the end her pages had sent a man with him a part of the way when he left the house and that this man had given him a full explanation of the case the child was the son of Mandane the daughter of the king and he was to be destroyed by the orders of a Stigius himself for fear that at some future period he might attempt to usurp the throne they who know anything of the feelings of a mother under the circumstances in which Spocko was placed can imagine with what emotions she received the little sufferer now nearly exhausted by abstinence fatigue and fear from her husband's hands and the heart pressure with which she drew him to her bosom to comfort and relieve him in an hour she was as it were herself his mother and she began to plead hard with her husband for his life Mitridates said that the child could not possibly be saved her pages had been most earnest and positive in his orders and he was coming himself to see what they had been executed he would demand undoubtedly to see the body of the child to assure himself that it was actually dead Spocko instead of being convinced by her husband's reasoning only became more and more earnest in her desires that the child might be saved she rose from her couch and clasped her husband's knees and begged with the most earnest and treaties and with many tears to grant her request her husband was however inexorable he said that if he were to yield and attempt to save the child from its doom her pages would most certainly know that his orders had been disobeyed and then that their own lives would be forfeited and the child herself sacrificed after all in the end the thought then occurred to Spocko that her own dead child might be substituted for the living one and be exposed in the mountains in its stead she proposed this plan and after much anxious doubt and hesitation the herdsmen consented to adopt it they took off the splendid robes which adorned the child and put them on the corpse each equally unconscious of the change the little limbs of the son of Mandane were then more simply closed in the course and scanty covering which belonged to the new character which he was now to assume and then the babe was restored to its place in Spocko's bosom Mitridates placed his own child completely disguised as it was by the royal robes it wore in the little basket or cradle in which the other had been brought and accompanied by an attendant whom he was to leave in the forest to keep watch over the body he went away to seek some wild and desolate solitude in which to leave it exposed during which the attendant whom the herdsmen had left in the forest watched near the body to prevent it being devoured by wild beasts or birds of prey and at the end of that time he brought it home the herdsmen then went to Harpages to inform him that the child was dead and in proof that it really was so he said that if Harpages had come to his hut he could see the body Harpages sent some messenger in whom he could confide to make the observation the herdsmen exhibited the dead child to him and he was satisfied he reported the result of his mission to Harpages and Harpages then ordered the body to be buried the child of Mandane whom we may call Cyrus that was the name which he subsequently received was brought up in the herdsmen's hut and passed everywhere for Spocko's child Harpages after receiving the report of his messenger then informed of Stitches that his orders had been executed and that the child was dead a trusty messenger he said whom he had sent for the purpose had seen the body although the king had been so earnest to have the deed performed he found that after all the knowledge that his orders had been obeyed gave him very little satisfaction the fears prompted by his selfishness and ambition which had led him to commit the crime gave place when it had been perpetrated to remorse for his unnatural cruelty Mandane mourned incessantly the death of her innocent babe and loaded her father with reproaches for having destroyed it which he found it very hard to bear in the end he repented bitterly of what he had done the secret of the child's preservation remained concealed for about ten years it was then discovered in the following manner a virus like Alexander Caesar William the Conqueror Napoleon and other commanding minds who obtained a great ascendancy over masses of men in their mature years events his donning superiority at a very early period of his boyhood he took the lead of his playmates in their sports and made them submit to his regulations decisions not only did the peasants boys in the little Hamlet where his reputed father lived thus yield the precedents to him but sometimes when the sons of men of rank and station came out from the city to join them in their plays even then Cyrus was the acknowledged head one day the son of an officer of King Estige's court his father's name was Artemis came out with other boys from the city to join these village boys in their sports they were playing King Cyrus was the king Herodotus says that the other boys chose him as such it was however probably such a sort of choice as that by which kings and emperors are made among men more or less voluntary on the part of the subjects to the resolute and determined energy with which the aspirant places himself upon the throne during the progress of the play a quarrel arose between Cyrus and the son of Artemis the latter would not obey and Cyrus beat him he went home and complained bitterly to his father went to Estige's to protest against such an indignity offered to his son by a peasant boy and demanded that the little tyrant should be punished probably far the larger portion of intelligent readers of history consider the whole story as a romance but if we look upon it as in any respect true we must conclude that the median monarchy must have been at that time in a very rude and simple condition indeed to allow of the submission of such a question as this to the personal adjudication of the reigning king however this may be Herodotus states that Artemis went to the palace of Estige's taking his son with him to offer proofs of the silence of which the herdsman's son had been guilty by showing the contusions and bruises that had been produced by the blows is this the treatment he asked indignantly of the king when he had completed his statement that my boy is to receive from the son of one of your slaves Estige's seemed to be convinced that this was the best cause to complain and he sent for Mitridates and his son to come to him in the city when they arrived Cyrus advanced into the presence of the king with that courageous and manly bearing which romance writers are so fond of ascribing to boys of noble birth whatever may have been the circumstances of their early training he was struck with his appearance and error he however sternly laid to his charge the accusation which Artemis had brought against him pointing to Artemis's son all bruised and swollen as he was he asked is that the way that you a mere herdsman's boy dare to treat the son of one of my nobles looked up into his stern judges face with an undaunted expression of countenance which considering the circumstances of the case and the smoltness of the scale on which this embryo heroism was represented was partly ludicrous and partly sublime my lord said he what I have done I am able to justify I did punish this boy and I had a right to do so I was king and he was my subject and he would not obey me if you think that for this I deserve punishment myself here I am I am ready to suffer it if a stigies had been struck with the appearance and manner of Cyrus at the commencement of the interview his admiration was awakened far more strongly now at hearing such words uttered to in so exalted a tone from such a child he remained a long time silent at last he told Artemis and his son that they might retire he would take the affair he said into his own hands and dispose of it in a just and proper manner a stigies then took the herdsman aside and asked him in an earnest tone whose boy that was and where he had obtained him Mitridates was terrified he replied however that the boy was his own son and that his mother was still living at home in the hut where they all resided there seems to have been something however in his appearance and manner while making these assertions which led a stigies not to believe what he said he was convinced that there was some unexplained mystery in respect to the origin of the boy which the herdsman was willfully withholding he assumed a displeased and threatening error and ordered in his guards to take Mitridates into custody the terrified herdsman then said that he would explain all and he accordingly related honestly the whole story a stigies was greatly rejoiced to find that the child was alive one would suppose it to be almost inconsistent with this feeling that he should be angry with her pages for not having destroyed it it would seem in fact that her pages was not amenable to serious censure in any view of the subject for he had taken what he had a right to consider very effectual measures for carrying the orders of the king into faithful execution but a stigies seems to have been one of those inhuman monsters which the possession and long continued exercise of despotic power have so often made who take a calm quiet and deliberate satisfaction in torturing to death any wretched victim whom they can have any pretext for destroying especially if they can invent some new means of torment to give a fresh to their pleasure these monsters do not act from passion men are sometimes inclined to palliate great cruelties and crimes which are perpetrated under the influence of sudden anger or from the terrible impulse of those impetuous and uncontrollable emotions of the human soul which when once excited seem to make men insane but the crimes of a tyrant are not of this kind they are the calm deliberate and sometimes very economized gratifications of a nature essentially malign when therefore a stigies learned that her pages had failed of literally obeying his command to destroy with his own hand the infant which had been given him although he was pleased with the consequences which had resulted from it he immediately perceived that there was another besides that he was to derive from the transaction namely that of gratifying his own imperious and ungovernable will by taking vengeance on him who had failed even in so slight a degree of fulfilling its dictates in a word he was glad that the child was saved but he did not consider that that was any reason why he should not have the pleasure of punishing the man who saved him thus far from being transported by any sudden and violent feeling of resentment to an inconsiderate act of revenge a stigies began calmly and coolly and with a deliberate malignity more worthy of a demon than of a man to consider how he would best accomplish the purpose he had in view when at length his plan was formed he sent for her pages to come to him her pages came the king began the conversation by asking her pages what method he had employed for destroying the child of mandate which he the king had delivered to him some years before her pages replied by stating the exact truth he said that as soon as he had received the infant he began immediately to consider by what means he could affect its destruction without involving himself in the guilt of murder that finally he had determined upon employing the herdsmen mitridates to expose it in the forest till it should perish of hunger and cold and in order to be sure that the king's behest was fully obeyed he charged the herdsmen he said to keep strict watch near the child till it was dead and then to bring home the body he had then sent a confidential messenger from his own household to see the body and provide for its interment he solemnly assured the king in conclusion that this was the real truth and that the child was actually destroyed in the manner he had described the king then with an appearance of great satisfaction and pleasure informed her pages that the child had not been destroyed after all and he related to him the circumstances of its having been exchanged for the dead the child of Spocko and brought up in the herdsmen's hut he informed him too of the singular manner in which the fact that the infant had been preserved and was still alive had been discovered he told her pages moreover that he was greatly rejoiced at this discovery after he was dead as I supposed said he I bitterly repented of having given orders to destroy him I could not bear my daughter's grief or the reproaches which she incessantly uttered against me but the child is alive and all is well and I am going to give a grand entertainment as a festival of rejoicing on the occasion as did she then requested her pages to send his son who was 30 years of age to the palace to be a companion to Cyrus and inviting him very specially to come to the entertainment he dismissed him with many marks of attention and honor her pages went home trembling at the thought of the imminent danger which he had incurred and of the narrow escape by which he had been saved from it he called his son directed him to prepare himself to go to the king and dismissed him with many charges in respect to his behavior both toward the king and towards Cyrus he related to his wife the conversation which had taken place between himself and Astigius and she rejoiced with him in the apparently happy issue of an affair which might well have been expected to have been their ruin the sequel of this story is too horrible to be told and yet too essential to a right understanding of the influences and effects produced on human nature by the possession and exercise of despotic and irresponsible power to be omitted her pages came to the festival it was a grand entertainment her pages was placed in a conspicuous position at the table a great variety of dishes were brought in and set before the different guests and were eaten without question toward the close of the feast Astigius asked her pages what he thought of his fare her pages have terrified with some mysterious presentiment of danger expressed himself well pleased with it Astigius then told him there was plenty more of the same kind and ordered the attendants to bring the basket in they came accordingly and uncovered a basket before the wretched guest which contained as he saw when he looked into it the head the hands and feet of his son Astigius asked him to help himself to whatever part he liked the most astonishing part of the story is yet to be told it relates to the action of her pages in such an emergency he looked as composed and placid as if nothing unusual had occurred the king asked him if he knew what he had been eating he said that he did and that whatever was agreeable to the will of the king was always pleasing to him it is hard to say whether despotic power exerts its worst and most direful influences on those who willed it or on those who have it to bear on its masters or on its slaves after the first feelings of pleasure which Astigius experienced in being relieved from the sense of guilt which oppressed his mind so long as he's supposed that his orders for the murder of his infant grandchild had been obeyed his former uneasiness lest the child should in future years become his rival and competitor for the possession of the median throne which had been the motive originally instigating him to the commission of the crime returned in some measure again and he began to consider whether it was not incumbent on him to take some measures to guard against such a result the end of his deliberations was that he concluded to send for the magi or soothsayers as he had done in the case of his dream and obtain their judgment on the affair in the new aspect which it had now assumed when the magi had heard the king's narrative of the circumstances under which the discovery of the child's preservation had been made through complaints which had been preferred against him on account of the manner in which he had exercised the prerogatives of a king among his playmates they decided at once that Astigius had no cause for any further apprehensions in respect to the dreams which had disturbed him previous to his grandchild's birth he has been a king they said and the danger is over it is true that he has been a monarch only in play but that is enough to satisfy and fulfill the presages of the vision occurrences very slight and trifling in themselves are often found to accomplish what seemed a very serious magnitude and moment as portended your grandchild has been a king and he will never reign again you have therefore no further cause to fear and may send him to his parents in Persia with perfect safety the king determined to adopt this advice he ordered the soothsayers however not to remit their assiduity and vigilance and if any signs or omens should appear to indicate approaching danger he charged them to give him a media warning this they faithfully promised to do they felt they said a personal interest in doing it for Cyrus being a Persian prince his accession to the median throne would involve the subjection of the Meads to the Persian Dominion a result which they wished in every account to avoid so promising to watch vigilantly for every indication of danger they left the presence of the king the king then sent for Cyrus it seems that Cyrus though astonished at the great and mysterious changes which had taken his condition was still ignorant of his true history a stitchies now told him that he was to go into Persia you will rejoin there he said your true parents who you will find are a very different rank in life from the herdsman whom you have lived with thus far you will make the journey under the charge and escort of persons that I have appointed for the purpose they will explain to you on the way the mystery in which your parentage and birth seems to you at present enveloped you will find that I was induced many years ago by the influence of an untoward dream to treat you injurously but all has ended well and you can now go in peace to your proper home as soon as the preparations for the journey could be made Cyrus set out under the care of the party appointed to conduct him and went to Persia his parents were at first dumb with astonishment and were then overwhelmed with gladness and joy at seeing their much loved and long lost babe reappear as if from the dead in the form of this tall and handsome boy with health intelligence and happiness beaming in his countenance they overwhelmed him with caresses and the heart of Mandane especially was filled with pride and pleasure as soon as Cyrus became somewhat subtle in his new home his parents began to make arrangements for giving him as complete an education as the means and opportunities of those days afforded in his narrative of the early life of Cyrus gives a minute and in some respects quite an extraordinary account of the mode of life led in the sons of all the nobles and officers of the court were educated together within the precincts of the royal palaces or rather they spent their time together there occupied in various pursuits and allocations which were intended to train them for the duties of future life though there was very little of what would be considered in modern times as education they were not generally taught to read nor could they in fact since there were no books have used that art if they had acquired it the only intellectual instruction which they seem to have received was what was called learning justice the boys had certain teachers who explained to them more or less formally the general principles of right and wrong the injunctions and prohibitions of the laws and the obligations resulting from them and the rules by which controversies between man and man arising in various relations of life should be settled the boys were also trained to apply these principles and rules to the cases which occurred among themselves each acting as judge in turn to discuss and decide the questions that arose from time to time either from real transactions as they occurred or from hypothetical cases invented to put their powers to the test to stimulate the exercise of their powers they were rewarded when they decided right and punished when they decided wrong Cyrus himself was punished on one occasion for a wrong decision under the following circumstances a bigger boy took away the coat of a smaller boy than himself because it was larger than his own smaller coat instead the smaller boy complained of the wrong and the case was referred to Cyrus for his adjudication after hearing the case Cyrus decided that each boy should keep the coat that fitted him the teacher condemned this as a very unjust decision when you are called upon said he to consider a question of what fits best then you should determine as you have done in this case but when you are appointed to decide whose each coat is and to a judge it to the proper owner then you are to consider what constitutes right possession and whether he who takes a thing by force from one who is weaker than himself should have it or whether he who made it or purchased it should be protected in his property you have decided against law and in favor of violence and wrong Cyrus's sentence was thus condemned and he was punished for not reasoning more soundly the boys at this version court were trained to many manly exercises they were taught to wrestle and to run they were instructed in the use of such arms as were employed in those times and rendered dexterous in the use of them by daily exercises they were taught to put their skill in practice too in hunting excursions which they took by turns with the king in the neighboring forest and mountains on these occasions they were armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows a shield a small sword which was worn at the side in a sort of scabbard and two javelins one of these was intended to be thrown the other to be retained in the hand for use in close combat in case the wild beast in his desperation should advance to a personal re-encounter these hunting expeditions were considered extremely important as a part of the system of peaceful training they were often long and fatiguing the young men became inured by means of them to toil and privation and exposure they had to make long marches to encounter great dangers to engage in desperate conflicts and to submit sometimes to the inconveniences of hunger and thirst as well as exposure to the dangers of heat and cold and to the violence of storms all this was considered as precisely the right source of discipline to make them good soldiers in their future martial campaigns Cyrus was not himself at this time old enough to take a very active part in these severe services as they belonged to a somewhat advanced nation and he was yet not quite 12 years old he was a very beautiful boy tall and graceful in form and his countenance was striking and expressive he was very frank and open in his disposition and character speaking honestly and without fear the sentiments of his heart in any presence and on all occasions he was extremely hearted and amiable too in his disposition averse to saying or doing anything which could give pain to those around him in fact the openness and cordiality of his address and manners and the unaffected ingenuousness and sincerity which characterized his disposition made him a universal favorite his frankness his childish simplicity his vivacity his personal grace and beauty and his generous and self-sacrificing spirit rendered him the object of general admiration throughout the court and filled Mandane's heart with maternal gladness and pride End of chapter 2