"But Astyages did not retire from the siege of the mountain. Cyrus had still need of much cunning and bravery before he succeeded in defeating Astyages and taking the camp of the Medes. On that day, Cyrus went into the tent of Astyages, seated himself on his throne, and took the sceptre amid the acclamations of the Persians; and Oebares put the king's kidaris on his head with the words: 'Thou art more worthy to bear it; the gods give it to thee for thy virtue, and grant the Persians to rule over the Medes.' The treasures of Astyages, which the Persians found in the camp of the Medes, were brought to Pasargadae under the care of Oebares; but even those which they found in the tents of the other Medes were enormous. It was not long before the intelligence of the defeat and flight of Astyages spread abroad, and nations as well as individuals deserted him. First of all Artasyras, the chief of the Hyrcanians, came, with 50,000 men, and recognised Cyrus as king; afterwards came the chiefs of the Parthians, Sacæ, Bactrians, and other nations, each seeking to arrive before the other. Only a few faithful men remained with Astyages, and when Cyrus marched against him he was easily overcome. Then Cyrus gained possession of Ecbatana. There the daughter of Astyages and her husband Spitamas were taken captive with their two sons. But Astyages could not be found; Amytis and Spitamas had hidden him in the palace in the woodwork of the roof. Then Cyrus commanded that Amytis, her husband, and her children should be tortured that they might confess where Astyages was, but he came forward of his own will to prevent the torture. Spitamas was beheaded, because he had lied, and said that he did not know the hiding-place of Astyages; Amytis Cyrus took for his wife. He loosedfrom Astyages the heavy chains which Oebares had put upon him, honoured him as a father, and made him satrap of the Barcanians."[532]
According to Deinon, who wrote in the first half of the fourth centuryB.C., Cyrus was first governor of the staff-bearers of Astyages, and then of his body-guard. In a dream he had thrice seen the sun at his feet, and thrice stretched out his arms to grasp it, and the magicians had interpreted this dream to the effect that he would reign for thrice ten years. When Astyages had given Cyrus leave to go to Persia, and he had availed himself of it, the king sent for Angares, the most famous of the Median minstrels, in order to sing before him and his company at the banquet. After reciting the usual songs, Angares at last said: "The great beast of prey, more mighty than a wild boar, is let loose in the swamps; when he is master of his land, he will with ease fight against many." And when Astyages asked, "What wild beast is this?" Angares answered: "Cyrus the Persian." Then Astyages, regarding the suspicion as well-founded, sent to fetch Cyrus back, but failed to recover him.[533]
The narrative of Pompeius Trogus has been preserved in excerpts only. Astyages had a daughter, but no male heirs. From her bosom, he saw, in a dream, a vine growing, of which the branches overshadowed all Asia. The interpreters of dreams declared that this vision portended the greatness of the grandson whom his daughter would bring forth, but it also involved the loss of the empire to him. To be rid of this fear, Astyages had not given his daughter to any eminent man, nor even to a Mede—that there might not be rank on the father's side as well as on the mother's, to excite the ambition of his grandson—but to Cambyses, a man of middle station, in the then unknown nation of the Persians. Even this did not remove the alarm of Astyages; when his daughter was pregnant he sent for her in order to have her child put to death before his eyes. When a boy was born he gave him to Harpagus, his trusted friend, to be put to death. But Harpagus, fearing that the daughter of Astyages if she should come to the throne would avenge on him the death of her son, gave the child to the herdman of the king, and bade him expose it. The herdman obeyed, but when his wife heard of the matter, she urged her husband to fetch the child and show it to her. Wearied by her entreaties, the herdman went back into the forest, and there found a dog beside the child, suckling it, and defending it from the beasts of prey. He took it up and carried it to his fold, while the dog followed in much distress. When the herdman's wife took it in her arms, the child smiled on her as though it had known her, and it was so full of life and sweet smiles that the woman induced her husband to expose her own child in place of the grandson of the king. After this the excerpt goes on to relate, like Herodotus, the game of the boys, the answer of Cyrus, the revenge of Astyages on Harpagus, the letter in the hare's belly, in which Harpagus imparts to Cyrus his plan for the desertion of the Medes to the Persians. When Cyrus had received and read this letter in Persepolis, a dream also urged the enterprise upon him, but at the same time bade him take as his associate the man whom he met first on the following day. Next day, before dawn, Cyrus went on a journey, and met a slave ofthe name of Oebares, belonging to the house of a Mede. When Cyrus found that he was a Persian by birth, he took his chains off and turned back with him to Persepolis. Cyrus then assembled the Persians. On the first day he made them cut down a wood on the way, and on the second he entertained them. Astyages sends Harpagus against them, and he passes over to their side with the army entrusted to him. Astyages now marches out in person, after summoning all his forces, against Persia. The struggle was severe. Astyages placed a portion of his army in the rear of his forces, and told the latter that they must try whether they could not break through the ranks of the enemy in battle more easily than through the ranks behind them in flight. The Medes attacked with great spirit; the Persians were forced back to their wives and children, by whom they were again driven into the battle with the cry: Would they fly for refuge into the bosoms of their mothers and wives? They put the Medes to flight. Here the excerpt of Justin breaks off, though he represents Astyages as having been taken prisoner in this battle after the rout. Cyrus merely took the government from him; he treated him as his grandfather, and made him satrap of the Hyrcanians; Oebares he made ruler of Persia, and gave him his sister in marriage.[534]
Polyaenus repeats the narrative of Herodotus about the manner in which Cyrus induced the Persians to revolt. Then followed a war between the Medes and Persians, and Cyrus was three times defeated. As the women and children of the Persians were at Pasargadae, Cyrus was compelled to risk another battle in the neighbourhood of this place. The Persians were again put to flight; Oebares was retreating when the womenmet the fugitives, with the cry already quoted. The Persians halted; and as the Medes were pursuing without order, the Persians gained such a victory that no further battle was needed to decide the question of the throne.[535]Anaximenes of Lampsacus also relates that Cyrus had built Pasargadae at the place where he had overcome Astyages in battle. Strabo tells us: "Cyrus held Pasargadae in honour, for it was there that he conquered Astyages in the final battle, and became ruler of all Asia in his place, and he built a city and a palace in remembrance of the victory."[536]Plutarch tells us: When Cyrus revolted from Astyages and the Medes he was three times conquered in battle, and when the Persians fled into the city, the enemy had almost succeeded in forcing an entrance with them, when the women came out to meet them. The cry of the women brought about a change in the battle, and for this reason Cyrus made a law that as often as the king came into the city of Pasargadae, every woman should receive a piece of gold. Ochus marched past the city to evade the law; but Alexander twice entered Pasargadae, and gave double to all the women that were with child.[537]In all these narratives the land of the Persians is the scene of the decisive conflict.
Only a few short fragments remain of the accountgiven by Diodorus of the overthrow of Astyages. With him Cyrus is the son of Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, and Cambyses. His father brought him up as a king, and inflamed him with a desire for the mightiest achievements. As a young man he displayed a capacity in advance of his years, and clearly showed that he would undertake the most important enterprises. He was the first man of his time in bravery, wisdom, and all other virtues. Another fragment obviously comes after the defeat, which, according to Nicolaus, Astyages suffered in the final battle at Pasargadae. When defeated, Astyages, though he had himself disgracefully turned and fled, showed ferocious anger against his army. He deposed all the commanders and elected others in their place. Those who were to blame for the flight, he executed one and all, thinking that he should thus compel the others to show themselves brave men in danger. "For he was cruel and harsh in character. But he did not terrify the multitude by this severity; on the other hand, by the exasperation which such violence and caprice excited in every one, he roused them to a desire for revolution and deposition. The troops met in their divisions; treasonable speeches were uttered, and the majority urged each other to vengeance."[538]
Xenophon, it is true, has not written a history of Cyrus, but has given a description of his life from his knowledge of the Persian life and character, and the conclusions he deduced therefrom, as to the possible origin of the empire, in order to explain and realise to the Greeks the difficulty which they found it so hard to solve—the manner in which great nations could form one community and be governed by one person. With him Cyrus is the son ofCambyses, who is the king of the Persians, and Mandane the daughter of Astyages of Media, whom Xenophon represents as reigning before Cyaxares. When Cyrus was twelve years of age, his mother went with him to Media, in order to show him to his grandfather, whom the boy astonished by his apt answers. At the age of sixteen, Cyrus performs his first deeds of arms. When Astyages died, he was succeeded on the throne by his son Cyaxares, the brother of Mandane. He entreats Cambyses to aid him against the Assyrians; Cambyses sends Cyrus, by whose services the Medes are defeated. After this he conquered the Lydians, who had come to aid the Assyrians against the Medes, and took Babylon; and his uncle Cyaxares, whom Xenophon does not describe as a pattern ruler, gives him his daughter in marriage, and Media as a dowry, for he was without male children. Cambyses and Mandane assented to this arrangement. After the death of Cambyses, Cyrus became king of Persia, and on the death of Cyaxares, Media also became his.
The Armenians also narrate the fall of Astyages. Moses of Chorene (I. 513) tells us that he only related the stories of the Persians to please his patron Sahak (Isaac) Bagratuni, and gave them a meaning which they did not possess. Biurasp Asdahag lived at the time of Nimrod, and the person whom the Persians in their stories call the child of Satan, served him; and with regard to the dragon, or the changing of Asdahag into a dragon, the truth was that he sacrificed men in infinite numbers to the dragon, till the multitude grew weary, overpowered him, and threw him into a trench filled with bitumen. Moses further tells us: The ninth descendant of Baroir of Armenia (I. 515), King Tigran, was themightiest of all the princes of Armenia, and helped Cyrus to overthrow the kingdom of the Medes. Tigran was pledged by treaties to Asdahag (Astyages) the king of the Medians, and when he united with Cyrus, Astyages had an evil dream. He saw a high mountain surrounded by snow and ice, as in the land of the son of Haikhs (I. 513). On the summit of the mountain, a woman in purple, covered with a sky-blue veil, brought forth three heroes at once: one, carried on a lion, dashed toward the west; the second, on a leopard, to the north; the third, on a monstrous dragon, to Media. With this Asdahag fought in the dream: they shed a sea of blood, and pierced each other with their lances. Asdahag explained this dream to mean that he had to expect an attack from Tigran, the king of Armenia. To prevent this, and secretly to destroy Tigran, Asdahag sought Tigran's sister, Tigranuhi, in marriage, obtained her, and held her in great honour. Then he asked for a meeting with Tigran. But Tigranuhi had perceived the duplicity of Asdahag, and warned her brother. He collected the best warriors of great and little Armenia, and marched against the Medes. The war continued for four months, till Tigran in a hand-to-hand conflict pierced the iron armour of Asdahag with his lance. The death of Asdahag put an end to the battle and the war, and Tigran led his sister back to Armenia, where she became the ancestress of the race of Osdan. Anuish (Aryanis), the first wife of Astyages, and a number of young princesses and boys, more than 10,000 in all, Tigranes brought to Armenia, and settled there to the east of the great mountain, towards the land of Koghten, in the plain of Ajtnayan, as far as Nakhjevan. In the songs of the people of Koghten, the descendants of Astyages are spoken of in an allegorical manner, as the descendants of the dragon; for Astyages (Asdahag) in our language means the dragon.[539]As has been shown, the Armenians were closely allied to the people of Iran in language, character, and religious worship. It cannot therefore astonish us that the legends of Iran are known to them. What Moses tells us of Biurasp Asdahag and his serpents rests on the myth in the Avesta of the serpent Azhi dahaka, the Zohak of the later form of Iranian legend (p. 250). The epithet which Moses gives to Asdahag, Biurasp, is also of Iranian origin; Baevaraçpa means the lord of 10,000 horses. That the descendants of Astyages are spoken of in the national legend of Armenia as the descendants of the dragon, shows that the Armenians had confounded Astyages of Media with Azhi dahaka or Zohak. The Armenians can only claim as their own the legend of King Tigran, who overcomes and slays Asdahag of Media. They ascribe to their princes the overthrow of the Medes. As already remarked, the Armenian legend of Tigran must come down from an early date. Xenophon makes Tigran the son of the king of Armenia, the most faithful helper and associate of Cyrus.[540]
Leaving out of sight the romance of Xenophon, and the Armenian tradition, which involve special hypotheses, the accounts in the West of the fall ofAstyages go back to two distinct versions, one of which we have in the narrative of Herodotus, the other in the narrative of Ctesias-Nicolaus, which is presupposed in Deinon and Polyaenus. In Trogus we have a third version, which combines the two. So far as Justin's excerpt allows us to form an opinion, this version, and the fragments of Diodorus, are based upon the Persian history of Deinon. The introduction is distinguished from the account of Herodotus by the fact that only one dream of Astyages is mentioned; that Cyrus is already exposed, and a dog is suckling him before the herdsman's wife, whose name was "dog," brings him up; then follows the story of Herodotus, including the letter, which Harpagus sends to Cyrus in the hare's belly. At this point Trogus passes into the account of Nicolaus; he represents Cyrus as receiving in a dream the exhortation to rise against Astyages, and to take the first man he meets as his associate. Cyrus meets Oebares, though not, it is true, on the borders of the Cadusians. The place of the horsemen, who in Nicolaus are first sent by Astyages, is taken in Trogus by the march of Harpagus, and his desertion to Cyrus; then follows the narrative of the war, which in the most essential traits agrees with the version of Ctesias-Nicolaus. From Deinon's fragments we shall add to the excerpt from Trogus, that Cyrus before his rebellion had served at the court of Astyages as overseer of the staff-bearers, and then of the body-guard; that Astyages was warned by Angares; and, finally, the defection of the Medes after the battle of Pasargadae, as given in the fragments of Diodorus.
The detail and liveliness of the traits in the accounts of Herodotus and Ctesias-Nicolaus, in the fragment of Deinon, and the narrative of Trogus—the warningsand portents—the dialogues and speeches of the action—the letter:—all these point to poetical sources. We found that the accounts of Ctesias of the foundation, rise, and fall of Assyria, and of the rise of Media, were based upon poems, and here also, beyond doubt, poetic traditions form the groundwork. Herodotus, at the beginning of his narrative, tells us: "I write these matters from the accounts given by some of the Persians, who do not exaggerate the life of Cyrus, but wish to narrate the order of events; I am aware that three other different accounts of the life of Cyrus are in existence."[541]Xenophon tells us that Cyrus "is even now the theme of song among the barbarians."[542]In Deinon's fragment it is Angares, the most famous of the Median minstrels, who, while singing at the table of Astyages, warns him in a poetical figure against Cyrus (p. 354); in the account of Nicolaus it is one of the singing women, from whom, at the same time and in a similar figure, this warning comes. At the court of the Sassanids there were singing women who sang to the kings the achievements of old days. Ibn-al-Hareth brought women of this kind from the court of Chosru Nushirvan to the Koreishites, and they sang the deeds of Rustem.[543]According to these statements and indications we may regard it as certain that the elevation of Cyrus and the fall of Astyages was celebrated in song among the Persians and Medes. In spite of the differences between the three narratives, certain traits are common to all. In all dreams announce the future greatness of Cyrus; in Herodotus these appear to Astyages; in Nicolaus, to the mother of Cyrus; in Deinon and Trogus, to Cyrus also. In HerodotusCambyses is rich in flocks, in Nicolaus the mother of Cyrus tends goats; in Herodotus Cambyses is of a quiet disposition, in Nicolaus he is driven by his son to revolt, and finally disowns the enterprise. All three narratives lay stress on the warnings given to Astyages against Cyrus, though in different ways; all mark strongly the early personal valour of Cyrus, which Xenophon also celebrates. Artembares the Mede is found both in Herodotus and Nicolaus, though in a different relation to Cyrus. In all three accounts a counsellor—Harpagus in the one case, Oebares in the other—exercises the greatest influence on the resolutions of Cyrus. Herodotus and Nicolaus mark the cunning of Cyrus as opposed to Astyages; in both Cyrus gives out that he is carrying out the king's orders in arming the Persians. In Herodotus Cyrus tells the Persians that he does not consider them worse men than the Medes, and they revolt "because they have now got a leader in Cyrus." In Nicolaus Cyrus asks whether there is not a leader who can put an end to the rule of the Medes over better men than themselves. In both the dominion of the Medes has long been hated by the Persians. In both before the beginning of the struggle Astyages commands Cyrus to appear before him. In Herodotus Astyages says, when Harpagus has passed over to Cyrus and the Median army has broken up, that "he shall not succeed;" and in Nicolaus he uses the same words after the first defeat of his horsemen. In Herodotus it is the cruelty of Astyages to Harpagus, and his severity towards the Medes, which cost him his throne; in Diodorus the army revolts, even after brave fighting, from Astyages because he cruelly revenges upon them the defeat at Pasargadae. In all three accounts Cyrus does no harm to Astyages after his victory.
Let us set aside the poetical colours in the account of Herodotus in order to test its coherence. What alarm could Astyages, who was without male heirs, feel at the announcement that his daughter's son would one day rule over all Asia,i. e.would still further extend the dominion of the Medes? In the second dream, which portends no more than the first, a reason is given for the alarm; the interpreters declare that the dream signifies that Astyages will lose his throne. If Astyages had reason to fear the yet unborn child of his daughter, the obvious remedy was not to allow her to marry. Nevertheless she is married, not to a Mede, but to a man of the subject races, a Persian of a good family,i. e.of noble descent, wealthy, but "quiet in his disposition." This was equivalent to taking the Persian into the royal family, giving up to him or his son the right of succession, bringing the crown of Media into the possession of a stranger, and allowing the kingdom to pass from the Medes to the Persians. Even if such perversity could occur to Astyages the Medes were not likely to permit it, when the Magians tell Astyages, in Herodotus, how anxious they are that the dominion should not fall into the hands of a Persian. It is true that Herodotus represents Harpagus some twenty or thirty years later as persuading the chief Medes, and persuading them singly, that Astyages must be overthrown, and the Persian made king, but this is simply incredible. After this marvellous marriage of the heiress to the throne with a Persian, Cambyses is not brought to Ecbatana to the court, but remains in Persia, and no harm is done to the dreaded son of the marriage, even when his real origin has been discovered. Nay, more, the boy who at an early age discovers high aims, and a resolute will, is not evenbrought to the court to be under the eye of Astyages, but is sent back to Persia to his father, and by his means Harpagus is able to bring Persia to revolt. The letter hidden in the hare's belly obviously arose from an anticipation of the supervision of the great roads which was introduced at a later time by the Achæmenids. But what reason had Cyrus to cause the Persians to revolt? According to Herodotus Cambyses is the son-in-law, and hence the heir, of Astyages. Cyrus will succeed his father as heir to the Median throne, why then should he rebel against his aged grandfather?—why should he seek by hazard, danger, and bloodshed, a crown which by inheritance must soon come to Cambyses or Cyrus?[544]
In the narrative of Herodotus Cyrus is no more than an instrument in the hands of Harpagus. The crime of Astyages against Harpagus; the well-merited punishment of this crime by his own imprisonment and loss of empire, form the hinge of the narrative, which at the same time brings into prominence the doctrine that no one, even though warned, can escape his doom. It is not probable that there were songs among the Persians or Medes, which illustrated Herodotus' view of the unavoidableNemesiswhich governs the actions and fortunes of men; or that Persian poems would represent Cyrus as the son of a Median mother. In them the Persians merely glorified thefounder of their freedom and supremacy, of whom, as we know, they cherished the most grateful memories. But the Medes might possess poems in which the change of empire was treated from their point of view; they might attempt to make the loss of empire appear less painful, the dishonour of defeat by the Persians less degrading. To be overthrown by a man belonging to the subject race was bitter. Hence the Medes could avail themselves of a change frequent in the East, and represent Cyrus as a scion of their own royal house. The Egyptians maintained that Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, who reduced them to subjection, was the son of Cyrus and the daughter of their own Pharaoh Hophra.[545]This was mere invention; and the Medes must have found their version the more easy to maintain, because Cyrus spared Astyages after the defeat, and took his daughter into his harem. And if it was not the arms of the Persians, but rather the treachery of a distinguished Mede, the discontent of the chiefs of Media with a cruel king, that decided the struggle between the Persians and Medes, the submission became thus less intolerable to the pride of the Medes. If a distinguished Mede had been at variance with Astyages, and in the last moment of the battle had gone over to Cyrus,—much could be made of the desertion in Median poems. If after his victory Cyrus reposed great confidence in an eminent Mede, this might be made a ground for previous treachery to Astyages. A few years after his victory Cyrus entrusted to the Mede Harpagus, the leadership of the army, the subjugation and maintenance of far distant regions. If the legend of the Persians represented Achæmenes,the ancestor of their princely race, as being fed by an eagle (p. 327), their poems would speak of the founder of their dominion as distinguished by divine honours, and surround his birth and youth with happy omens of the future. These traits the Medes could use for their own purposes as warnings vouchsafed to Astyages. If the Persians represented Cyrus as suckled by a dog, the favoured creature of Auramazda, the Medes carried the subject further, and spoke of the exposing of Cyrus, which was then brought into combination with the enmity of Harpagus to Astyages; the origin of this was the refusal of Harpagus to put the Persian boy to death, which Astyages punished by the Thyestean banquet. Thus owing to the crime of Astyages, Harpagus their own countryman became filled with desire for vengeance; he is the counsellor of Cyrus, the author and leader of the revolt.
Median poetry of this kind has been followed by Herodotus. He has told us already that he would narrate the life of Cyrus as it was given by the Persians, who had no desire to exaggerate their account, but these Persians are undoubtedly the Medes. The Median origin of his story is placed beyond doubt by the words which the captive Astyages addresses to Harpagus, and by the fact that with him it is a Mede who is the decisive counsellor and guide of Cyrus, while in the other version it is a Persian. Beside the reason given by Herodotus himself for choosing this version, others no doubt had influence. The Delphian oracle bade Crœsus take to flight "whenever a mule should govern the Medes." According to the Medes Cyrus was the son of a Persian father and Median mother. The sufferings and acts of Harpagus formed the centre of the Medianversion, and he was only too well known to the Greeks on the west coast of Asia Minor. With the warning portents, and the exposure of Cyrus, the Median version brought Herodotus on the familiar ground of Greek legend, in which similar oracles, futile exposing of children, and deceptive explanations were common. Finally, the vengeance which overtook Astyages suits the ethical feeling of Herodotus. We may assume therefore that his narrative faithfully represents the contents of Median poems. These could already have changed the dog which was said to have suckled Cyrus into the herdman's wife, who was called by the name of "dog." But inasmuch as Herodotus does not "intend to exaggerate," as he observes that "the dog was everything in the mouth of Cyrus," and "his parents caught this up in order to represent the preservation of Cyrus as a work of the gods,"—as he further remarks "that Cyrus owing to his origin was regarded as more than human,"[546]—this rationalising turn may have proceeded from the historian himself. In the Persian tradition Cyrus was certainly suckled and guarded by the dog, and this trait is retained in the account of Deinon-Trogus, though united with the story of the exposure. But Deinon has at the same time proved the exposure impossible, for he states that Cyrus came to the throne in his fortieth year, and lived till his seventieth.[547]If this were true, the exposure and the command of Astyages respecting it would fall to the ground, for Cyrus would have seen the light in the year 599B.C.,i. e.some years before the accession of Astyages, even if we allow the latter the longer reign which Eusebius assigns to him.
If the story of Herodotus is governed by theconception of the unavoidable punishment of crime, the connecting clue in the story of Nicolaus is the rise of a beggar-boy of the lowest origin by skill and industry, by cunning and bravery, by endurance in the greatest danger, and final victory in the most severe struggles. Cyrus is the son of humble parents; his father is driven by want to robbery, his mother tends goats; they belong to the lowest tribe of the Persians, the marauding Mardians whom we have found in the mountains of south-western Persia (p. 323). Hunger drives the boy from the goat-pasture to Ecbatana. Beginning as a sweeper of the palace, he works his way step by step upwards by address and industry to the highest offices at the court, so that he can make his father satrap of Persia and his mother the most distinguished lady in Persia. Then the dream of his mother, and the interpretation given of it by the Babylonian, plant ambition in his soul, which is strengthened by the happy portent, vouchsafed to him on his mission to the chief of the Cadusians, and the advice of Oebares. He succeeds in persuading Astyages to grant him permission to visit his parents in Persia; when too late, Astyages is warned by the wife of the Babylonian, and the words of the singing-woman (Angares in Deinon). A fierce war breaks out. The father of Cyrus is taken captive, and in his last moments disavows the attempt of his son. Defeated again and again, the Persians in their last refuge at Pasargadae are reduced to the greatest distress. Then fortune turns; the Medes are driven back and defeated in numerous engagements, and Oebares can at length place the crown on the head of Cyrus in the tent of Astyages.
If Xenophon in his book on Cyrus sought to make it clear to the Greeks, by what personal and materialmeans Cyrus was able to conquer Asia, Ctesias or Nicolaus will show pragmatically how a beggar-boy rose step by step to be lord of the continent. He says nothing of the relationship of Astyages and Cyrus, or of the princely origin of Cyrus, or of his exposure, or of the dog: Cyrus owes his successes to himself and the gods. However impossible it may be that this introduction and the whole tendency of the narrative can be borrowed from the tradition of the Persians; however certain that Cyrus the beggar-boy is an invention of the Greeks, to point the contrast between beginning and end, and make the subject more interesting; yet if only we give another turn to the introduction, we have the Persian account before us in the narrative of Nicolaus, as we have the Median in the account of Herodotus—and a mixture of the two in the excerpt from Trogus. The Persian version is from the first marked in Ctesias and Nicolaus by the fact that they do not represent Cyrus as the descendant of Astyages. Moreover, the parallel between the fall of the Assyrians and the fall of the Median empire cannot be mistaken. "We must narrate the great change brought about by the transition of the dominion to the Persians"—such is the beginning of the account of Nicolaus. This parallel can only have arisen from Persian minstrels. They had to show that the task of Cyrus was great, and more difficult than that of Arbaces. They had to lay the greatest stress on the personal excellence of Cyrus in order to raise him above the level of Arbaces. The latter, guided by the advice of the viceroy of Babylon and aided by the Babylonians, had proved the conqueror. The arts of the Chaldæans were certainly respected and used in Iran; they must have been sought after and employed as a poetic motive. It was to carryout the parallel that the Persian songs gave Cyrus a Babylonian adviser; yet they represent the counsel and influence of this Babylonian as entirely removed by a Persian of far greater importance, and utterly thrown into the shade. The emphasis which the Persian songs laid on the personal virtue of Cyrus misled the Greeks into making an attempt at the biography of the beggar-boy, and so rendered this change easier. Atradates, the name given by Nicolaus to the father of Cyrus, is no doubt taken from an epithet of Cyrus himself. Strabo tells us that Cyrus was originally called Atradates; the word is the old Persianatriyadata, old Bactrian,ataredata; the Avesta recommends the name as good and saving. The parents of Cyrus are said to belong to the tribe of the Mardians, but later on Nicolaus himself shows that Cyrus' ancestral home is at Pasargadae (p. 352). In contempt the Medes might unite the whole Persian nation under the name of their poorest tribes. "Why have I raised up these Mardians for such mischief?" Astyages asks in Nicolaus. The goat-tending of the mother of Cyrus is due to the same cause. In the account of Herodotus Cambyses is said to be rich in herds; among the Persians the care of flocks occupied a large place, and at a later time the tending and protection of the flocks was one of the means employed for strengthening and hardening the Persian youth. Cyrus himself, in the narrative of Nicolaus, calls himself and his father goat-herds. When Arsaces of Armenia visited the court of the Sassanid Shapur II. one of the first officers at the court of Shapur insolently said: "Will the king of the goats pasture on our slopes?"[548]Such traits as these in the Persian poems, connected withthe poverty and simplicity of the life of the "terebinth-eating" Persians (which Nicolaus also, following the tradition, brings into such prominence), supplied the Greek revision with the necessary support for changing Cyrus into a Mardian goat-herd and beggar-boy. Yet the true position of the parents of Cyrus breaks through in the statement that the father of Cyrus was satrap of Persia, and his mother the first lady in the land, a position which also appears in the statement in Herodotus of the noble descent and wealth of Cambyses, and is even more plainly marked in other passages in which the taunt is hurled at Cyrus: that the son of Cambyses ought not to give way to a woman,—and traces the lineage of Cyrus back to Achæmenes, though in the account of the rebellion of Cyrus he calls his grandfather also Cyrus.
The rise of Cyrus at the court of Astyages was borrowed from another trait in the Persian poems. The custom of the East, that the sons of distinguished princes and nobles should perform certain courtly and honourable services at the gate of the king, must have been current in Media also. The Persian poems must have proudly declared how Cyrus distinguished himself there in his youth in the duties of the court or of arms. This description was changed into the series of stages by which the beggar-boy rose to the highest office at the court of the king. The Persian account is obviously preserved here in Deinon's narrative—like the suckling and protection of Cyrus by the dog—in which Cyrus before the rebellion is chief of the staff-bearers and the body-guard of the king. When Cyrus had won the favour of Astyages, Nicolaus is obviously more true to the Persian account. In old days the chaff of horses announced his elevation to Arbaces, and to Cyrus it is announced by horse-dung,which is carried to him by a Persian, the slave of a Mede, who has been recently whipped; and as to Arbaces, so to Cyrus, a Babylonian announces that the throne is destined for him. As Arbaces is instigated and encouraged by Belesys, so is Cyrus by the interpreter of dreams from Babylon, and Cyrus promises him great rewards if he reaches the throne, as Arbaces had promised Belesys. The conversations of Arbaces with Belesys correspond exactly to the conversations of Cyrus with the Babylonian and Oebares. In Nicolaus Cyrus says, that Arbaces who overthrew Sardanapalus was not wiser than himself, nor were the Medes better warriors than the Persians. But if the Median empire was founded with the help of the Babylonian, the Persian must rise without such assistance. Arbaces had to concede to Belesys and his successors the hereditary dominion over Babylonia; on this occasion Oebares takes care that in the future empire of the Persians, Babylonia shall not be in the way as an hereditary monarchy given in reward of services; he removes the Babylonian against the wishes of Cyrus. If the Medes had formerly been able to conquer Assyria with the aid of the Babylonians, the Persians now defeat the Medes unaided, and if Sardanapalus was effeminate, Astyages, according to Nicolaus, is the bravest king of the Medes after Arbaces. To treat the struggle so briefly as Herodotus does was impossible for Nicolaus, as the object of his narrative was to bring out the valour of Cyrus. So we may assume that the Persian songs gave similar prominence to the contests before Nineveh and Pasargadæ. Arbaces is thrice defeated before Nineveh, and inclined to retire. Astyages leads against Cyrus the whole forces of his kingdom—more than a million soldiers. In spite of the excellent arrangements ofOebares and the utmost bravery, Cyrus is three times defeated:—he is already reduced to extremities in the fourth conflict, when the cry of the women restores the fight. At length Oebares is able to place the Median crown on the head of Cyrus in the tent of Astyages. With such servants the throne and kingdom of the Persians is more firmly established than that of the Medes.
This inquiry enables us to reconstruct in its main outlines the tradition of the Persians. Cambyses, the descendant of Achæmenes, was the chief of the Persians. Before the birth of Cyrus his wife had a dream that so much water came from her "that it was like a great river which inundated all Asia, and flowed into the sea." We know what reverence the Avesta pays to the dog, and the importance it ascribes to its glance (p. 207). The suckling of the boy Cyrus by a dog is the sign of the most bounteous favour and most secure protection on the part of the gods. Herodotus told us above that owing to his origin Cyrus counted himself as more than a man, and Xenophon represents him as begotten by gods, springing from a line of kings, and practised from his youth up in bravery and virtue.[549]In accordance with the custom of the Persians the son of the prince grows up among the flocks. Mithradates, which Herodotus gives as the name of the herdsman with whom the boy is brought up, means "given by Mithra;" the favourite of the god, who increases the flocks of the farms where men worship him, and gives victory in battles, is the protector of Cyrus. In the game of the boys he shows by cleverness and unbroken resolution the great destiny to which he was called. Then he goes into service at the court of the Median king;where the Persian poems have already shown us Parsondes at the time of Cyaxares, who subsequently made the Cadusians enemies of the Medes.[550]Eminent in every position, Cyrus wins the confidence of Astyages, and becomes the chief of his bodyguard. Then according to Deinon's fragments he sees the sun in a dream thrice inclining towards him. It was the brilliance or majesty of the king which Cyrus is represented as beholding. In the Avesta Thraetaona and Kereçaçpa seize the majesty when it departs from Yima, and the Turanian Franghraçyan seeks thrice to grasp the glance of the majesty.[551]Then a Persian, the slave of a Mede, brings a new sign of good fortune to Cyrus when far from his fatherland on the borders of the Cadusians. Oebares (Hubara, the good bearer) is the first Persian whom Cyrus liberates from the service of the Medes; and thus he has gained his most faithful helper. Angares the Mede, who warns Astyages, calls Cyrus "more mighty than a wild boar." The singing girl also calls Cyrus a "boar." We saw above that the victorious god Verethraghna appears in the form of a boar, and in that shape accompanies the chariot of Mithra.[552]The battle in the mountains of Persia, as described by Nicolaus, belongs in all essential traits to the Persian legend. It is precisely at Pasargadae, at the house of Cyrus,i. e.of Achæmenes, that the fortune of arms changes. The proclamation of Cyrus in the tent of Astyages, and his coronation by the Persians, which first made him a free man instead of a Median slave, is throughout in accordance with the meaning and tendency of the Persian legend. The gentleness ofCyrus towards Astyages is the counterpart of the generosity which the Median king who conquered Nineveh once displayed towards Belesys. Oebares undoubtedly belongs to the Persian Epos; he is the faithful servant who upholds the interest of the kingdom even against the will of the king, and sacrifices himself for it. The Persians of the best time held it a duty to sacrifice themselves for the king.
The overthrow of the Parthian empire is explained in the same way as the overthrow of the Medes. Papak, the prince of Fars, sees in a dream the sun illuminating the world from the head of his herdman Sassan. His daughter brings forth Ardeshir to Sassan; Ardeshir serves at the court of the Parthian king Artaban, and shoots wild asses better than anyone else. On an announcement of the interpreters of stars, Ardeshir flies from the court and arms the Persians. Artaban abuses him as an impudent Kurd, and sends the prince of Susiana to fetch him, but this prince, and then Artaban himself, are overcome. Shapur, the son of Ardeshir, is restored to life against his command, and his grandson Auharmazdi is brought up secretly, and recognised by his conduct in the play of the boys. In both, dreams and letters and the inborn majesty of the royal children play their part.[553]
Astyages, who ascended the throne in the year 593B.C., ruled over the Median empire for more than 30 years; he had already reached a great age when the Persians rebelled against him. Aristotle remarks that his effeminate life and the carelessness of his government inspired Cyrus with courage.[554]The daughter ofAlyattes of Lydia, whom he had married in his youth, had brought him no son; both the Median version of Herodotus, and the Persian in Trogus and Ctesias, allow Astyages a daughter only—Mandane in the one case, in the other Amytis, the name of the sister of Astyages, whom Nebuchadnezzar married. This daughter, according to Ctesias and Nicolaus, Astyages marries to Spitamas, the Mede (Çpitama,i. e.the excellent) and at the same time gives him "all Media as a dowry." Marriage with the heiress to the throne gave her husband the claim and right to succession. The daughter of the king bore two sons to Spitamas: Spitaces and Magabernes.[555]About the origin of Cyrus there is no doubt. He was the son of Cambyses, the grandson of Teispes, the great-grandson of Achaemenes, who united the Persian tribes under his leadership, and recognised the sovereignty of Phraortes the Median king. As Cyaxares and Astyages followed Phraortes on the throne of Media, so did Teispes and Cambyses follow Achaemenes ashis viceroys or vassal kings over Persia. It may have been the case that, as already remarked, after the consolidation of the Median empire, the sovereignty became more oppressive for the Persians, and the links of their dependence were drawn closer. According to the previous custom, the viceroyalty of Persia would descend, at the death of Cambyses, to his son Cyrus. If the custom which subsequently prevailed in the Persian kingdom was current among the Medes, and the sons of the satraps or princes of the subject lands had to wait at the king's gate, and perform courtly or martial service as hostages for the fidelity of their fathers, and at the same time to learn obedience and submission in order to find favour with the king when in his immediate presence and covered by the splendour of his power—Cyrus must also have served at the court of Astyages, and may have filled the office of the staff-bearer, body-guard, or of butler, an honourable position at the court of the Medes and Persians. In Ecbatana he had no doubt an opportunity of comparing the simple manners, the capacity and vigour of his Persians, with the splendour of the court, and the luxurious life of the Median chiefs. Moreover, the great advantage which Spitamas had gained by marriage with the daughter of the king must have excited the jealousy and ambition of other Medes who considered themselves to have a better claim, or even raised their eyes to the throne. In the account of Herodotus, Harpagus is said to be akin to the family of Astyages. It is possible that Cyrus contemplated a breach between Persia and Media on the death of Astyages, when he would find his opportunity in a contested and previously disputed succession. It may be a fact that Astyages had his suspicions, that he summoned Cyrus who had alreadyleft the court before him, and Cyrus was thus compelled to break with him sooner than he intended. It seems more certain that Cambyses was still alive, than that the Persians took up arms against Astyages at the instigation of Cyrus, who was, as we have remarked, at that time in his fortieth year.[556]
It follows from the position of affairs that the Persians awaited the attack of the Medes in their own country. It was only in the defence of the passes of their mountains that they could hope to make a stand against the overwhelming power of their enemies. In this we may put confidence in the Persian tradition, as well as in all that it has to say of a character unfavourable to the Persians; above all, in the fact that the war was long and severe. As a fact the Medes appear to have twice penetrated into the heart of the Persian land. Not only Nicolaus, Pompeius Trogus, and Polyaenus tell us that the struggle took place at first in Persia, and that the battle which saved the country was fought at Pasargadae, but also an authority of importance, Anaximenes of Lampsacus, the contemporary of Aristotle and Strabo (p. 357). "In reward for the services which the women rendered in that battle," says Nicolaus, "the women of Persia each received, when the king came to Pasargadae, a gold coin of the value of twenty Attic drachmas." Plutarch, as has been observed,[557]confirms this statement, on the ground of the accounts of the companions of Alexander, in a very definite way. We must assume, therefore, that Cyrus maintained the independence of Persia in a very severe struggle. When success had been obtained, he went on toattack Media, whether it was that he did not consider the freedom of Persia secure without the overthrow of that country, or that he at once formed the most ambitious designs. After a battle in Media had given Cyrus the victory in this new war, the chiefs of the nations subject to the Medes, the Hyrcanians, Parthians, Sacæ, and Bactrians, and finally a part of the Medes, must have abandoned Astyages, who, after a second defeat, fell into the hands of Cyrus either in the encounter itself or at the capture of Ecbatana. The walls of Ecbatana and the seven rings round the citadel could not avert his fate (558B.C.).[558]