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Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great called Atradates by the Syrian writer is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually, resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the reigning monarch, Astyages.
The wife of the herdsman brought forth a dead child, and this they determined to substitute for the living infant, and to bring up the grandson of Astyages as their own.
Another dream which alarmed Astyages still further, in spite of his precaution, induced him to send for his daughter, so that having her in his power he might easily destroy her offspring. As soon as Cyrus was born therefore in the royal palace at Ecbatana, the king intrusted the infant prince to one of the principal officers of his court, named Harpagus, with peremptory orders to destroy him.
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. Astyages sends for Cyrus. Cyrus goes to Media. Cyrus's reception. His astonishment. Sympathy with childhood. Pleasures of old age.
Astyages' second dream. Its interpretation. Birth of Cyrus. Astyages determines to destroy him. Harpagus. The king's command to him. Distress of Harpagus. His consultation with his wife. The herdsman. He conveys the child to his hut. The herdsman's wife. Conversation in the hut. Entreaties of the herdsman's wife to save the child's life. Spaco substitutes her dead child for Cyrus.
It was probably in such an imprisonment as this that Astyages passed the remainder of his days. The people, having been wearied with his despotic tyranny, rejoiced in his downfall, and acquiesced very readily in the milder and more equitable government of Cyrus. Astyages came to his death many years afterward, in a somewhat remarkable manner.
The rise of Persia is next described. Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, was destroyed by Cyaxares of Media, whose capital was Ecbatana. His son Astyages in consequence of a dream married his daughter Mandane to a Persian named Cambyses. A second dream made him resolve to destroy her child Cyrus who, like Oedipus, was saved from exposure by a herdsman.
You could not otherwise have escaped, in so miraculous a manner, the snares set for you in your infancy. Astyages meditated your death, and he took such measures to effect it as would seem to have made your destruction sure. You were saved by the special interposition of Heaven.
After the first feelings of pleasure which Astyages experienced in being relieved from the sense of guilt which oppressed his mind so long as he 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 only difference was that Cyaxares gained a friend and an ally where he had previously had a jealous enemy; since it was agreed that the two kings of Media and Lydia should swear a friendship, and that, to cement the alliance, Alyattes should give his daughter Aryenis in marriage to Astyages, the son of Cyaxares.
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