A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

908 CYAXARES.
was honoured at Phlius with a sanctuary close by
the temple of Apollo. (Paus. ii. 13. ~ 8.) In
other traditions Cyathus is called Eurynomus.
(Diod. iv. 36.) [L. S.]
CYAXARES (Kvuadpls), was, according to
Herodotus, the third king of Media, the son of
Phraortes, and the grandson of Deioces. He was
the most warlike of the Median kings, and introduced great military reforms, by arranging his
subjects into proper divisions of spearmen and
archers and cavalry. He succeeded his father,
Phraortes, who was defeated and killed while besieging the Assyrian capital, Ninus (Nineveh), in
B. c. 634. He collected all the forces of his empire
to avenge his father's death, defeated the Assyrians
in battle, and laid siege to Ninus. But while he
was before the city, a large body of Scythians invaded the northern parts of Media, and Cyaxares
marched to meet them, was defeated, and became
subject to the Scythians, who held the dominion
of all Asia (or, as Herodotus elsewhere says, more
correctly, of Upper Asia) for twenty-eight years
(B. c. 634-607), during which time they plundered the Medes without mercy. At length
Cyaxares and the Medes massacred the greater
number of the Scythians, having first made them
intoxicated, and the Median dominion was restored. There is a considerable difficulty in reconciling this account with that which Herodotus
elsewhere gives (i. 73, 74), of the war between
Cyaxares and Alyattes, king of Lydia. This war
was provoked by Alyattes having sheltered some
Scythians, who had fled to him after having killed
one of the sons of Cyaxares, and served him up to
his father as a Thyestean banquet. The war
lasted five years, and was put an end to in the
sixth year, in consequence of the terror inspired by
a solar eclipse, which happened just when the
Lydian and Median armies had joined battle, and
which Thales had predicted. This eclipse is
placed by some writers as high as B. c. 625, by
others as low as 585. But of all the eclipses between these two dates, several are absolutely
excluded by circumstances of time, place, and extent, and on the whole it seems most probable that
the eclipse intended was that of September 30,
a. c. 610. (Baily, in the Philosophical Transactions
for 1811; Oltmann in the Schrift. der Berl. Acad.
1812-13; Hales, Analysis of Chronology, i. pp.
74-78; Ideler, Iiandbuch der Chronologyie, i.
p. 209, &c.; Fischer, Griechische Zeittafeln, s. a.
610.) This date, however, involves the difficulty
of making Cyaxares, as king of the Medes, carry
on a war of five years with Lydia, while the Scythians were masters of his country. But it is
pretty evident from the account of Herodotus that
Cyaxares still reigned, though as a tributary to the
Scythians, and that the dominion of the Scythians
over Media rather consisted in constant predatory
incursions from positions which they had taken in
the northern part of the country, than in any
permanent occupation thereof. It was probably,
then, from B. c. 615 to B. c. 610 that the war between the Lydians and the Medians lasted, till,
both parties being terrified by the eclipse, the two
kings accepted the mediation of Syennesis, king of
Ciicia,, and Labynetus, king of Babylon (probably
Nebuchadnezzar or his father), and the peace made
betwieen them was cemented by the marriage of
Astvyagcs, the son of Cyaxares, to Aryennis, the
daughter of Alyattes. The Scythians were ex

CYCLIADAS.
pelled from Media in B. c. 607, and Cyaxares
again turned his arms against Assyria, and, in the
following year, with the aid of the king of Babylon.
(probably the father of Nebuchadnezzar), he took
and destroyed Ninus. [SARDANAPALUS.] The
consequence of this war, according to Herodotus,
was, that the Medes made the Assyrians their
subjects, except the district of Babylon. He means,
as we learn from other writers, that the king of
Babylon, who had before been in a state of doubtful subjection to Assyria, obtained complete independence as the reward for his share in the
destruction of Nineveh. The league between
Cyaxares and the king of Babylon is said by Polyhistor and Abydenus (ap. Euseb. Chron. Arm.,
and Syncell. p. 210, b.) to have been cemented
by the betrothal of Amyhis or Amytis, the daughter of Cyaxares, to Nabuchodrossar or Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar), son of the king of Babylon. They have, however, by mistake put the
name of Asdahages (Astyages) for that of Cyaxares.
(Clinton, i. pp. 271, 279.) Cyaxares died after a
reign of forty years (B. c. 594), and was succeeded
by his son Astyages. (Herod. i. 73, 74, 103-106,
iv. 11, 12, vii. 20.) The Cyaxares of Diodorus
(ii. 32) is Deioces. Respecting the supposed
Cyaxares II. of Xenophon, see CYRus. [P. S.]
CY'BELE. [RHEA.]
CYCHREUS or CENCHREUS (KvXpev's), a
son of Poseidon and Salamis, became king of the
island of Salamis, which was called after bim
Cychreia, and which he delivered from a dragon.
He was subsequently honoured as a hero, and had
a sanctuary in Salamis. (Apollod. iii. 12. ~ 7;
Diod. iv. 72.) According to other traditions,
Cychreus himself was called a dragon on account
of his savage nature, and was expelled from Salamis
by Eurylochus; but he was received by Demeter
at Eleusis, and appointed a priest to her temple.
(Steph. Byz. s. v. Kvypeos.) Others again said
that Cychreus had brought up a dragon, which was
expelled by Eurylochus. (Strab. ix. p. 393.)
There was a tradition that, while the battle of
Salamis was going on, a dragon appeared in one of
the Athenian ships, and that an oracle declared
this dragon to be Cychreus. (Paus. i. 36. ~ 1;
comp. Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 110, 175; Plut. Thes. 10,
Solon. 9.) [L. S.]
CYCLI'ADAS (KvuhAdnas) was strategus of
the Achaeans in B. c. 208, and, having joined
Philip V. of Macedon at Dyme with the Achaean
forces, aided him in that invasion of Elis which
was checked by P. Sulpicius Galba. In B. c. 200,
Cycliadas being made strategus instead of Philopoemen, whose military talents he by no means
equalled, Nabis took advantage of the change to
make war on the Achaeans. Philip offered to
help them, and to carry the war into the enemy's
country, if they would give him a sufficient number of their soldiers to garrison Chlialcis, Oreus, and
Corinth in the mean time; but they saw through
his plan, which was to obtain hostages from them
and so to force them into a war with the Romans.
Cycliadas therefore answered, that their laws precluded them from discussing any proposal except
that for which the assembly was summoned, and
this conduct relieved him from the imputation,
under which lie had previously laboured, of being
a mere creature of the king's. In B. c. 198 we
find him an exile at the court of Philip, whom he
attended in that year at his conference with Fla