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

922 CYRUS.
bylonians, he laid siege to the city, and after a
long time he took it by diverting the course of the
Euphrates, which flowed through the midst of it,
so that his soldiers entered Babylon by the bed of
the river. So entirely unprepared were the Babylonians for this mode of attack, that they were
engaged in revelry (,i EvTra0eipoa), and had left
the gates which opened upon the river unguarded.
This was in B. c. 538.
After Cyrus had subdued the Assyrians, he undertook the subjugation of the Massagetae, a people dwelling beyond the Araxes. Cyrus offered
to marry Tomyris, the widowed queen of this people; but she refused the offer, saying that he
wooed not her, but the kingdom of the Massagetae.
The details of the war which followed may be read
in Herodotus. It ended in the death of Cyrus in
battle. Tomyris caused his corpse to be found
among the slain, and having cut off the head,
threw it into a bag filled with human blood, that
he might satiate himself (she said) with blood.
According to Herodotus, Cyrus had reigned 29
years. Other writers say 30. He was killed in
B. c. 529. (Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. sub anno.)
The account of Ctesias differs considerably in
some points from that of Herodotus. According
to him, there \\as no relationship between Cyrus
and Astyages. At the conquest of Media by Cyrus, Astyages fled to Ecbatana, and was there
concealed by his daughter Amytis, and her husband, Spitamas, whom, with their children, Cyrus
would have put to the torture, had not Astyages
discovered himself. When he did so, he was put
in fetters by Oebaras, but soon afterwards Cyrus
himself set him free, honoured him as a father,
and married his daughter Amytis, having put her
husband to death for telling a falsehood. [AsTYAGES.] Ctesias also says, that Cyrus made war
upon the Bactrians, who voluntarily submitted to
aim, when they heard of his reconciliation with
Astyages and Amytis. He mentions a war with
the Sacae, in which Cyrus was taken prisoner and
ransomed. He gives a somewhat different account
of the Lydian war. (Ctesias, Pers. c. 5; CRoEsus.)
Cyrus met with his death, according to Ctesias, by
a wound received in battle with a nation called the
Derbices, who were assisted by the Indians.
Strabo also mentions the expedition against the
Sacae, and says, that Cyrus was at first defeated
but afterwards victorious. He also says, that Cyrus made an expedition into India, from which
country he escaped with difficulty.
The chief points of difference between Xenophon and Herodotus are the following: Xenophon
represents Cyrus as brought up at his grandfather's
court, as serving in the Median army under his
uncle Cyaxares, the son and successor of Astyages,
of whom Herodotus and Ctesias know nothing;
as making war upon Babylon simply as the general
of Cyaxares, who remained at home during the
latter part of the Assyrian war, and permitted
Cyrus to assume without opposition the power and
state of an independent sovereign at Babylon; as
marrying the daughter of Cyaxares; and at length
dying quietly in his bed, after a sage and Socratic
discourse to his children and friends. The Lydian
war of Cyrus is represented by Xenophon as a
sort of episode in the Assyrian war, occasioned by
the help which Croesus had given to the Assyrians
in the first campaign of Cyrus against them.
Diodorus agrees for the most part with Hero

CYRUS.
dotus; but he says, that Cyrus was taken prisoner
by the Scythian queen (evidently meaning Tomyris), and that she crucified or impaled him.
Other variations, not worth specifying, are given
by the chronographers and compilers.
To form a complete and consistent life of Cyrus
out of these statements is obviously impossible;
but the leading events of his public life are made
out with tolerable certainty, namely, the dethronement of Astyages, the conquest of the Lydian and
Assyrian empires, his schemes to become master
of all Asia and of Egypt, and his death in a battle
with one of the Asiatic tribes which he wished to
subdue. His acquisition of the Median empire
was rather a revolution than a conquest. Herodotus expressly states, that Cyrus had a large
party among the Medes before his rebellion, and
that, after the defeat of Astyages, the nation voluntarily received him as their king. This was
very natural, for besides the harshness of the
government of Astyages, Cyrus was the next
heir to the throne, the Medes were effeminate,
and the Persians were hardy. The kingdom
remained, as before, the united kingdom of
" the Modes and Persians," with the difference,
that the supremacy was transferred from the former to the latter; and then in process of time it
came to be generally called the Persian empire,
though the kings and their people were still, even
down to the time of Alexander, often spoken of as
Medes. If Cyrus had quietly succeeded to the
throne, in virtue of his being the grandson of the
Median king Astyages, it seems difficult to account for this change. The mere fact of Cyrus's
father being a Persian is hardly enough to explain
it.
With regard to the order of Cyrus's conquests
in Asia, there seems much confusion. It is clear
that there was a struggle for supremacy between
Cyrus and the king of Babylon, the latter having
become master of Mesopotamia and Syria by the
conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. It was in fact a
struggle between the Zend tribes, which formed
the Medo-Persian empire, and the Semitic tribes
under the king of Babylon, for the supremacy of
Asia. We can scarcely determine whether Cyrus
conquered Lydia before making any attack on
Babylon, and perhaps in this matter Xenophon
may have preserved something like the true succession of events. That Croesus was in alliance
with Babylon is stated also by Herodotus, who
however, makes Croesus entirely the aggressor in
the Lydian war. No clear account can be given of
his campaigns in Central Asia, but the object of
them was evidently to subdue the whole of Asia
as far as the Indus.
With respect to the main points of difference
between Herodotus and the Cyropaedeia, besides
what has been said above of the historical value of
Xenophon's book, if it could be viewed as a history at all, its real design is the great thing to be
kept in view; and that design is stated by Xenophon himself with sufficient clearness. He wished
to shew that the government of men is not so difficult as is commonly supposed, provided that the
ruler be wise; and to illustrate this he holds forth
the example of Cyrus, whom he endows with all
virtue, courage, and wisdom, and whose conduct is
meant for a practical illustration and his discourses
for an exposition of the maxims of the Socratic
philosophy, so far as Xenophon was capable of