tells us only that he left the throne to a son, whose
name, Evil-Merodach, records the devotion of his father to the god of
his people.

[Signature of the author.]

CYRUS THE GREAT[2]

By CLARENCE COOK

(REIGNED 558-529 B.C.)

[Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

[Illustration: Cyrus the Great.]

The early life of Cyrus the Persian, like that of many another famous
conqueror, is lost in a cloud of fable. According to Herodotus, to
whom we owe the earliest account, Astyages the King of Media was
warned in a dream that some danger threatened the kingdom from the
offspring of his daughter Mandane, who as yet was unmarried. In order
to remove the danger, whatever it might be, as far as possible from
his throne, Astyages married his daughter to a Persian named Cambyses,
who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's
marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the
priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his
stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in
course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant
Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus
took the infant as he had been ordered to do, but moved by the
pleadings of his wife he determined to commit the rest of his bloody
instructions to other hands. He therefore called one of his herdsmen,
and ordered him to expose the child on the bleakest part of the
mountain and leave it to perish, threatening him with the most
terrible penalties in case of disobedience. But the herdsman and his
wife were no more proof against pity than Harpagus and his wife had
been, and while they stood swayed between their wish to save the child
and their fear of disobeying Harpagus, fortune happily provided an
escape for them. 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. The exchange was
accomplished, and after some days the servants of Harpagus, sent to
inquire if their master's commands had been obeyed, were shown by the
herdsman the body of a dead child exposed on the rocks and still
wearing the rich clothes and ornaments in which it had been brought to
his house. Harpagus was thus enabled to assure Astyages that he was
safe from the threatened danger, and might enjoy his throne in peace.

When the child of Man