brought the Hellenes in Asia beneath his
sway, and by a descent on the seaboard Cyprus and Egypt also.

[5] It is obvious that among this congeries of nations few, if any,
could have spoken the same language as himself, or understood one
another, but none the less Cyrus was able so to penetrate that vast
extent of country by the sheer terror of his personality that the
inhabitants were prostrate before him: not one of them dared lift hand
against him. And yet he was able, at the same time, to inspire them all
with so deep a desire to please him and win his favour that all they
asked was to be guided by his judgment and his alone. Thus he knit to
himself a complex of nationalities so vast that it would have taxed a
man's endurance merely to traverse his empire in any one direction, east
or west or south or north, from the palace which was its centre. For
ourselves, considering his title to our admiration proved, we set
ourselves to inquire what his parentage might have been and his natural
parts, and how he was trained and brought up to attain so high a pitch
of excellence in the government of men. And all we could learn from
others about him or felt we might infer for ourselves we will here
endeavour to set forth.

[C.2] The father of Cyrus, so runs the story, was Cambyses, a king
of the Persians, and one of the Perseidae, who look to Perseus as
the founder of their race. His mother, it is agreed, was Mandane, the
daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes. Of Cyrus himself, even now in
the songs and stories of the East the record lives that nature made him
most fair to look upon, and set in his heart the threefold love of
man, of knowledge, and of honour. He would endure all labours, he would
undergo all dangers, for the sake of glory. [2] Blest by nature with
such gifts of soul and body, his memory lives to this day in the mindful
heart of ages. It is true that he was brought up according to the laws
and customs of the Persians, and of these laws it must be noted that
while they aim, as laws elsewhere, at the common weal, their guiding
principle is far other than that which most nations follow. Most states
permit their citizens to bring up their own children at their own
discretion, and allow the grown men to regulate their own lives at their
own will, and then they lay down certain prohibitions, for example, not
to pick and steal, not to break into another man's house, not to strike
a man unjustly, not to commit adult