the folk you had to pay your court to. We did not need
inviting: we were with you for our own sakes. It was necessary to win
over the masses by every means, if they were to share our toils and our
dangers willingly. [56] But now you have won them, and not them alone;
you have it in your power to gain others, and the moment has come when
you ought to have a house to yourself. What would your empire profit
you if you alone were left without hearth or home? Man has nothing more
sacred than his home, nothing sweeter, nothing more truly his. And do
you not think," he added, "that we ourselves would be ashamed if we saw
you bearing the hardships of the camp while we sat at home by our own
firesides? Should we not feel we had done you wrong, and taken advantage
of you?"

[57] When Chrysantas had spoken thus, many others followed him, and all
to the same effect. And so it came about that Cyrus entered the palace,
and those in charge brought the treasures from Sardis thither, and
handed them over. And Cyrus when he entered sacrificed to Hestia, the
goddess of the Hearth, and to Zeus the Lord, and to any other gods named
by the Persian priests.

[58] This done, he set himself to regulate the matters that remained.
Thinking over his position, and the attempt he was making to govern an
enormous multitude, preparing at the same time to take up his abode in
the greatest of all famous cities, but yet a city that was as hostile to
him as a city could be, pondering all this, he concluded that he could
not dispense with a bodyguard for himself. [59] He knew well enough that
a man can most easily be assassinated at his meals, or in his bath, or
in bed, or when he is asleep, and he asked himself who were most to
be trusted of those he had about him. A man, he believed, can never be
loyal or trustworthy who is likely to love another more than the one
who requires his guardianship. [60] He knew that men with children, or
wives, or favourites in whom they delight, must needs love them most:
while eunuchs, who are deprived of all such dear ones, would surely make
most account of him who could enrich them, or help them if they were
injured, or crown them with honour. And in the conferring of such
benefits he was disposed to think he could outbid the world. [61]
Moreover the eunuch, being degraded in the eyes of other men, is driven
to seek the assistance of some lord and master. Without some such
protection there is not a man in the world who