himself. [13] The more he pondered the matter, the more he felt the need
of leisure, if he were to deal worthily with the highest matters.
It was, he felt, impossible to neglect the revenues, in view of the
enormous funds necessary for so vast an empire, yet he foresaw that if
he was always to be occupied with the multitude of his possessions he
would never have time to watch over the safety of the whole. [14] As
he pondered how he could compass both objects, the prosperity of the
finances and the leisure he required, the old military organisation
came into his mind. He remembered how the captains of ten supervised the
squads of ten, and were supervised themselves by the company-captains,
and they by the captains of the thousands, and these by the captains
of ten thousand, and thus even with hundreds of thousands not a man
was left without supervision, and when the general wished to employ his
troops one order to the captains of ten thousand was enough. [15] On
this principle Cyrus arranged his finances and held his departments
together; in this way, by conferring with a few officers he could keep
the whole system under his control, and actually have more leisure for
himself than the manager of a single household or the master of a single
ship. Finally, having thus ordered his own affairs, he taught those
about him to adopt the same system.

[16] Accordingly, having gained the leisure he needed for himself
and his friends, he could devote himself to his work of training his
partners and colleagues. In the first place he dealt with those who,
enabled as they were to live on the labour of others, yet failed to
present themselves at the palace; he would send for them and seek them
out, convinced that attendance would be wholesome for them; they would
be unwilling to do anything base or evil in the presence of their king
and under the eye of their noblest men; those who were absent were so
through self-indulgence or wrong-doing or carelessness. [17] And I will
now set forth how he brought them to attend. He would go to one of
his most intimate friends and bid him lay hands on the property of the
offender, asserting that it was his own. Then of course the truants
would appear at once crying out that they had been robbed. [18] But
somehow for many days Cyrus could never find leisure to hear their
complaints, and when he did listen he took care to defer judgment for
many more. [19] This was one way he had of teaching them to