bylon. Cyrus had spent ten years in compassing the
downfall of Nabonidus, and, calculating that that of Amasis would
require no less a period of time, he set methodically to work on the
organisation of his recently acquired territory; the cities of Phoenicia
acknowledged him as their suzerain, and furnished him with what had
hitherto been a coveted acquisition, a fleet. These preliminaries
had apparently been already accomplished, when the movements of the
barbarians suddenly made his presence in the far East imperative. He
hurried thither, and was mysteriously lost to sight (529). Tradition
accounts for his death in several ways. If Xenophon is to be credited,
he died peaceably on his bed, surrounded by his children, and edifying
those present by his wisdom and his almost superhuman resignation.*

* A similar legend, but later in date, told how Cyrus, when
a hundred years old, asked one day to see his friends. He
was told that his son had had them all put to death: his
grief at the cruelty of Cambyses caused his death in a few
days.

Berosus tells us that he was killed in a campaign against the Daliae;
Ctesias states that, living been wounded in a skirmish with the
AEerbikes, one of the savage tribes of Bactriana, he succumbed to his
injuries three days after the engagement. According to the worthy
Herodotus, he asked the hand of Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetse, in
marriage, and was refused with disdain. He declared war against her to
avenge his wounded vanity, set out to fight with her beyond the Araxes,
in the steppes of Turkestan, defeated the advance-guard of cavalry,
and took prisoner the heir to the crown, Spargapises, who thereupon ran
himself through with his sword. "Then Tomyris collected all the forces
of her kingdom, and gave him (Cyrus) battle." Of all the combats in which
barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the
fiercest. The following, as I understand, was the manner of it:--First,
the two armies stood apart and shot their arrows at each other; then,
when their quivers were empty, they closed and fought hand to hand with
lances and daggers; and thus they continued fighting for a length
of time, neither choosing to give ground. At length the Massagetse
prevailed. The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed.
Search was made among the slain by order of the queen for the body of
Cyrus; and when it was found, she took a skin, and, fillin