the Medes, in
the sterile valleys of Farsistan.

And at last the hour and the man came. The story is half
legendary--differently told by different authors. Herodotus has one
tale, Xenophon another. The first, at least, had ample means of
information. Astyages is the old shah of the Median Empire, then at the
height of its seeming might and splendour and effeminacy. He has married
his daughter, the princess Mandane, to Cambyses, seemingly a vassal-king
or prince of the pure Persian blood. One night the old man is troubled
with a dream. He sees a vine spring from his daughter, which overshadows
all Asia. He sends for the Magi to interpret; and they tell him that
Mandane will have a son who will reign in his stead. Having sons of his
own, and fearing for the succession, he sends for Mandane, and, when her
child is born, gives it to Harpagus, one of his courtiers, to be slain.
The courtier relents, and hands it over to a herdsman, to be exposed on
the mountains. The herdsman relents in turn, and brings the babe up as
his own child.

When the boy, who goes by the name of Agradates, is grown, he is at play
with the other herd-boys, and they choose him for a mimic king. Some he
makes his guards, some he bids build houses, some carry his messages.
The son of a Mede of rank refuses, and Agradates has him seized by his
guards and chastised with the whip. The ancestral instincts of command
and discipline are showing early in the lad.

The young gentleman complains to his father, the father to the old king,
who of course sends for the herdsman and his boy. The boy answers in a
tone so exactly like that in which Xenophon's Cyrus would have answered,
that I must believe that both Xenophon's Cyrus and Herodotus' Cyrus (like
Xenophon's Socrates and Plato's Socrates) are real pictures of a real
character; and that Herodotus' story, though Xenophon says nothing of it,
is true.

He has done nothing, the noble boy says, but what was just. He had been
chosen king in play, because the boys thought him most fit. The boy whom
he had chastised was one of those who chose him. All the rest obeyed:
but he would not, till at last he got his due reward. 'If I deserve
punishment for that,' says the boy, 'I am ready to submit.'

The old king looks keenly and wonderingly at the young king, whose
features seem somewhat like his own. Likely enough in those days, when
an Iranian noble or prince would have a quite different cast of