550. pronounce him happy on account of his riches; B. C. and the thought of this saying caused Croesus to call aloud the name of Solon. Cyrus was struck with the circumstance, and being curious to learn how the name of Solon should be of such importance as to recur at so awful a moment, gave Croesus time to descend from the pile to explain the reason. Then Croesus repeated to Cyrus the words of Solon, "How oftentimes the Deity showers blessings upon man, but only to snatch them suddenly away and to plunge him into misery far greater than his happiness; and, that happiness is a state no mortal man can proImise till life has closed on this world's troubles." These reflections led Cyrus to think and meditate on the mutability of human affairs, and the result was, that he not only gave Croesus his life, but retained him as his friend ever after. Not long after the conquest of Lydia, Cyrus sent his generals against the Grecian colonies on the western coast of Asia Minor; who did not long withstand the overwhelming forces brought against them. Cyrus himself, in the meanwhile, marched eastward and took the mighty city of Babylon. Cyrus had a son, named Cambyses, who conquered Egypt. Cambyses was succeeded by Darius, who carried his victorious arms beyond the Indus in the east, and over the Hellespont through Thrace to the Danube in the north-west, so now the great Persian empire extended on the west to the Danube, and on the east to the Indus. 600. * CHAP. XX. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS, AND INHUMAN CONDUCT B. C. THE following story of the birth of Cyrus, and how the predictions concerning him were accomplished by the very means taken to defeat them, throw so much light on the manners and customs of the times, and so nearly resembles the usual Persian tales, that it has been thought advisable to introduce the admirable narrative of Herodotus. Astyages, king of the Medes, had a daughter named Mandane, who had one night a very wonderful dream, representing that the capital and all Asia was overflowed with water. The king consulted the interpreters of dreams among the magi, who explained the dream to portent some overwhelming calamity to the empire of the Medes. In order, therefore, to be secure of any powerful enemy in connection with his daughter, the king chose for her husband a man of peaceable disposition, named Cambyses, and a Persian; for the Persians he considered very far inferior to the energy and spirit of the Medes. And now the king was alarmed by a second dream; he seemed to discern a vine shooting from the body of his daughter, and extending its branches over all Asia. Once more the magi were consulted, once more the magi foreboded evil, declaring that B.C. the issue of his daughter should one day usurp 600. his throne. And soon Mandane bore a son; but her chamber was surrounded by guards, and the infant conveyed unto the king. Harpagus, the trusty minister of Astyages, was quickly summoned to the royal presence. "Harpagus," said the king, "fail not to execute the service I command; presume not to entrust others with the office, or deceiving thy king thou wilt bring ruin on thine own head. Take this child, Mandane's son, carry him to thine home, kill him, and bury him as thou shalt best devise." Harpagus replied, he had ever been a faithful servant—would never be guilty of the crime of disobedience—t'was his to do his sovereign's pleasure. Then receiving in his arms the babe, arrayed in costly robes, he carried it to his own house, and told his wife, with many tears, what the king had enjoined, and the servant must perform. "What, then," said she, "do you intend to do?" "Not certainly to obey Astyages," replied Harpagus, "in literal manner of his command, though he were yet more outrageous and cruel than he is my hand shall not do the murder. Astyages is old, and has no son to succeed him and should the throne pass unto his daughter, what punishment may I not expect for the murder of her child." : Thus resolved, he sent for one of the royal herdsmen, who kept his flocks at the foot of certain hills infested with wild beasts, and, therefore, the B. C. better suited for his design. Mitradates was the 600. herdsman's name; his cattle grazed in the pas tures that lie under the hills north of Ecbatana, towards the Euxine, for this part of Media is mountanous, wild, and woody, whereas the rest of the country is plain and level. This herdsman immediately went to Harpagus, who thus addressed him: "Astyages, the king, commands thee to take this infant, and to lay it down amidst the wildest of your mountain crags, and there leave it to die; he has commanded me to add, that shouldest thou dare to disobey him, and form any plan to save the child, a death by the most cruel tortures is thy doom; my duty it is to see this in execution." Mitradates, with these words, took the infant, and returned to his cottage, where he found his wife, in his absence, had been prematurely delivered of a still-born son. The herdsman all day had been concerned at leaving his wife, and his wife alarmed because Harpagus so hurriedly had commanded the presence of her husband. "Wife," said he, "I have been to the city, where the deeds I have seen and heard-would I had never heard them-would they had never been doomed to befal our master. All the family of Harpagus I found deep in grief and lamentations, and on entering the house what was my sorrow to behold an infant dressed in gold and the richest colours, panting and crying on the floor, and Harpagus ordered me to take up the 600. child, be off with all haste and expose it amidst B. c. the wildest of our mountain crags and the haunts of wild beasts-and this under the penalty of the direst vengeance of the king, should I dare to disobey. At first, astonished as I was to see the gold and the splendour of the robe, I had no suspicion of the child's high birth; but the servant who put the child into my hands and bore me company out of the city, assured me it was the son of Mandane, the king's daughter, and that it was the king's own orders that it should be put to death." With these words, the herdsman uncovered the infant and showed it to his wife, who, seeing its beauty and fair proportions, threw herself at her husband's knees and entreated him, with tears in her eyes, not to carry that cruel order into execution. He assured her he had no choice-Harpagus would be sure to see that the deed was done, having been threatened with death if it should fail. "Since, then," said she, "you must expose some infant, and the spies of Harpagus must see the orders carried into effect, take my poor still-born babe, leave him upon the hill instead of the other, and we will rear up Mandane's child as our own; for thus we shall consult our own safety without prejudice to our master: my child that is dead will have a royal sepulchre, and the surviving infant be saved from an untimely death." The herdsman resolved that this was the wisest course, so delivered the infant to his wife; and, |