han any amount of monthly pay. Besides, if
any one executed his orders in a superior manner, he never suffered
his diligence to go unrewarded; consequently, in every undertaking,
the best-qualified officers were said to be ready to assist him.

If he noticed any one that was a skilful manager, with strict regard
to justice, stocking the land of which he had the direction, and
securing income from it, he would never take anything from such a
person, but was ever ready to give him something in addition; so that
men labored with cheerfulness, acquired property with confidence, and
made no concealment from Cyrus of what each possest; for he did not
appear to envy those who amassed riches openly, but to endeavor to
bring into use the wealth of those who concealed it.

Whatever friends he made, and felt to be well disposed to him, and
considered to be capable of assisting him in anything that he might
wish to accomplish, he is acknowledged by all to have been most
successful in attaching them to him. For, on the very same account on
which he thought that he himself had need of friends--namely, that he
might have cooperators in his undertakings--did he endeavor to prove
an efficient assistant to his friends in whatever he perceived any of
them desirous of effecting.

He received, for many reasons, more presents than perhaps any other
single individual; and these he outdid every one else in distributing
among his friends, having a view to the character of each, and to what
he perceived each most needed. Whatever presents any one sent him of
articles of personal ornament, whether for warlike accouterment or
merely for dress, concerning these, they said, he used to remark that
he could not decorate his own person with them all, but that he
thought friends well equipped were the greatest ornament a man could
have. That he should outdo his friends, indeed, in conferring great
benefits is not at all wonderful, since he was so much more able; but
that he should surpass his friends in kind attentions and an anxious
desire to oblige, appears to me far more worthy of admiration.
Frequently, when he had wine served him of a peculiarly fine flavor,
he would send half-emptied flagons of it to some of his friends, with
a message to this effect, "Cyrus has not for some time met with
pleasanter wine than this; and he has therefore sent some of it to
you, and begs you will drink it to-day, with those whom you love
best." He would often, too