rds the close of the Median period to have involved an obligation
which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at any rate as very
disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required to send his
eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior, where he
was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed to
quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated,
and made an attached and willing dependent.

When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we
find existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great--called Atradates
by the Syrian writer--is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the
reigning monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the
support of Herodotus, he is Astyages' grandson, his father, Cambyses,
being married to Mandane, that monarch's daughter. According to
Nicolaus, who in this agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to
Astyages, who retains him at his court because he is personally attached
to him. In the narrative of the latter writer, which has already been
preferred in these volumes, the young prince, while at the Court,
conceives the idea of freeing his own country by a revolt, and enters
into secret communication with his father for the furtherance of his
object. His father somewhat reluctantly assents, and preparations are
made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and the commencement of a war
of independence. The details of the struggle, as they are related by
Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated defeats, the Persians
finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital, where in two great
battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself remains a
prisoner in the hands of his adversary.

In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued,
and each new conquero