ines to spoil them by
yielding to their inclinations when they are adverse to their true
interests. He has a ready humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and
repartees, that take occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable
or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into
his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He
has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on
terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the
Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory
in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for
his person to make his type of countenance their standard of physical
beauty.

The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued.
In Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of
affairs into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style
of king; in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely "governor"
or "deputy;" in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who
had resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued
in each instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the
several provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation,
and the monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of
those by which it was preceded.

Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value
of art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness
with elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He
ornamented his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is
probably to him that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone
shaft, which is the glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive
of the Persepolitan buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard
him as haying fixed the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards
followed in all Persian palatial edifices.

In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as
it would seem, one wife only, Cassanda