gos came, Astyages asked
him thus: "By what death, Harpagos, didst thou destroy the child whom I
delivered to thee, born of my daughter?" and Harpagos, seeing that
the herdsman was in the king's palace, turned not to any false way of
speech, lest he should be convicted and found out, but said as follows:
"O king, so soon as I received the child, I took counsel and considered
how I should do according to thy mind, and how without offence to thy
command I might not be guilty of murder against thy daughter and against
thyself. I did therefore thus:--I called this herdsman and delivered the
child to him, saying first that thou wert he who bade him slay it--and in
this at least I did not lie, for thou didst so command. I delivered it,
I say, to this man commanding him to place it upon a desolate mountain,
and to stay by it and watch it until it should die, threatening him with
all kinds of punishment if he should fail to accomplish this. And when
he had done that which was ordered and the child was dead, I sent the
most trusted of my eunuchs and through them I saw and buried the child.
Thus, O king, it happened about this matter, and the child had this
death which I say."

118. So Harpagos declared the truth, and Astyages concealed the anger
which he kept against him for that which had come to pass, and first he
related the matter over again to Harpagos according as he had been told
it by the herdsman, and afterwards, when it had been thus repeated by
him, he ended by saying that the child was alive and that that which had
come to pass was well, "for," continued he, "I was greatly troubled by
that which had been done to this child, and I thought it no light thing
that I had been made at variance with my daughter. Therefore consider
that this is a happy change of fortune, and first send thy son to be
with the boy who is newly come, and then, seeing that I intend to make a
sacrifice of thanksgiving for the preservation of the boy to those gods
to whom that honour belongs, be here thyself to dine with me."

119. When Harpagos heard this, he did reverence and thought it a great
matter that his offence had turned out for his profit and moreover that
he had been invited to dinner with happy augury; 127 and so he went to
his house. And having entered it straightway, he sent forth his son, for
he had one only son of about thirteen years old, bidding him go to the
palace of Astyages and do whatsoever the king should command; and he