ad
brought, but the force the Armenians had furnished, and a picked body
of Chaldaeans who considered themselves stronger than all the rest
together. [2] And as he come down from the hills into the cultivated
land, not one of the Armenians, man or woman, stayed indoors: with one
accord they all went out to meet him, rejoicing that peace was made, and
bringing him offerings from their best, driving before them the animals
they valued most. The king himself was not ill-pleased at this, for he
thought that Cyrus would take delight in the honour the people showed
him. Last of all came the queen herself, with her daughters and her
younger son, bearing many gifts, and among them the golden treasure that
Cyrus had refused before. [3] But when he saw it he said: "Nay, you must
not make me a mercenary and a benefactor for pay; take this treasure
back and hie you home, but do not give it to your lord that he may bury
it again; spend it on your son, and send him forth gloriously equipped
for war, and with the residue buy yourself and for your husband and your
children such precious things as shall endure, and bring joy and beauty
into all your days. As for burying, let us only bury our bodies on the
day when each must die."

[4] With that he rode away, the king and all his people escorting him,
like a guard of honour, calling him their saviour, their benefactor, and
their hero, and heaping praises on him until he had left the land.
And the king sent with him a larger army than ever he had sent before,
seeing that now he had peace at home. [5] Thus Cyrus took his departure,
having gained not only the actual money he took away with him, but a far
ampler store of wealth, won by his own graciousness, on which he could
draw in time of need.

For the first night he encamped on the borders of Armenia, but the next
day he sent an army and the money to Cyaxares, who was close at hand,
as he had promised to be, while he himself took his pleasure in hunting
wherever he could find the game, in company with Tigranes and the flower
of the Persian force.

[6] And when he came back to Media he gave gifts of money to his chief
officers, sufficient for each to reward their own subordinates, for he
held to it that, if every one made his own division worthy of praise,
all would be well with the army as a whole. He himself secured anything
that he thought of value for the campaign, and divided it among the most
meritorious, convinced that every gai