The Persians themselves attributed to it the sense of _the
Sun_.

** We possess two entirely different versions of the history
of the origin of Cyrus, but one, that of Herodotus, has
reached us intact, while that of Ctesias is only known to us
in fragments from extracts made by Nicolas of Damascus, and
by Photius. Spiegel and Duncker thought to recognise in the
tradition followed by Ctesias one of the Persian accounts of
the history of Cyrus, but Bauer refuses to admit this
hypothesis, and prefers to consider it as a romance put
together by the author, according to the taste of his own
times, from facts partly different from those utilised by
Herodotus, and partly borrowed from Herodotus himself: but
it should very probably be regarded as an account of Median
origin, in which the founder of the Persian empire is
portrayed in the most unfavourable light. Or perhaps it may
be regarded as the form of the legend current among the
Pharnaspids who established themselves as satraps of
Dascylium in the time of the Achaemenids, and to whom the
royal house of Cappadocia traced its origin. It is almost
certain that the account given by Herodotus represents a
Median version of the legend, and, considering the important
part played in it by Harpagus, probably that version which
was current among the descendants of that nobleman. The
historian Dinon, as far as we can judge from the extant
fragments of his work, and from the abridgment made by
Trogus Pompeius, adopted the narrative of Ctesias, mingling
with it, however, some details taken from Herodotus and the
romance of Xenophon, the Cyropodia.

The Medes, who could not forgive him for having made them subject to
their ancient vassals, took delight in holding him up to scorn, and not
being able to deny the fact of his triumph, explained it by the adoption
of tortuous and despicable methods. They would not even allow that he
was of royal birth, but asserted that he was of ignoble origin, the son
of a female goatherd and a certain Atradates,* who, belonging to
the savage clan of the Mardians, lived by brigandage. Cyrus himself,
according to this account, spent his infancy and early youth in a
condition not far short of slavery, employed at first in sweeping out
the exterior portions of the palace, performing afterwards the same
office in