Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Makers of History
Cyrus the Great
BY
JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1904
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and fifty, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
Copyright, 1878, by JACOB ABBOTT.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.]
PREFACE.
One special object which the author of this series has had in view,
in the plan and method which he has followed in the preparation of
the successive volumes, has been to adapt them to the purposes of
text-books in schools. The study of a _general compend_ of history,
such as is frequently used as a text-book, is highly useful, if
it comes in at the right stage of education, when the mind is
sufficiently matured, and has acquired sufficient preliminary
knowledge to understand and appreciate so condensed a generalization
as a summary of the whole history of a nation contained in an ordinary
volume must necessarily be. Without this degree of maturity of mind,
and this preparation, the study of such a work will be, as it too
frequently is, a mere mechanical committing to memory of names, and
dates, and phrases, which awaken no interest, communicate no ideas,
and impart no useful knowledge to the mind.
A class of ordinary pupils, who have not yet become much acquainted
with history, would, accordingly, be more benefited by having their
attention concentrated, at first, on detached and separate topics,
such as those which form the subjects, respectively, of these volumes.
By studying thus fully the history of individual monarchs, or the
narratives of single events, they can go more fully into detail; they
conceive of the transactions described as realities; their reflecting
and reasoning powers are occupied on what they read; they take notice
of the motives of conduct, of the gradual development of character,
the good or ill desert of actions, and of the connection of causes and
consequences, both in respect to the influence of wisdom and virtue on
the one hand, and, on the other, of folly and crime. In a word, their
_minds_ and _hearts_ are occupied instead of merely their memories.
They reason, they sympathize, they pity, they approve, and they
condemn. They enjoy the real and true pleasure which constitutes the
charm of historical study for minds that are mature; and they acquire
a taste for truth instead of fiction, which will tend to direct their
reading into proper channels in all future years.
The use of these works, therefore, as text-books in classes, has been
kept continually in mind in the preparation of them. The running index
on the tops of the pages is intended to serve instead of questions.
These captions can be used in their present form as _topics_, in
respect to which, when announced in the class, the pupils are to
repeat substantially what is said on the page; or, on the other hand,
questions in form, if that mode is preferred, can be readily framed
from them by the teacher. In all the volumes, a very regular system of
division is observed, which will greatly facilitate the assignment of
lessons.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON 13
II. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS 37
III. THE VISIT TO MEDIA 68
IV. CROESUS 101
V. ACCESSION OF CYRUS TO THE THRONE 124
VI. THE ORACLES 144
VII. THE CONQUEST OF LYDIA 164
VIII. THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON 187
IX. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS 207
X. THE STORY OF PANTHEA 226
XI. CONVERSATIONS 253
XII. THE DEATH OF CYRUS 270
ENGRAVINGS.
Page
MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE _Frontispiece._
THE EXPOSURE OF THE INFANT 48
CYRUS'S HUNTING 90
THE SECRET CORRESPONDENCE 132
THE SIEGE OF SARDIS 179
RAISING JEREMIAH FROM THE DUNGEON 219
THE WAR-CHARIOT OF ABRADATES 242
CYRUS THE GREAT.
CHAPTER I.
HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON.
B.C. 550-401
The Persian monarchy.--Singular principle of human nature.--Grandeur
of the Persian monarchy.--Its origin.--The republics of
Greece.--Written characters Greek and Persian.--Preservation
of the Greek language.--Herodotus and Xenophon.--Birth of
Herodotus.--Education of the Greeks.--How public affairs were
discussed.--Literary entertainments.--Herodotus's early love of
knowledge.--Intercourse of nations.--Military expeditions.--Plan
of Herodotus's tour.--Herodotus visits Egypt.--Libya and the
Straits of Gibraltar.--Route of Herodotus in Asia.--His return
to Greece.--Doubts as to the extent of Herodotus's tour.--His
history "adorned."--Herodotus's credibility questioned.--Sources of
bias.--Samos.--Patmos.--The Olympiads.--Herodotus at Olympia.--History
received with applause.--Herodotus at Athens.--His literary
fame.--Birth of Xenophon.--Cyrus the Younger.--Ambition of Cyrus.--He
attempts to assassinate his brother.--Rebellion of Cyrus.--The Greek
auxiliaries.--Artaxerxes assembles his army.--The battle.--Cyrus
slain.--Murder of the Greek generals.--Critical situation
of the Greeks.--Xenophon's proposal.--Retreat of the Ten
Thousand.--Xenophon's retirement.--Xenophon's writings.--Credibility
of Herodotus and Xenophon.--Importance of the story.--Object of this
work.
Cyrus was the founder of the ancient Persian empire--a monarchy,
perhaps, the most wealthy and magnificent which the world has ever
seen. Of that strange and incomprehensible principle of human nature,
under the influence of which vast masses of men, notwithstanding the
universal instinct of aversion to control, combine, under certain
circumstances, by millions and millions, to maintain, for many
successive centuries, the representatives of some one great family
in a condition of exalted, and absolute, and utterly irresponsible
ascendency over themselves, while they toil for them, watch over them,
submit to endless and most humiliating privations in their behalf, and
commit, if commanded to do so, the most inexcusable and atrocious
crimes to sustain the demigods they have thus made in their lofty
estate, we have, in the case of this Persian monarchy, one of the most
extraordinary exhibitions.
The Persian monarchy appears, in fact, even as we look back upon it
from this remote distance both of space and of time, as a very vast
wave of human power and grandeur. It swelled up among the populations
of Asia, between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, about five
hundred years before Christ, and rolled on in undiminished magnitude
and glory for many centuries. It bore upon its crest the royal line
of Astyages and his successors. Cyrus was, however, the first of the
princes whom it held up conspicuously to the admiration of the world
and he rode so gracefully and gallantly on the lofty crest that
mankind have given him the credit of raising and sustaining the
magnificent billow on which he was borne. How far we are to consider
him as founding the monarchy, or the monarchy as raising and
illustrating him, will appear more fully in the course of this
narrative.
Cotemporaneous with this Persian monarchy in the East, there
flourished in the West the small but very efficient and vigorous
republics of Greece. The Greeks had a written character for their
language which could be easily and rapidly executed, while the
ordinary language of the Persians was scarcely written at all. There
was, it is true, in this latter nation, a certain learned character,
which was used by the priests for their mystic records, and also for
certain sacred books which constituted the only national archives. It
was, however, only slowly and with difficulty that this character
could be penned, and, when penned, it was unintelligible to the great
mass of the population. For this reason, among others, the Greeks
wrote narratives of the great events which occurred in their day,
which narratives they so embellished and adorned by the picturesque
lights and shades in which their genius enabled them to present the
scenes and characters described as to make them universally admired,
while the surrounding nations produced nothing but formal governmental
records, not worth to the community at large the toil and labor
necessary to decipher them and make them intelligible. Thus the Greek
writers became the historians, not only of their own republics, but
also of all the nations around them; and with such admirable genius
and power did they fulfill this function, that, while the records of
all other nations cotemporary with them have been almost entirely
neglected and forgotten, the language of the Greeks has been preserved
among mankind, with infinite labor and toil, by successive generations
of scholars, in every civilized nation, for two thousand years, solely
in order that men may continue to read these tales.
Two Greek historians have given us a narrative of the events connected
with the life of Cyrus--Herodotus and Xenophon. These writers disagree
very materially in the statements which they make, and modern readers
are divided in opinion on the question which to believe. In order to
present this question fairly to the minds of our readers, we must
commence this volume with some account of these two authorities, whose
guidance, conflicting as it is, furnishes all the light which we have
to follow.
Herodotus was a philosopher and scholar. Xenophon was a great general.
The one spent his life in solitary study, or in visiting various
countries in the pursuit of knowledge; the other distinguished himself
in the command of armies, and in distant military expeditions, which
he conducted with great energy and skill. They were both, by birth,
men of wealth and high station, so that they occupied, from the
beginning, conspicuous positions in society; and as they were both
energetic and enterprising in character, they were led, each, to a
very romantic and adventurous career, the one in his travels, the
other in his campaigns, so that their personal history and their
exploits attracted great attention even while they lived.
Herodotus was born in the year 484 before Christ, which was about
fifty years after the death of the Cyrus whose history forms the
subject of this volume. He was born in the Grecian state of Caria,
in Asia Minor, and in the city of Halicarnassus. Caria, as may be
seen from the map at the commencement of this volume, was in the
southwestern part of Asia Minor, near the shores of the AEgean Sea.
Herodotus became a student at a very early age. It was the custom
in Greece, at that time, to give to young men of his rank a good
intellectual education. In other nations, the training of the young
men, in wealthy and powerful families, was confined almost exclusively
to the use of arms, to horsemanship, to athletic feats, and other such
accomplishments as would give them a manly and graceful personal
bearing, and enable them to excel in the various friendly contests of
the public games, as well as prepare them to maintain their ground
against their enemies in personal combats on the field of battle. The
Greeks, without neglecting these things, taught their young men
also to read and to write, explained to them the structure and the
philosophy of language, and trained them to the study of the poets,
the orators, and the historians which their country had produced. Thus
a general taste for intellectual pursuits and pleasures was diffused
throughout the community. Public affairs were discussed, before large
audiences assembled for the purpose, by orators who felt a great pride
and pleasure in the exercise of the power which they had acquired of
persuading, convincing, or exciting the mighty masses that listened to
them; and at the great public celebrations which were customary in
those days, in addition to the wrestlings, the races, the games, and
the military spectacles, there were certain literary entertainments
provided, which constituted an essential part of the public pleasures.
Tragedies were acted, poems recited, odes and lyrics sung, and
narratives of martial enterprises and exploits, and geographical and
historical descriptions of neighboring nations, were read to vast
throngs of listeners, who, having been accustomed from infancy to
witness such performances, and to hear them applauded, had learned to
appreciate and enjoy them. Of course, these literary exhibitions would
make impressions, more or less strong, on different minds, as the
mental temperaments and characters of individuals varied. They seem to
have exerted a very powerful influence on the mind of Herodotus in his
early years. He was inspired, when very young, with a great zeal and
ardor for the attainment of knowledge; and as he advanced toward
maturity, he began to be ambitious of making new discoveries, with a
view of communicating to his countrymen, in these great public
assemblies, what he should thus acquire. Accordingly, as soon as he
arrived at a suitable age, he resolved to set out upon a tour into
foreign countries, and to bring back a report of what he should see
and hear.
The intercourse of nations was, in those days, mainly carried on over
the waters of the Mediterranean Sea; and in times of peace, almost the
only mode of communication was by the ships and the caravans of the
merchants who traded from country to country, both by sea and on the
land. In fact, the knowledge which one country possessed of the
geography and the manners and customs of another, was almost wholly
confined to the reports which these merchants circulated. When
military expeditions invaded a territory, the commanders, or the
writers who accompanied them, often wrote descriptions of the scenes
which they witnessed in their campaigns, and described briefly the
countries through which they passed. These cases were, however,
comparatively rare; and yet, when they occurred, they furnished
accounts better authenticated, and more to be relied upon, and
expressed, moreover, in a more systematic and regular form, than the
reports of the merchants, though the information which was derived
from both these sources combined was very insufficient, and tended
to excite more curiosity than it gratified. Herodotus, therefore,
conceived that, in thoroughly exploring the countries on the shores
of the Mediterranean and in the interior of Asia, examining
their geographical position, inquiring into their history, their
institutions, their manners, customs, and laws, and writing the
results for the entertainment and instruction of his countrymen, he
had an ample field before him for the exercise of all his powers.
He went first to Egypt. Egypt had been until that time, closely shut
up from the rest of mankind by the jealousy and watchfulness of the
government. But now, on account of some recent political changes,
which will be hereafter more particularly alluded to, the way was
opened for travelers from other countries to come in. Herodotus was
the first to avail himself of this opportunity. He spent some time in
the country, and made himself minutely acquainted with its history,
its antiquities, its political and social condition at the time of his
visit, and with all the other points in respect to which he supposed
that his countrymen would wish to be informed. He took copious notes
of all that he saw. From Egypt he went westward into Libya, and thence
he traveled slowly along the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean
Sea as far as to the Straits of Gibraltar, noting, with great care,
every thing which presented itself to his own personal observation,
and availing himself of every possible source of information in
respect to all other points of importance for the object which he had
in view.
The Straits of Gibraltar were the ends of the earth toward the
westward in those ancient days, and our traveler accordingly, after
reaching them, returned again to the eastward. He visited Tyre, and
the cities of Phoenicia, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean
Sea, and thence went still farther eastward to Assyria and Babylon.
It was here that he obtained the materials for what he has written in
respect to the Medes and Persians, and to the history of Cyrus. After
spending some time in these countries, he went on by land still
further to the eastward, into the heart of Asia. The country of
Scythia was considered as at "the end of the earth" in this direction.
Herodotus penetrated for some distance into the almost trackless wilds
of this remote land, until he found that he had gone as far from the
great center of light and power on the shores of the AEgean Sea as he
could expect the curiosity of his countrymen to follow him. He passed
thence round toward the north, and came down through the countries
north of the Danube into Greece, by way of the Epirus and Macedon. To
make such a journey as this was, in fact, in those days, almost to
explore the whole known world.
It ought, however, here to be stated, that many modern scholars, who
have examined, with great care, the accounts which Herodotus has
given of what he saw and heard in his wanderings, doubt very seriously
whether his journeys were really as extended as he pretends. As his
object was to read what he was intending to write at great public
assemblies in Greece, he was, of course, under every possible
inducement to make his narrative as interesting as possible, and not
to detract at all from whatever there might be extraordinary either in
the extent of his wanderings or in the wonderfulness of the objects
and scenes which he saw, or in the romantic nature of the adventures
which he met with in his protracted tour. Cicero, in lauding him as a
writer, says that he was the first who evinced the power to _adorn_ a
historical narrative. Between adorning and _embellishing_, the line is
not to be very distinctly marked; and Herodotus has often been accused
of having drawn more from his fancy than from any other source, in
respect to a large portion of what he relates and describes. Some do
not believe that he ever even entered half the countries which he
professes to have thoroughly explored, while others find, in the
minuteness of his specifications, something like conclusive proof that
he related only what he actually saw. In a word, the question of his
credibility has been discussed by successive generations of scholars
ever since his day, and strong parties have been formed who have gone
to extremes in the opinions they have taken; so that, while some
confer upon him the title of the father of _history_, others say
it would be more in accordance with his merits to call him the
father of _lies_. In controversies like this, and, in fact, in all
controversies, it is more agreeable to the mass of mankind to take
sides strongly with one party or the other, and either to believe or
disbelieve one or the other fully and cordially. There is a class of
minds, however, more calm and better balanced than the rest, who can
deny themselves this pleasure, and who see that often, in the most
bitter and decided controversies, the truth lies between. By this
class of minds it has been generally supposed that the narratives of
Herodotus are substantially true, though in many cases highly colored
and embellished, or, as Cicero called it, adorned, as, in fact, they
inevitably must have been under the circumstances in which they were
written.
We can not follow minutely the circumstances of the subsequent life
of Herodotus. He became involved in some political disturbances and
difficulties in his native state after his return, in consequence of
which he retired, partly a fugitive and partly an exile, to the island
of Samos, which is at a little distance from Caria, and not far from
the shore. Here he lived for some time in seclusion, occupied in
writing out his history. He divided it into nine books, to which,
respectively, the names of the nine Muses were afterward given, to
designate them. The island of Samos, where this great literary work
was performed, is very near to Patmos, where, a few hundred years
later, the Evangelist John, in a similar retirement, and in the use
of the same language and character, wrote the Book of Revelation.
When a few of the first books of his history were completed, Herodotus
went with the manuscript to Olympia, at the great celebration of the
81st Olympiad. The Olympiads were periods recurring at intervals of
about four years. By means of them the Greeks reckoned their time.
The Olympiads were celebrated as they occurred, with games, shows,
spectacles, and parades, which were conducted on so magnificent a
scale that vast crowds were accustomed to assemble from every part of
Greece to witness and join in them. They were held at Olympia, a city
on the western side of Greece. Nothing now remains to mark the spot
but some acres of confused and unintelligible ruins.
The personal fame of Herodotus and of his travels had preceded him,
and when he arrived at Olympia he found the curiosity and eagerness
of the people to listen to his narratives extreme. He read copious
extracts from his accounts, so far as he had written them, to the vast
assemblies which convened to hear him, and they were received with
unbounded applause; and inasmuch as these assemblies comprised nearly
all the statesmen, the generals, the philosophers, and the scholars of
Greece, applause expressed by them became at once universal renown.
Herodotus was greatly gratified at the interest which his countrymen
took in his narratives, and he determined thenceforth to devote his
time assiduously to the continuation and completion of his work.
It was twelve years, however, before his plan was finally
accomplished. He then repaired to Athens, at the time of a grand
festive celebration which was held in that city, and there he appeared
in public again, and read extended portions of the additional books
that he had written. The admiration and applause which his work now
elicited was even greater than before. In deciding upon the passages
to be read, Herodotus selected such as would be most likely to excite
the interest of his Grecian hearers, and many of them were glowing
accounts of Grecian exploits in former wars which had been waged in
the countries which he had visited. To expect that, under such
circumstances, Herodotus should have made his history wholly
impartial, would be to suppose the historian not human.
The Athenians were greatly pleased with the narratives which Herodotus
thus read to them of their own and of their ancestors' exploits. They
considered him a national benefactor for having made such a record of
their deeds, and, in addition to the unbounded applause which they
bestowed upon him, they made him a public grant of a large sum of
money. During the remainder of his life Herodotus continued to enjoy
the high degree of literary renown which his writings had acquired for
him--a renown which has since been extended and increased, rather than
diminished, by the lapse of time.
As for Xenophon, the other great historian of Cyrus, it has already
been said that he was a military commander, and his life was
accordingly spent in a very different manner from that of his great
competitor for historic fame. He was born at Athens, about thirty
years after the birth of Herodotus, so that he was but a child while
Herodotus was in the midst of his career. When he was about twenty-two
years of age, he joined a celebrated military expedition which was
formed in Greece, for the purpose of proceeding to Asia Minor to enter
into the service of the governor of that country. The name of this
governor was Cyrus; and to distinguish him from Cyrus the Great, whose
history is to form the subject of this volume, and who lived about one
hundred and fifty years before him, he is commonly called Cyrus the
Younger.
This expedition was headed by a Grecian general named Clearchus. The
soldiers and the subordinate officers of the expedition did not know
for what special service it was designed, as Cyrus had a treasonable
and guilty object in view, and he kept it accordingly concealed, even
from the agents who were to aid him in the execution of it. His plan
was to make war upon and dethrone his brother Artaxerxes, then king of
Persia, and consequently his sovereign. Cyrus was a very young man,
but he was a man of a very energetic and accomplished character, and
of unbounded ambition. When his father died, it was arranged that
Artaxerxes, the older son, should succeed him. Cyrus was extremely
unwilling to submit to this supremacy of his brother. His mother was
an artful and unprincipled woman, and Cyrus, being the youngest of
her children, was her favorite. She encouraged him in his ambitious
designs; and so desperate was Cyrus himself in his determination to
accomplish them, that it is said he attempted to assassinate his
brother on the day of his coronation. His attempt was discovered, and
it failed. His brother, however, instead of punishing him for the
treason, had the generosity to pardon him, and sent him to his
government in Asia Minor. Cyrus immediately turned all his thoughts to
the plan of raising an army and making war upon his brother, in order
to gain forcible possession of his throne. That he might have a
plausible pretext for making the necessary military preparations, he
pretended to have a quarrel with one of his neighbors, and wrote,
hypocritically, many letters to the king, affecting solicitude for
his safety, and asking aid. The king was thus deceived, and made no
preparations to resist the force which Cyrus was assembling, not
having the remotest suspicion that its destiny was Babylon.
The auxiliary army which came from Greece to enter into Cyrus's
service under these circumstances, consisted of about thirteen
thousand men. He had, it was said, a hundred thousand men besides; but
so celebrated were the Greeks in those days for their courage, their
discipline, their powers of endurance, and their indomitable tenacity
and energy, that Cyrus very properly considered this corps as the
flower of his army. Xenophon was one of the younger Grecian generals.
The army crossed the Hellespont, and entered Asia Minor, and, passing
across the country, reached at last the famous pass of Cilicia, in
the southwestern part of the country--a narrow defile between the
mountains and the sea, which opens the only passage in that quarter
toward the Persian regions beyond. Here the suspicions which the
Greeks had been for some time inclined to feel, that they were going
to make war upon the Persian monarch himself, were confirmed, and they
refused to proceed. Their unwillingness, however, did not arise from
any compunctions of conscience about the guilt of treason, or the
wickedness of helping an ungrateful and unprincipled wretch, whose
forfeited life had once been given to him by his brother, in making
war upon and destroying his benefactor. Soldiers have never, in any
age of the world, any thing to do with compunctions of conscience in
respect to the work which their commanders give them to perform.
The Greeks were perfectly willing to serve in this or in any other
undertaking; but, since it was rebellion and treason that was asked of
them, they considered it as specially hazardous, and so they concluded
that they were entitled to extra pay. Cyrus made no objection to this
demand; an arrangement was made accordingly, and the army went on.
Artaxerxes assembled suddenly the whole force of his empire on the
plains of Babylon--an immense army, consisting, it is said, of over a
million of men. Such vast forces occupy, necessarily, a wide extent of
country, even when drawn up in battle array. So great, in fact, was
the extent occupied in this case, that the Greeks, who conquered all
that part of the king's forces which was directly opposed to them,
supposed, when night came, at the close of the day of battle, that
Cyrus had been every where victorious; and they were only undeceived
when, the next day, messengers came from the Persian camp to inform
them that Cyrus's whole force, excepting themselves, was defeated and
dispersed, and that Cyrus himself was slain, and to summon them to
surrender at once and unconditionally to the conquerors.
The Greeks refused to surrender. They formed themselves immediately
into a compact and solid body, fortified themselves as well as they
could in their position, and prepared for a desperate defense. There
were about ten thousand of them left, and the Persians seem to have
considered them too formidable to be attacked. The Persians entered
into negotiations with them, offering them certain terms on which they
would be allowed to return peaceably into Greece. These negotiations
were protracted from day to day for two or three weeks, the Persians
treacherously using toward them a friendly tone, and evincing a
disposition to treat them in a liberal and generous manner. This threw
the Greeks off their guard, and finally the Persians contrived to get
Clearchus and the leading Greek generals into their power at a feast,
and then they seized and murdered them, or, as they would perhaps term
it, _executed_ them as rebels and traitors. When this was reported in
the Grecian camp, the whole army was thrown at first into the utmost
consternation. They found themselves two thousand miles from home, in
the heart of a hostile country, with an enemy nearly a hundred times
their own number close upon them, while they themselves were without
provisions, without horses, without money; and there were deep rivers,
and rugged mountains, and every other possible physical obstacle to be
surmounted, before they could reach their own frontiers. If they
surrendered to their enemies, a hopeless and most miserable slavery
was their inevitable doom.
Under these circumstances, Xenophon, according to his own story,
called together the surviving officers in the camp, urged them not to
despair, and recommended that immediate measures should be taken for
commencing a march toward Greece. He proposed that they should elect
commanders to take the places of those who had been killed, and that,
under their new organization, they should immediately set out on
their return. These plans were adopted. He himself was chosen as
the commanding general, and under his guidance the whole force was
conducted safely through the countless difficulties and dangers which
beset their way, though they had to defend themselves, at every step
of their progress, from an enemy so vastly more numerous than they,
and which was hanging on their flanks and on their rear, and making
the most incessant efforts to surround and capture them. This retreat
occupied two hundred and fifteen days. It has always been considered
as one of the greatest military achievements that has ever been
performed. It is called in history the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.
Xenophon acquired by it a double immortality. He led the army, and
thus attained to a military renown which will never fade; and he
afterward wrote a narrative of the exploit, which has given him an
equally extended and permanent literary fame.
Some time after this, Xenophon returned again to Asia as a military
commander, and distinguished himself in other campaigns. He acquired a
large fortune, too, in these wars, and at length retired to a villa,
which he built and adorned magnificently, in the neighborhood of
Olympia, where Herodotus had acquired so extended a fame by reading
his histories. It was probably, in some degree, through the influence
of the success which had attended the labors of Herodotus in this
field, that Xenophon was induced to enter it. He devoted the later
years of his life to writing various historical memoirs, the two most
important of which that have come down to modern times are, first,
the narrative of his own expedition, under Cyrus the Younger, and,
secondly, a sort of romance or tale founded on the history of Cyrus
the Great. This last is called the Cyropaedia; and it is from this
work, and from the history written by Herodotus, that nearly all our
knowledge of the great Persian monarch is derived.
The question how far the stories which Herodotus and Xenophon have
told us in relating the history of the great Persian king are true, is
of less importance than one would at first imagine; for the case is
one of those numerous instances in which the narrative itself, which
genius has written, has had far greater influence on mankind than the
events themselves exerted which the narrative professes to record. It
is now far more important for us to know what the story is which
has for eighteen hundred years been read and listened to by every
generation of men, than what the actual events were in which the tale
thus told had its origin. This consideration applies very extensively
to history, and especially to ancient history. The events themselves
have long since ceased to be of any great interest or importance to
readers of the present day; but the _accounts_, whether they are
fictitious or real, partial or impartial, honestly true or embellished
and colored, since they have been so widely circulated in every age
and in every nation, and have impressed themselves so universally and
so permanently in the mind and memory of the whole human race, and
have penetrated into and colored the literature of every civilized
people, it becomes now necessary that every well-informed man should
understand. In a word, the real Cyrus is now a far less important
personage to mankind than the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon, and it
is, accordingly, their story which the author proposes to relate in
this volume. The reader will understand, therefore, that the end and
aim of the work is not to guarantee an exact and certain account of
Cyrus as he actually lived and acted, but only to give a true and
faithful summary of the story which for the last two thousand years
has been in circulation respecting him among mankind.