After Alexander's death, the district of which C was capital became a dependency of Egypt. Under the Kom. rule it was called Cyrenaica, and was politically connected with Crete. In the 4th cent, the city was destroyed by the Saracens, and is now desolate.
Cyrenian (Kupiji/aioj). — Two Cyrenians are men- tioned in Scripture : Simon who bore our Lord's cross (Mt 27"), ami Lucius a Christitui teacher (Ac 13').
W. MUIK.
CYRENID8.— See QuiRlNius.
CYRUS i^i, KOpoj).— The name of Cjrms Is written Kuras in Bab. cuneiform, Kurush in Old Persian. Ctesias stated on the authority of Pary- satis, the wife of the Persian king Ochus, that her youn''er son was named Cyrus from the sun, as 'the Persians call the sun KOpos' {Epit. PKot. 80; Plut. Artax. 1). In Zend, however, the 'sun' is hwnrc, which could not take the form KOpos in Old Persian, though in modem Persian it is khur, and in certain Aram, dialects of the Pamir it is khir and kher. According to Strabo (xv. 3), the original name of Cyrus was Aprailates, his later name being adopted from that of the river Cjtus. But this is contrary to the fact that his grand- father's name was also Cyrus.
The cla-ssical writers nave given contradictory accounts of his birth and rise to power. Herodotus (L 95) says that he knew of three accounts ditrerent from the one he himself adopted, which was that Cyrus was the son of a Persian nobleman named Cambyses and Mandanfi, a daughter of the Median king Astyages, who had caiised her to marry beneath her station in consequence of a dream which the magi interpreted as predicting danger to himself from her son. A si'cnnd dreain induced him to order his relative Harpagus to kill the child. HajpaguB gave it to the herdsman Mithridates to expose, but he and liis wife Spako brought it up as their o^vn. Subsequently Cyrus was reco^jnizen by Astyages, who, in consequence of the advice of the magi, sent him back to liis parents, but punished
Harpagus by giving him the mutilated limbs of his own son to eat. Harpagus therefore persuaded Cyrus to lead the Persians into revolt ; after which the infatuated Astyages appointed him the general of the Median army. "Tne result was an easy victory on the part of Cyrus ; Astyages, however, impaled the magi who had advised him to let his adversary go, raised another army, and himself led it into the field. But he was defeated and captured, though his life was spared, and Cyrus became king of Media as well as of Persia.
Xenophon, in the romance of the Cyropmdia, gives a wholly difl'erent account. He makes Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, king of Persia. CyruB is educated first in Persia and then by his grandfather Astyages j and when the latter is suc- ceeded by his son Cyaxares, Cyrus acts as his general, subduing the Lydians, Babylonians, and other nations, and finally succeeding him in the natural course of things. His first victory over the Babylonians was when he was sixteen years old, when Evil-Merod£ich wantonly invaded Media; the second when he was forty, when Neriglissar, the ally of Croesus of Lydia, attacked Cyaxares. His final conquest of Babylonia took place before the death of the king of Media.
Nicolaus of Damascus (vii. fr. 66) asserts that Cyrus was the son of a Mardian bandit named Atradates, whose wife Argostfl tended goats. He began his career as a servant in the palace of Astyages. Here he was adopted by Artembares, the cupbearer, and recommende<i to Astyages, who raised him to power and wealth. Cyrus now made his father Atradates satrap of Persia, and urged by a ' Chalda>an ' began to plot against Astyages, with the help of Oibares a Persian. Eventually, after obtaining leave to visit Persia, where evervthing had been prepared for a revolt, he defeated, at Hyrba the troops which had been sent against him. In a battle before Pasarpadie, however, he and his general CEbares were driven within the walls, and Lis father was captured and soon afterwards died. The Persians now fled to the precipitous mountain-peak where Cyrus had been reared, and there, excited by the taunts of their wives, they utterly overthrew their Median assail- ants and destroyed the kingdom of Astyages.
Ctesias calls Astyages Astjngas, and states that after his defeat by Cyrus he fled to Ecbatana, where he was concealed in the palace by his daujjhter Amytls and her husband Spitamas, whom Cyrus ordered to be tortured, along with their children Spitakes and Megabemes, to make them confess where he was. Astyages was put into fetters by (Etiares, but released by Cyrus, wlio married Aniytis after putting her husband to death.
All these versions have been shown to be nnhis- torical by contemporaneous cuneiform inscriptions. The most important of these are — (1) a cylinder inscription of Is'abonidus, the last king of the Hah. empire, from Abu Habba (Sippara); (2) an annal- istic tablet written shortly after the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus; (3) a proclamation of Cyrus of the same date.
The inscription of Nabonidus was composed soon after the conquest of Astyages by Cjtus in B.C. .549. Nabonidus rails Astyages (Istuvigu) king of the Manda or 'Nomads,' whom the Assyr. texts identify with the Gimirr.1 or Cimmerians. He states that the temple of the moon-god at Harran had been destroyed by the Manda, but that Merodach hml (inlori'd liini in a dream to restore it, assuring him that within three years ' Cyrus the king of Anzan, their little servant, with his small army, shall overthrow the widespread people of the Manda ; Istuvigu, the king of^ the people of the Manda, he shall capture, and bring him a prisoner to his own CdUMtry.'