2. His Elevation to the Throne. — It was the frequent practice of the Persian monarchs, and probably there- fore of the Modes before them, to choose the provin- cial viceroys from the royal families of the subject nations, and thereby to leave to the vanquished much both of the semblance and of the reality of freedom. This will be sufficient to account for the first steps of Cyrus towards eminence. But as the Persian armies were at that time composed of ruder and braver men than the Medes (indeed, to this day, the men of Shi- r&z are proverbially braver than those of Isfahan), the account of Xenophon is crediblii^ that in the gener- al wars of the empire Cyrus won the attachment of the whole army by his bravery ; while, as Herodotus tells, the atrocious cruelties of Astyages may have re- volted the hearts of the Median nobility. See Persia.
8. Transition of the Empire from the Medes to (he Persians. — Xenophon's romance omits the fact that the transference of the empire was eflTected by a civil war; nevertheless, the same writer, in his Anabctsis^ confesses it (iii, 4, 7, 12). Herodotus, Ctesias, Isocra- tes, Strabo, and, in fact, all who allude to the matter *- all, agree that it was so. In Xenophon (/. e.) we
find the Upper Tigris to have been the seat af campaign, where the cities of I^risge end were besieged and taken by Cyrus. fVcnn Stzaho learn that tjie decisive battle was fbnglit on die ifc where Cyrus afterwards built Fasergadae, In iVoe for his native capitaL This agrees with Hero&tMi account of two armies being succeesiveHr lost, «irk may mean that the war was ended in two caiuf^M. Tet Ctesias represents Astyagee as finaDy cmp^ni c the palace of Ecbatana. Cyrus (Bmys Herodotsa) & Astyages no harm, but kept him by liia side to tfas mi of his life. Ctesias, however, states that he was fes made ruler of the Barcaniana, and afterwards wo- dered by a eunuch sent by Cyrus to bring him hoai to visit his family. The date of the accesnoa of C> rus is fixed by the unanimous consent of the saaai chronologers as occurring in B.C. 569 (Afiieams. sp. Euseb. X, 10 ; Clinton, U, s. an.).
The Medes were by no means made subject tt tk Persians at first. It is highly probable that, as Bt- rodotus and Xenophon represent, many of the M^fes Medes sided with Cyrus, and during his reign the mas. trusted generals of the armies were Hedes. Tet esn this hardly explains the phenomenon of a Dariss & Mede, who, in the book of Daniel, for two vescs b^ the government in Babylon, after the capture ef & city by the Medes and Persians. Indeed, tin hs- gpiage used concerning the kingdom of Darius mi^ be explained as Oriental hyperbole, uid Darxai bi supposed to have been a mere satrap of Bainte, were it not for the fact that Cyrus is dearly pti forward as a tuecestor to Darius the Mede. Mnr have been the attempts to reconcile this with i current Grecian accounts ; but there is one osij that has the least plausibility, viz. that whidi, vii Xenophon, teaches that Astyages had a son stSI fir* ing (whom Xenophon calls Cyaxar^), and that Urn son is no other than Darius the Mede ; to wham Or- rus, by a sort of nephew's piety, conceded a ncnia! supremacy at Babylon. See Cyaxarbs. Ib th reign of the son of Cyrus the depression of the Meda probably commenced. At his death the MagS— ces- 6|4racy took place, after the defeat of which the Xda doubtless sunk lower still. At a later time tiMy aisdi a general insurrection against the Persian power, s»& its suppression seems to have brought tiiem to a knl with Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and other vassal nstiosi which spoke the tongue of Persia ; for the natioBS d the poetical Irdn had only dialectual variations of in- guage (Strabo, xv, 2, p. 811). See Media.
4. Military Career of Cyrus. — ^The descriptioDs gins us in Ctesias, and in Plutarch's Artaxerxes (the lit- ter probably taken from Ctesias), concerning the Ptf- sian mode of fighting, are quite Homeric in thcv dlt^ acter. No skill seems to be needed by the geoatl,* no tactics are thought of: he does his duty b^ bvfce* having as the bravest of common soldiers, and bjict- ing the part of champion, like a knight in the dajs of chivalry. We cannot suppose that there wss 1117 greater advance of the military art in the days of CV- rus. It is agreed by all that he subdued the'Ljdisai. the Greeks of Asia Minor, and the Babyionkuis: at may doubtless add Sumana, which must have bscn is- corporated with his empire before he oommesced ins war with Babylon ; where also be fixed his militaiT capital (Susa, or Shushan), as more central for tlie le- cessities of his administration than Pasargadje. Id the latter city continued to be the more sacred and t«> loved home of the Persian court, the place of coroos* tion and of sepulture (Strabo, xv, 8, p. 318 ; and Plot A rtax. init.). All Syria and Phmnicia appear to ban come over to Cyrus peaceably.
With regard to the Persian wars, the few Ikcts fh« Ctesias, which the epitomator has extracted as diier* ing from Herodotus, carry with them high probsbilitT. He states that, after receiving the snbnusrion of the Bactrians, Cyrus made war on the Sadans, a ScytHas