Of these Persians Cyrus was the type-man, combining in himself all that was admirable in his countrymen, and making so strong an impression on the Greeks that he is presented by their historians as an ideal prince, invested with all those virtues which the mediaeval romance-writers have ascribed to the knights of chivalry.

The Persians were ruled by independent chieftains, or petty kings, who acknowledged fealty to Media; so that Persia was really a province of Media, as Burgundy was of France in the Middle Ages, and as Babylonia at one period was of Assyria.  The most prominent of these chieftains or princes was Achaemenes, who is regarded as the founder of the Persian monarchy.  To this royal family of the Achaemenidae Cyrus belonged.  His father Cambyses, called by some a satrap and by others a king, married, according to Herodotus, a daughter of Astyages, the last of the Median monarchs.

The youth and education of Cyrus are invested with poetic interest by both Herodotus and Xenophon, but their narratives have no historical authority in the eyes of critics, any more than Livy’s painting of Romulus and Remus:  they belong to the realm of romance rather than authentic history.  Nevertheless the legend of Cyrus is beautiful, and has been repeated by all succeeding historians.

According to this legend, Astyages—­a luxurious and superstitious monarch, without the warlike virtues of his father, who had really built up the Median empire—­had a dream that troubled him, which being interpreted by the Magi, priests of the national religion, was to the effect that his daughter Mandane (for he had no legitimate son) would be married to a prince whose heir should seize the supreme power of Media.  To prevent this, he married her to a prince beneath her rank, for whom he felt no fear,—­Cambyses, the chief governor or king of Persia, who ruled a territory to the South, about one fifth the size of Media, and which practically was a dependent province.  Another dream which alarmed Astyages still further, in spite of his precaution, induced him to send for his daughter, so that having her in his power he might easily destroy her offspring.  As soon as Cyrus was born therefore in the royal palace at Ecbatana, the king intrusted the infant prince to one of the principal officers of his court, named Harpagus, with peremptory orders to destroy him.  Harpagus, although he professed unconditional obedience to his monarch, had scruples about taking the life of one so near the throne, the grandson of the king and presumptive heir of the monarchy.  So he, in turn, intrusted the royal infant to the care of a herdsman, in whom he had implicit confidence, with orders to kill him.  The herdsman had a tender-hearted and conscientious wife who had just given birth to a dead child, and she persuaded her husband—­for even in Media women virtually ruled, as they do everywhere, if they have tact—­to substitute the dead child for the living one, deck it out in the royal costume, and expose it to wild beasts.  This was done, and Cyrus remained the supposed child of the shepherd.  The secret was well kept for ten years, and both Astyages and Harpagus supposed that Cyrus was slain.