The Historians' History of the World 02

If we accept Herodotus’ statements, we must look for the Massagetæ beyond the Jaxartes. In Ctesias Cyrus is mortally wounded in battle with the Derbices, who probably dwelt near the Middle or Upper Oxus. A fragment of Berosus says that Cyrus fell in the land of the Dai (Dahæ), i.e., in the modern Turkoman desert, perhaps in the southern or southwestern portion of it; this account may very well be derived from contemporary Babylonian records. Be that as it may, Cyrus met his death in battle with a savage tribe of the northeast. The battle was probably lost, but the Persians rescued his body, which was buried at Pasargada, in the ancient land of his race. To this day there is to be seen at Murghab, north of Persepolis (on the telegraph line from Abushehr to Teheran), the empty tomb and other remains of the great mausoleum, which Aristobulus, a companion of Alexander, described from his own observation; and on some pillars there the inscription is to be read: “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenian.” Till lately the same inscription was also to be found high on the pillar which bears in bas-relief a winged figure of a king. This figure is furnished with a “pshent,” i.e., such an ornamented crown as is worn by kings and gods on Egyptian monuments. This was no doubt meant by Cambyses as a special mark of honour to his father, whose monument must have required years to finish. It is quite natural that the ancient art of Egypt should have made a deep impression even upon those of its conquerors who in other respects had little liking for Egyptian ways.b

CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF CYRUS

Cyrus played too great a part in the world and did too much for the progress of humanity that we should leave him without some account of the character and influence on history of a man of whom even so cynical a historian as Eduard Meyer has said, tersely but in words that demand special emphasis, “To honour and spare an adversary of equal birth, once he had been conquered, remained a privilege of all his successors.” After this we must indeed expect eulogy, but the short extracts given here, the first ancient and the last modern, are both founded on careful and loving study of the man’s character.a

Xenophon’s Estimate of Cyrus