Indeed, to be the guardian of the commonwealth, and to be king; to be for the people, and to be their sovereign, is but one and the same thing. A man is born for others, when he is born to govern, because the reason and end of governing others is only to be useful and serviceable to them. The very basis and foundation of the condition of princes is, not to be for themselves; the very characteristic of their greatness is, that they are consecrated to the public good. They may properly be considered as a light, which is placed on high, only to diffuse and shed its beams on every thing below. Are such sentiments as_these any disparagement to the dignity of the regal state? It was by the concurrence of all these virtues that Cyrus founded such an extensive empire in so short a time; that he peaceably enjoyed the fruits of his conquests for many years; that he made himself so much esteemed and beloved, not only by his own natural subjects, but by all the nations he had conquered; that after his death he was universally regretted as the common father of all the people. We ought not, indeed, to be surprised that Cyrus was so accomplished in every virtue (it will be readily understood, that I speak only of pagan virtues,) because we know it was God himself, who had formed him to be the instrument and agent of his gracious designs towards his peculiar people. When I say that God himself had formed this prince, I do not mean that he did it by any sensible miracle, nor that he immediately made him such as we admire in the accounts we have of him in history. God gave him a happy genius, and implanted in his mind the seeds of all the noblest qualities, disposing his heart at the same time to aspire after the most excellent and sublime virtues. But above all, he took care that this happy genius should be cultivated by a good education, and by that means be prepared for the great designs for which he intended him. We may venture to say, without fear of being mistaken, that the greatest excellencies in Cyrus were owing to his education, where the confounding of him, in some sort, with his subjects, and the keeping him under the same subjection to the authority of his teachers, served to eradicate that pride which is so natural to princes; taught him to hearken to advice, and to obey before he came to command; inured him to hardship and toil; accustomed him to temperance and sobriety; and, in a word, rendered him such as we have seen him throughout his whole conduct, gentle, modest, affable, obliging, compassionate; an enemy to all luxury and pride, and still more so to flattery. It must be confessed, that such a prince is one of the most precious and valuable gifts that Heaven can make to mortal men. The infidels themselves have acknowledged this; nor has the darkness of their false religion been able to hide these two remarkable truths from their observation, that all good kings are the gift of God, and that such a gift includes many others; for nothing can be so excellent as that which bears the most perfect resemblance to the Deity; and the noblest image of the Deity is a just, moderate, chaste, and virtuous prince, who rules with no other view than to establish the reign of justice and virtue. This is the portraiture which Pliny has left us of Trajan, and which has a great resemblance to that of Cyrus. Nullum est præstabilius et pulchrius Dei munus erga mortales, quam căstus, et sanctus, et Deo simillimus princeps.* When I narrowly examine this hero's life, there seems to have been one circumstance wanting to his glory, which would have enhanced it exceedingly; I mean that of having struggled under some grievous calamity for some time, and of having his virtue tried by some sudden reverse of fortune. I know, indeed, that the emperor Galba, when he adopted Piso, told him that the stings of prosperity were infinitely sharper than those of adversity; and that the former put the soul to a much severer trial than the latter: Fortunam adhuc tantum adversam tulisti: secundæ res acrioribus stimulis explorant animos.† * Paneg. Trag. † Tac. Hist. 1. i. c. 15. And the reason he gives is, that when misfortunes come with their whole weight upon a man's soul, she exerts herself, and summons all her strength to bear up the burden; whereas prosperity, attacking the mind secretly or insensibly, leaves it all its weakness, and insinuates a poison into it, by so much the more dangerous, as it is the more subtile: Quia miseria tolerantur, felicitate corrumpimur. However, it must be owned that adversity, when supported with nobleness and dignity, and surmounted by an invincible patience, adds a great lustre to a prince's glory, and gives him occasion to display many fine qualities and virtues, which would have been concealed in the bosom of prosperity; as a greatness of mind, independent of every thing without; an unshaken constancy, proof against the severest strokes of fortune; an intrepidity of soul animated at the sight of danger; a fruitfulness in expedients, improving even from crosses and disappointments; a presence of mind, which views, and provides against every thing; and lastly, a firmness of soul, that not only suffices to support itself, but is capable of supporting others. Cyrus wanted this kind of glory.* He himself informs us, that during the whole course of his life, which was pretty long, the happiness of it was never interrupted by any unfortunate accident: and that in all his designs the success had answered his utmost expectation. But he acquaints us, at the same time, with another thing almost incredible, and which was the source of all that moderation and evenness of temper so conspicuous in him, and for which he can never be sufficiently admired; namely, that in the midst of his uninterrupted prosperity he still preserved in his heart a secret fear, proceeding from the changes and misfortunes that might happen: and this prudent fear was not only a preservative against insolence, but even against intemperate joy.† There remains one point more to be examined, with regard to this prince's reputation and character; I mean the nature of his victories and conquests, upon which I shall touch but lightly. If these were founded only upon ambition, injustice, and violence, Cyrus would be so far from meriting the praises bestowed upon him, that he would deserve to be ranked among those famous robbers of the universe, those public enemies to mankind, who acknowledged no right but that of force; who looked upon the common rules of justice, as laws which only private persons were obliged to observe, and derogatory to the majesty of kings; who set no other bounds to their designs and pretensions, than their incapacity of carrying them any farther; who sacrificed the lives of millions to their particular ambition; who made their glory consist in spreading desolation and destruction, like fires and torrents; and who reigned as bears and lions would if they were masters.§ This is indeed the true character of the greatest part of those pretended heroes whom the world admires; and by such ideas as these, we ought to correct the impressions made upon our minds by the undue praises of some historians, and the sentiments of many, deceived by his false images of greatness. I do not know whether I am not biassed in favour of Cyrus, but he seems to me to have been of a very different character from those conquerors, whom I have just now described. Not that I would justify Cyrus in every respect, or represent him as exempt from ambition, which undoubtedly was the soul of all his undertakings; but he certainly reverenced the laws, and knew that there are unjust wars, which render him who wantonly provokes them accountable for all the blood that is shed. Now, every war is of this sort, to which the prince is induced by no other motive than that of enlarging his conquests, of acquiring a vain reputation, or rendering himself terrible to his neighbours. Cyrus, as we have seen, at the beginning of the war, founded all his hopes of success on the justice of his cause, and represented to his soldiers, in order to † Οὐκ εἴα μέγα φρονεῖν, ἐδ ̓ εὐφραίνεσθαι ἐκπεπταμένως. Id in summa fortuna æquius quod validius. Et sua retinere, privatæ domus: de alienis certare, regiam laudem esse.-Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. 1. Quæ alia vita esset, si leones ursique regnarent?-Sen. de Clem. lib. i. cap. 26. *Cyrop. 1. viii. P. 234. Inspire them with the greater courage and confidence, that they were not the aggressors; that it was the enemy that attacked them; and that therefore they were entitled to the protection of the gods, who seemed themselves to have put their arms into their hands, that they might fight in defence of their friends and allies, unjustly oppressed. If we carefully examine Cyrus's conquests, we shall find that they were all consequences of the victories he obtained over Croesus, king of Lydia, who was master of the greatest part of Lesser Asia; and over the king of Babylon, who was master of all upper Asia, and many other countries; both which princes were the aggressors. With good reason, therefore, is Cyrus represented as one of the greatest princes recorded in history; and his reign justly proposed as the model of a perfect government, which it could not be, unless justice had been the basis and foundation of it: Cyrus a Xenophonte scriptus ad justi effigiem imperii.† SECTION IV.-WHEREIN HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON DIFFER IN THEIR ACCOUNTS OF CYRUS. HERODOTUS and Xenophon, who perfectly agree in the substance and most essential part of the history of Cyrus, and particularly in what relates to his expedition against Babylon, and his other conquests, yet differ extremely in the accounts they give of several very important facts, as the birth and death of that prince, and the establishment of the Persian empire. I therefore think myself obliged to give a succinct account of what Herodotus relates as to these points. He tells us, as Justin does after him, that Astyages, king of the Medes, being warned by a frightful dream, that the son who was to be born of his daughter would dethrone him, did therefore marry his daughter Mandane to a Persian of obscure birth and fortune, whose name was Cambyses: this daughter being delivered of a son, the king commanded Harpagus, one of his principal officers. to destroy the infant. He, instead of killing the child, put it into the hands of one of the king's shepherds, and ordered him to leave it exposed in a forest But the child, being miraculously preserved, and secretly brought up by the shepherd's wife, was afterwards known to be the same by his grandfather, who contented himself with banishing him to the most remcte parts of Persia, and vented all his wrath upon the unfortunate Harpagus, whom he invited to a feast, and entertained with the flesh of his own son. Several years after, young Cyrus, being informed by Harpagus who he was, and being encouraged by his counsels and remonstrances, raised an army in Persia, marched against Astyages, came to a battle, and defeated him, and so transferred the empire from the Medes to the Persians. The same Herodotus makes Cyrus die in a manner little becoming so great a conqueror. This prince, according to him, carried his arms against the Scythians; and, after having attacked them, in the first battle, feigned a flight, leaving a great quantity of wine and provisions behind him in the field. The Scythians did not fail to seize the booty. When they had drank freely, and were asleep, Cyrus returned upon them, and obtained an easy victory, taking a vast number of prisoners, among whom was the son of the queen, named Tomyris, who commanded the army. This young captive prince, whom Cyrus refused to restore to his mother, being recovered from his drunken fit, and not able to endure his captivity, killed himself with his own hand. His mother Tomyris, animated with a desire of revenge, gave the Persians a second battle, and feigning a flight, as they had done before, by that means drew them into an ambush, and killed above two hundred thousand of their men, together with their king Cyrus. Then ordering Cyrus's head to be cut off, she flung it into a vessel full of blood, in sulting him at the same time with these opprobrious words, "Now glut thyself with blood, in which thou hast always delighted, and of which thy thirst has always been insatiable."|| Cyrop. 1. i. p. 25, The account given by Herodotus of the infancy of Cyrus, and his first adventures, has much more the air of a romance than of a history. And as to the manner of his death, what probability is there that a prince, so experienced in war, and no less renowned for his prudence than for his bravery, should so easily fall into an ambuscade laid for him by a woman? What the same historian relates concerning his hasty, violent passion, and his childish revenge upon the river Gyndes, in which one of his sacred horses was drowned, and which he immediately caused to be cut by his army into three hundred and sixty channels, is directly repugnant to the idea we have of Cyrus, who was a prince of extraordinary moderation and temper.* Besides, is it at all probable, that Cyrus, who was marching to the conquest of Babylon, should so idly waste his time when so precious to him, should spend the ardour of his troops in such an unprofitable piece of work, and miss the opportunity of surprising the Babylonians, by amusing himself with a ridiculous war with a river instead of carrying it against his enemies.† But what decides this point unanswerably in favour of Xenophon, is the conformity we find between his narrative and the holy Scripture; where we see, that instead of Cyrus's having raised the Persian empire upon the ruins of that of the Medes, as Herodotus relates it, those two nations attacked Babylon together, and united their forces to reduce the formidable power of the BabyJonian monarchy. From whence, then, could so great a difference as there is between these two historians proceed? Heredotus himself explains it to us. In the very place where he gives the account of Cyrus's birth, and in that where he speaks of his death, he acquaints us, that even at that time those two great events were related different ways. Herodotus followed that which pleased him best; for it appears that he was fond of extraordinary and wonderful things, and was very credulous. Xenophon was of a graver disposition and of less credulity; and in the very beginning of his history informs us, that he had taken great care and pains to inform himself of Cyrus's birth, education and character. CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY OF CAMBYSES. As soon as Cambyses was seated on the throne, he resolved to make war against Egypt, for a particular affront, which, according to Herodotus, he pretended to have received from Amasis, of which I have already given an account. But it is more probable, that Amasis, who had submitted to Cyrus, and become tributary to him, might draw this war upon himself, by refusing, after Cyrus's death, to pay the same homage and tribute to his successor, and by attempting to shake off his yoke.‡ Cambyses, in order to carry on the war with success, made vast preparations both by sea and land. The Cypriots and Phoenicians furnished him with ships. As for his land army, he added to his own troops a great number of Grecians, Ionians, and Æolians, which made up the principal part of his forces. But none was of greater service to him in this war, than Phanes of Halicarnassus, who, being the commander of some auxiliary Greeks in the service of Amasis, and being in some manner dissatisfied with that prince, came over to Cambyses, and gave him such intelligence concerning the nature of the country, the strength of the enemy, and the state of his affairs, as very much facilitated the success of his expedition. It was particularly by his advice, that he contracted with an Arabian king, whose territories lay between the confines of Palestine and Egypt, to furnish his army with water during his march through the desert that lay between those two countries: which agreement that prince fulfilled, by *Herod. l. i. c. 189. † Sen. 1. iii. de Ira, c. 21. A. M 3475. Act. J. C. 529. Herod. l. iii. c. 1-3. sending the water on the backs of camels, without which Cambyses could never bave marched his army that way.* Having made all these preparations, he invaded Egypt in the fourth year of his reign When he arrived upon the frontiers, he was informed that Amasis was just dead, and that Psammenitus, his son, who succeeded him, was busy in collecting all his forces, to hinder him from penetrating into his kingdom. Before Cambyses could open a passage into the country, it was necessary he should render himself master of Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt on the side where he invaded it. Now Pelusium was so strong a place, that in all probability it must have stopped him a great while. But, according to Polyænus, to facilitate this enterprise, Cambyses adopted the following stratagem. Being informed that the whole garrison consisted of Egyptians, he placed in the front of his army a great number of cats, dogs, sheep, and other animals, which were looked upon as sacred by that nation, and then attacked the city by storm. The soldiers of the garrison, not daring either to fling a dart, or shoot an arrow that way, for fear of hitting some of those animals, Cambyses became master of the place without opposition.‡ When Cambyses had got possession of the city. Psammenitus advanced with a great army to stop his progress; and a considerable battle ensued between them. But before they engaged, the Greeks, who were in the army of Psammenitus, in order to be revenged of Phanes for his revolt, took his child ren, which he had been obliged to leave in Egypt when he fled, cut their throats between the two camps, and in presence of the two armies drank their blood. This outrageous cruelty did not procure them the victory. The Persians, enraged at so horrid a spectacle, fell upon them with great fury, quickly routed and overthrew the whole Egyptian army, the greatest part of which were killed upon the spot. Those that could save themselves escaped to Memphis.§ On the occasion of this battle, Herodotus takes notice of an extraordinary circumstance, of which he himself was a witness. The bones of the Persians and Egyptians were still in the place where the battle was fought, but separated from one another. The skulls of the Egyptians were so hard, that a violent stroke of a stone would hardly break them; and those of the Persians so soft, that you might break them, or pierce them through, with the greatest ease imaginable. The reason of this difference was, that the former, from their infancy, were accustomed to have their heads shaved, and to go uncovered, whereas the latter had their heads always covered with their tiaras, which is one of their principal ornaments.|| Cambyses, having pursued the fugitives to Memphis, sent a herald into the city, in a vessel of Mitylene, by the river Nile, on which Memphis stood, to summon the inhabitants to surrender. But the people, transported with rage, fell upon the herald, and tore him and all that were with him to pieces. Cambyses, having soon after taken the place, fully revenged the indignity, causing ten times as many Egyptians, of the first nobility, as there had been of his people massacred, to be publicly executed. Among these was the eldest son of Psammenitus. As for the king himself, Cambyses was inclined to treat him kindly He not only spared his life, but appointed him an honourable maintenance. But the Egyptian monarch, little affected with this kind usage, did what he could to raise new troubles and commotions, in order to recover his kingdom; as a punishment for which, he was made to drink bull's blood, and died immediately. His reign lasted but six months, after which all Egypt submitted to the conqueror. On the news of this success, the Lydians, the Cyrenians, and the Barceans, all sent ambassadors with presents to Cambyses, to offer him their submissions. T From Memphis he went to the city of Sais, which was the burying-place of the kings of Egypt. As soon as he entered the palace, he caused the body of Amasis to be taken out of his tomb; and, after having exposed it to a thousand *Herod. l. iii. c. 4-9. Herod. 1 iii. a. 11. Herod. 1. iii. c. 10. Polyan. 1. vii. Idem. c. 13. |