Beacon Lights of History, Volume 04 | Page 7

be educated according to his rank.
Cyrus was now brought up with every honor and the greatest care,
taught to hunt and ride and shoot with the bow like the highest nobles.
He soon distinguished himself for his feats in horsemanship and skill in
hunting wild animals, winning universal admiration, and disarming
envy by his tact, amiability, and generosity, which were as marked as
his intellectual brilliancy,--being altogether a model of reproachless
chivalry.
For some reason, however, the fears and jealousy of Astyages were
renewed, and Cyrus was sent to his father in Persia with costly gifts.
Possibly he was recalled by Cambyses himself, for a father by all the

Eastern codes had a right to the person of his son.
No sooner was Cyrus established in Persia,--a country which it would
seem he had never before seen,--than he was sought by the
discontented Persians to head a revolt against their masters, and he
availed himself of the disaffection of Harpagus, the most influential of
the Median noblemen, for the dethronement of his grandfather. Persia
arose in rebellion against Media. A war ensued, and in a battle between
the conflicting forces Astyages was defeated and taken prisoner, but
was kindly treated by his magnanimous conqueror. This battle ended
the Median ascendency, and Cyrus became the monarch of both Media
and Persia.
Since the Medes belonged to the same Aryan family as the Persians,
and had the same language, religion, and institutions, with slight
differences, and lived among the mountains exposed to an uncongenial
climate with extremes of heat and cold, and were doomed to hard and
incessant labors for a subsistence, and were therefore--that is, the
ordinary people--frugal, industrious, and temperate, it will be seen that
what we have said of Persia equally applies to Media, except the
possession by the latter of political power as wielded by the sovereign
of a larger State.
Before a central power was established in Media, the country had
been--as in all nations in their formative state--ruled by chieftains, who
acknowledged as their supreme lord the King of Assyria, who reigned
in Nineveh. Among these chieftains was a remarkable man called
Deioces, so upright and able that he was elected king. Deioces reigned
fifty-three years wisely and well, bequeathing the kingdom he had
founded to his son Phraortes, under whom Media became independent
of Assyria. His son and successor Cyaxares, who died 593 B.C., was a
successful warrior and conqueror, and was the founder of Median
greatness. With the assistance of Nabopolassar, a Babylonian general
who had also revolted against the Assyrian monarch, Cyaxares
succeeded, after repeated failures, in taking Nineveh and destroying the
great Assyrian Empire which had ruled the Eastern world for several
centuries. The northern and eastern provinces were annexed to Media,

while the Babylonian valley of the Euphrates in the south fell to the
share of Nabopolassar, who established the Babylonian ascendency.
This in its turn was greatly augmented by his son Nebuchadnezzar, one
of the most famous conquerors of antiquity, whose empire became
more extensive even than the Assyrian. He reigned in Babylon with
unparalleled splendor, and made his capital the wonder and the
admiration of the world, enriching and ornamenting it with palaces,
temples, and hanging gardens, and strengthening its defences to such a
marvellous degree that it was deemed impregnable.
Cyaxares the Median meanwhile raised up in Ecbatana a rival power to
that of Babylon, although he devoted himself to warlike expeditions
more than to the adornment of his capital. He penetrated with his
invincible troops as far to the west as Lydia in Asia Minor, then ruled
by the father of Croesus, and thus became known to the Ionian cities
which the Greeks had colonized. After a brilliant reign, Cyaxares
transmitted his empire to an unworthy son,--Astyages, the grandfather
of Cyrus, whose loss of the throne has been already related. With
Astyages perished the Median Empire, which had lasted only about one
hundred years, and Media was incorporated with Persia. Henceforth the
Medes and Persians are spoken of as virtually one nation, similar in
religion and customs, and furnishing equally the best cavalry in the
world. Under Cyrus they became the ascendent power in Asia, and
maintained their ascendency until their conquest by Alexander. The
union between Media and Persia was probably as complete as that
between Burgundy and France, or that of Scotland with England.
Indeed, Media now became the residence of the Persian kings, whose
palaces at Ecbatana, Susa, and Persepolis nearly rivalled those of
Babylon. Even modern Persia comprises the ancient Media.
The reign of Cyrus properly begins with the conquest of Media, or
rather its union with Persia, B.C. 549. We know, however, but little of
the career of Cyrus after he became monarch of both Persia and Media,
until he was forty years