[C.2] The father of Cyrus, so runs the story, was Cambyses, a king of the Persians, and one of the Perseidae, who look to Perseus as the founder of their race. His mother, it is agreed, was Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes. Of Cyrus himself, even now in the songs and stories of the East the record lives that nature made him most fair to look upon, and set in his heart the threefold love of man, of knowledge, and of honour. He would endure all labours, he would undergo all dangers, for the sake of glory. [2] Blest by nature with such gifts of soul and body, his memory lives to this day in the mindful heart of ages. It is true that he was brought up according to the laws and customs of the Persians, and of these laws it must be noted that while they aim, as laws elsewhere, at the common weal, their guiding principle is far other than that which most nations follow. Most states permit their citizens to bring up their own children at their own discretion, and allow the grown men to regulate their own lives at their own will, and then they lay down certain prohibitions, for example, not to pick and steal, not to break into another man's house, not to strike a man unjustly, not to commit adultery, not to disobey the magistrate, and so forth; and on the transgressor they impose a penalty. [3] But the Persian laws try, as it were, to steal a march on time, to make their citizens from the beginning incapable of setting their hearts on any wickedness or shameful conduct whatsoever. And this is how they set about their object.