The three Asiatic empires.--Marriage of Cambyses.--Story of Mandane.--Dream of Astyages.--Astyages' second dream.--Its interpretation.--Birth of Cyrus.--Astyages determines to destroy him.--Harpagus.--The king's command to him.--Distress of Harpagus.--His consultation with his wife.--The herdsman.--He conveys the child to his hut.--The herdsman's wife.--Conversation in the hut.--Entreaties of the herdsman's wife to save the child's life.--Spaco substitutes her dead child for Cyrus.--The artifice successful.--The body buried.--Remorse of Astyages.--Boyhood of Cyrus.--Cyrus a king among the boys.--A quarrel.--Cyrus summoned into the presence of Astyages.--Cyrus's defense.--Astonishment of Astyages.--The discovery.--Mingled feelings of Astyages.--Inhuman monsters.--Astyages determines to punish Harpagus.--Interview between Artyages and Harpagus.--Explanation of Harpagus.--Dissimulation of Astyages.--He proposes an entertainment.--Astyages invites Harpagus to a grand entertainment.--Horrible revenge.--Action of Harpagus.--Astyages becomes uneasy.--The magi again consulted.--Advice of the magi.--Astyages adopts it.--Cyrus sets out for Persia.--His parents' joy.--Life at Cambyses's court.--Instruction of the young men.--Cyrus a judge.--His decision in that capacity.--Cyrus punished.--Manly exercises.--Hunting excursions.--Personal appearance of Cyrus.--Disposition and character of Cyrus.--A universal favorite. There are records coming down to us from the very earliest times of three several kingdoms situated in the heart of Asia-Assyria, Media, and Persia, the two latter of which, at the period when they first emerge indistinctly into view, were more or less connected with and dependent upon the former. Astyages was the King of Media; Cambyses was the name of the ruling prince or magistrate of Persia. Cambyses married Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, and Cyrus was their son. In recounting the circumstances of his birth, Herodotus relates, with all seriousness, the following very extraordinary story: While Mandane was a maiden, living at her father's palace and home in Media, Astyages awoke one morning terrified by a dream. He had dreamed of a great inundation, which overwhelmed and destroyed his capital, and submerged a large part of his kingdom. The great rivers of that country were liable to very destructive floods, and there would have been nothing extraordinary or alarming in the king's imagination being haunted, during his sleep, by the image of such a calamity, were it not that, in this case, the deluge of water which produced such disastrous results seemed to be, in some mysterious way, connected with his daughter, so that the dream appeared to portend some great calamity which was to originate in her. He thought it perhaps indicated that after her marriage she should have a son who would rebel against him and seize the supreme power, thus overwhelming his kingdom as the inundation had done which he had seen in his dream.