The rise and fall of Oriental dynasties has been in all times distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy, acquires dominion,—while his successors, abandoning themselves to sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive and irascible dispositions, become in process of time victims to those same qualities in a stranger which had enabled their own father to seize the throne. Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian empire, first the subject and afterwards the dethroner of the Median Astyagês, corresponds to this general description, as far at least as we can pretend to know his history. For in truth, even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler of Media, are very imperfectly known, whilst the facts which preceded his rise up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we have to choose between different accounts at variance with each other, and of which the most complete and detailed is stamped with all the character of romance. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is memorable and interesting, considered with reference to the Greek mind, and as a philosophical novel:[317] that it should have been quoted so largely as authority on matters of history, is only one proof among many how easily authors have been satisfied as to the essentials of historical evidence. The narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between Cyrus and Astyagês, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it makes Cyrus son of Kambysês and Mandanê, and grandson of Astyagês, goes even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical incident and contrast. Astyagês, alarmed by a dream, condemns the new-born infant of his daughter Mandanê to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom the order is given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen, who exposes it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a bitch.[318] Thus preserved, and afterwards brought up as the herdsman’s child, Cyrus manifests great superiority both physical and mental, is chosen king in play by the boys of the village, and in this capacity severely chastises the son of one of the courtiers; for which offence he is carried before Astyagês, who recognizes him for his grandson, but is assured by the Magi that his dream is out, and that he has no farther danger to apprehend from the boy,—and therefore permits him to live. With Harpagus, however, Astyagês is extremely incensed, for not having executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be slain, and served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal banquet. The father, apprized afterwards of the fact, dissembles his feelings, but conceives a deadly vengeance against Astyagês for this Thyestean meal. He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and mother in Persia, to head a revolt of the Persians against the Medes; whilst Astyagês—to fill up the Grecian conception of madness