The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece
History
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece
Literature -- Collections
With regard to justice, if any appeared to him inclined to display
that virtue, he made a point of making such men richer than those who
sought to profit by injustice. Accordingly, while in many other
respects his affairs were administered judiciously, he likewise
possest an army worthy of the name. For it was not for money that
generals and captains came from foreign lands to enter into his
service, but because they were persuaded that to serve Cyrus well
would be more profitable than any amount of monthly pay. Besides, if
any one executed his orders in a superior manner, he never suffered
his diligence to go unrewarded; consequently, in every undertaking,
the best-qualified officers were said to be ready to assist him.
If he noticed any one that was a skilful manager, with strict regard
to justice, stocking the land of which he had the direction, and
securing income from it, he would never take anything from such a
person, but was ever ready to give him something in addition; so that
men labored with cheerfulness, acquired property with confidence, and
made no concealment from Cyrus of what each possest; for he did not
appear to envy those who amassed riches openly, but to endeavor to
bring into use the wealth of those who concealed it.
Whatever friends he made, and felt to be well disposed to him, and
considered to be capable of assisting him in anything that he might
wish to accomplish, he is acknowledged by all to have been most
successful in attaching them to him. For, on the very same account on
which he thought that he himself had need of friends--namely, that he
might have cooperators in his undertakings--did he endeavor to prove
an efficient assistant to his friends in whatever he perceived any of
them desirous of effecting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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