creature of Auramazda, the Medes carried the subject further, and spoke of the exposing of Cyrus, which was then brought into combination with the enmity of Harpagus to Astyages; the origin of this was the refusal of Harpagus to put the Persian boy to death, which Astyages punished by the Thyestean banquet. Thus owing to the crime of Astyages, Harpagus their own countryman became filled with desire for vengeance; he is the counsellor of Cyrus, the author and leader of the revolt. Median poetry of this kind has been followed by Herodotus. He has told us already that he would narrate the life of Cyrus as it was given by the Persians, who had no desire to exaggerate their account, but these Persians are undoubtedly the Medes. The Median origin of his story is placed beyond doubt by the words which the captive Astyages addresses to Harpagus, and by the fact that with him it is a Mede who is the decisive counsellor and guide of Cyrus, while in the other version it is a Persian. Beside the reason given by Herodotus himself for choosing this version, others no doubt had influence. The Delphian oracle bade Croesus take to flight "whenever a mule should govern the Medes." According to the Medes Cyrus was the son of a Persian father and Median mother. The sufferings and acts of Harpagus formed the centre of the Median version, and he was only too well known to the Greeks on the west coast of Asia Minor. With the warning portents, and the exposure of Cyrus, the Median version brought Herodotus on the familiar ground of Greek legend, in which similar oracles, futile exposing of children, and deceptive explanations were common. Finally, the vengeance which overtook Astyages suits the ethical feeling of Herodotus. We may assume therefore that his narrative faithfully represents the contents of Median poems. These could already have changed the dog which was said to have suckled Cyrus into the herdman's wife, who was called by the name of "dog." But inasmuch as Herodotus does not "intend to exaggerate," as he observes that "the dog was everything in the mouth of Cyrus," and "his parents caught this up in order to represent the preservation of Cyrus as a work of the gods,"--as he further remarks "that Cyrus owing to his origin was regarded as more than human,"[546]--this rationalising turn may have proceeded from the historian himself. In the Persian tradition Cyrus was certainly suckled and guarded by the dog, and this trait is retained in the account of Deinon-Trogus, though united with the story of the exposure. But Deinon has at the same time proved the exposure impossible, for he states that Cyrus came to the throne in his fortieth year, and lived till his seventieth.[547] If this were true, the exposure and the command of Astyages respecting it would fall to the ground, for Cyrus would have seen the light in the year 599 B.C., _i.e._ some years before the accession of Astyages, even if we allow the latter the longer reign which Eusebius assigns to him.