Thus the burdens which the subject lands had to pay to the king do not seem extraordinarily heavy, and, on the other hand, the rule of the Persians certainly tended to promote their welfare. We have observed that the satraps were commanded to take care for the agriculture and the forests of their provinces, and that special attention was paid to this in the visitation of the provinces. In his palaces and wherever he went the king caused the most beautiful gardens to be made and planted with excellent trees,[392] and the satraps did the same at their residences. The parks at the residence of the satrap of Phrygia-Cappadocia, near Dascyleum, were of great extent, consisting in part of an enclosure for game, in part of open hunting-ground. When Agesilaus of Sparta had laid them waste, the satrap Pharnabazus said to him: "All that my father left to me, beautiful buildings, gardens full of trees and game, which were the delight of my heart, I now see cut down and burnt."[393] At Sardis the satraps of Lydia-Mysia had made several parks of this kind; the most beautiful was adorned with water and meadows, with places for recreation and shade, in a most extraordinary and royal manner.[394] The younger Cyrus enlarged this by a new park. When he showed it to Lysander, the Greek marvelled at the beauty of the trees, the evenness of their growth, the straight rows and well-chosen angles in which they stood and cut each other, the various and delightful odours which met those who walked in it, and declared that he admired yet more the man who had measured out and arranged the whole. The prince replied that he had measured it out and arranged it himself, and had even planted some with his own hands. And when Lysander, looking at the splendid clothes of the prince, his chains and amulets and ornaments and perfumes, seemed to doubt this, Cyrus replied: "I swear by Mithra, that I never take food till I have heated myself into a sweat by martial exercises or garden work."[395]