Learning and education were given little attention. It has become a trite and well-known saying that "Persian boys were taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth." The religion of the people placed truth first among the virtues. Their steadfast fidelity to a promise excited wonderment among the nations. Physical, rather than mental, development was sought, and while in the nation's later life the people gave themselves up to indolence, passing the hours with personal adornment and feasting, these pastimes did not characterize their early years. Like the Medes, Persian nobles had several wives, and polygamy was the rule rather than the exception. Women were kept in well-nigh complete seclusion, and no mention is made of them, nor are they seen in pictures adorning the palaces. The attitude assumed toward the sovereign influenced the very character of the people. "The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be, had always occupied from time immemorial. He was the lord and master, absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the sole fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong, irresponsible, irresistible--a sort of God on earth; one whose favor was happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed themselves down with the lowest and humblest obeisance. "The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty; and an unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate will, but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and education, so ingrained into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the sovereign was the first thought, and the principal care of all. If the king suffered, all was lost; if the king escaped, the greatest calamities seemed light and could be endured with patience. The same cheerful submission characterized times of peace. It was here that their loyalty became a defect rather than a virtue. The voice of remonstrance, of rebuke, of warning, was unheard at Court. Tyranny was allowed to indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and extravagances. The father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the crime, felicitated him upon the excellence of his archery. Thus a tone of servility was engendered which, sapping self-respect, tended fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of the people."[2] Such were the tendencies of the embryo state which under the leadership of a great ruler was soon to burst into sudden and brilliant flower, absorbing in a single campaign nations which had never before been united. CYRUS THE GREAT AND THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.