Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/202

 184 HISTORY OF GREECfc. grandson of Astyages, goes even beyond the story of Romulua iuid Remus in respect to tragical incident and contrast. Astya- ges, alarmed by a dream, condemns the new-born infant of his daughter Mandane 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. 1 Thus preserved, and afterwards brought up as the herdsman's child, Cyrus manifests great superiority both physi- cal 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 Astyages, 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 Har- pagus, however, Astyages 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 Astyages for this Thyestean meal. He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and mother in Persia, to head a revolt 1 That this was the real story a close parallel of Romulus and Remus we may see by Herodotus, i, 122. Some rationalizing Greeks or Per- sians transformed it into a more plausible tale, that the herdsman's wife who suckled the boy Cyrus was named K.VVU (Kvuv is a dog, male or female) ; contending that this latter was the real basis of fact, and that the intervention of the bitch was an exaggeration built upon the name of the woman, in order that the divine protection shown to Cyrus might be still more manifest, ot Je roneec; napa?.a(36vTe TO ovvofaa TOVTO (iva $ store- pwc 6oKT) roiat Hspariai Ttepiflvai a$i 6 7raif),arf f ?a/.ov Quriv uf iKKEi/ievov Kvpov KVUV i^edpe^f iv&evTev fiev f] (j>urif airy nexupqKfe. In the first volume of this History, I have noticed various transforma- tions operated by Palaephatns and others upon the Greek mythes, the ram which carried Phryxus and Helle across the Hellespont is represented to us as having been in reality a man named Krius, who aided their flight, the winged horse which carried Bellerophon was a ship named Pegasus, etc. This same operation has here been performed upon the story of the suck- ling of Cyrus; for we shall run little risk in affirming that the miraculous story is the older of the two. The feelings which welcome a mirac'ilous story are early and primitive ; those which break down the miracle into commonplace fact are of subsequent growth.