Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/233

 DEATH OF CYRUS 215 The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full development, gives an interest even to the half- authenticated stories respecting its capture ; but the other exploits ascribed to Cyrus, his invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia, 1 and his attack upon the Massagetae, nomads ruled by queen Tomyris, and greatly resembling the Scythians, across the mysterious river which Herodotus calls Araxes, are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle. 2 He was buried at Pasargadae, in his native province of Persis proper, where his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire, 3 while his memory was held in profound venera- tion among the Persians. Of his real exploits, we know little except their results ; but in what we read respecting him there seems, though amidst con- stant fighting, very little cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as the subject of a moral romance, which for a long time was cited as authentic history, and which even now serves as an authority, expressed or implied, for disputable and even incorrect conclusions. His extraordinary activity and conquests admit of no doubt. He left the Persian empire 4 extending from Sogdiana and the rivers Jaxartes and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the Syrian coast westward, and his successors made no per- manent addition to it except that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judaea were dependencies of Babylon, at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and grandees in Babylonian captivity They seem to have yielded to him, and become his tributaries/ without difficulty ; and the restoration of their captives was con- 1 Arrian, vi, 24, 4. 2 Herodot. i, 205-214; Arrian, v, 4. 14 ; Justin, i, 8 ; Strabo, xi, p. 512. According to Ktesias, Cyrus was slain in an expedition against the Der- bikes, a people in the Caucasian regions. though his army afterwards prove victorious and conquer the country (Ktesise Persica, c. 8-9), see the oomment of Bahr on the passage, in his edition of Ktesias. 3 Strabo. xv, pp. 730, 731 ; Arrian, vi, 29. 4 The tOMTi Kyra, or Kyropolis, on the river Sihon, or Jaxartes, was said to have been founded by Cyrus, it was destroyed by Alexander (Strab< li, pp. 517, 518; Arrian, iv, 2, 2; Cjrtius, vii, 6, 16).
 * Herodot iii 19.