Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/27

 PROJECTS OF OYRUS. j mastery of the bow and of the javelin, bravery hi the field, daring as well as endurance in hunting wild beasts, and power of drinking much wine without being intoxicated, Cyrus stood preeminent ; and especially so when compared with his elder brother Arta- xerxes, who was at least unwarlike, if not lazy and timid. 1 And although the peculiar virtue of the Hellenic citizen, competence for alternate command and obedience, formed no part of the character of Cyrus, yet it appears that Hellenic affairs and ideas became early impressed upon his mind ; insomuch that on first coming down to Sardis as satrap, he brought down with him strong interest for the Peloponnesian cause, and strenuous antipathy to that ancient enemy by whom the Persian arms had been so signally humbled and repressed. How zealously he cooperated with Lysander and the Peloponnesians in putting down Athens, has been shown in my last preceding volume. 2 An energetic and ambitious youth like Cyrus, having once learnt from personal experience to appreciate the Greeks, was not slow in divining the value of such auxiliaries as instruments of power to himself. To cooperate effectively in the war, it was necessary that he should act to a certain extent upon Grecian ideas, and conciliate the good will of the Ionic Greeks ; so that he came to combine the imperious and unsparing despotism of a Persian prince, with something of the regularity and system belonging to a Grecian administrator. Though younger than Artaxerxes, he seems to have calculated from the first upon succeeding to the Persian crown at the death of his father. So undetermined was the law of succession in the Persian royal family, and so constant the dispute and fratricide on each vacancy of the throne, that such ambitious schemes would appear feasible to a young man of much less ardor than Cyrus. Moreover he was the favorite son of queen Parysatis, 3 who greatly preferred him to his elder brother Arta- xerxes. He was born after the accession of Darius to the throne, while Artaxerxes had been born prior to that event ; and, as thi? latter consideration had been employed seventy years earlier by 1 Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 2-6 ; Xen. Anab. ut sup. 3 Darius had had thirteen children by Parysatis ; but all except Arta xerxes and Cyrus died young. Ktesias asserts that he heard this state 1 ment from Parysatis herself (Ktesias, Persica, c. 49).
 * See Vol. VIII. ch. Ixiv, p. 135.