Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/431

 ARTAXERXES. 423 disappointed as any man that his pupil did not succeed to the throne. And for that reason his veracity was the less questioned when he charged Cyrus as though he had been about to he in wait for the king in the temple, and to assault and assassinate him as he was putting off his garment. Some affirm that he was apprehended upon this impeachment, others that he had entered the temple and was pointed out there, as he lay lurking, by the priest. But as he was on the point of being put to death, his mother clasped him in her arms, and, entwining him with the tresses of her hair, joined his neck close to her own, and by her bitter lamentation and intercession to Artaxerxes for him, succeeded in saving his life ; and sent him away again to the sea and to his former prov- ince. This, however, could no longer content him ; nor did he so weU remember his deliveiy as his arrest, his resentment for which made him more eagerly desirous of the kingdom than before. Some say that he revolted from his brother, because he had not a revenue allowed him sufficient for his daily meals ; but this is on the face of it absurd. For had he had nothing else, yet he had a mother ready to supply him with whatever he could desire out of her own means. But the great number of soldiers who were hired from all quarters and maintained, as Xenophon informs us, for his service, by his friends and connections, is in itself a sufficient proof of his riches. He did not assemble them together in a body, desiring as yet to con- ceal his enterprise ; but he had agents everywhere, enlist- ing foreign soldiers upon various pretences ; and, in the mean time, Parysatis, who was with the king, did her best to put aside all suspicions, and Cyrus himself always wrote in a humble and dutiful manner to him, sometimes soliciting favor, sometimes making countercharges against Tisaphernes, as if his jealousy and contest had been