Of all the Persian monarchs Cyrus was the best beloved. Xenophon made
him the hero of his philosophical romance. He is represented as the
incarnation of "sweetness and light." When a mere boy he delights all
with whom he is brought into contact, by his wit and valor. The king of
Media accepts his reproofs and admires his wisdom; the nobles of Media
are won by his urbanity and magnanimity. All historians praise his
simple habits and unbounded generosity. In an age when polygamy was the
vice of kings, he was contented with one wife, whom he loved and
honored. He rejected great presents, and thought it was better to give
than to receive. He treated women with delicacy and captives with
magnanimity. He conducted war with unknown mildness, and converted the
conquered into friends. He exalted the dignity of labor, and scorned all
baseness and lies. His piety and manly virtues may have been exaggerated
by his admirers, but what we do know of him fills us with admiration.
Brilliant in intellect, lofty in character, he was an ideal man, fitted
to be the guide of a noble nation whom he led to glory and honor. Other
warriors of world-wide fame have had, like him, great excellencies,
marred by glaring defects; but no vices or crimes are ascribed to Cyrus,
such as stained the characters of David and Constantine. The worst we
can say of him is that he was ambitious, and delighted in conquest; but
he was a conqueror raised up to elevate a religious race to a higher
plane, and to find a field for the development of their energies,
whatever may be said of their subsequent degeneracy. "The grandeur of
his character is well rendered in that brief and unassuming inscription
of his, more eloquent in its lofty simplicity than anything recorded by
Assyrian and Babylonian kings: 'I am Kurush [Cyrus] the king, the
Achaemenian.'" Whether he fell in battle, or died a natural death in one
of his palaces, he was buried in the ancient but modest capital of the
ancient Persians, Pasargadae; and his tomb was intact in the time of
Alexander, who visited it,--a sort of marble chapel raised on a marble