Cyrus grew to boyhood, and being accepted by Mandanê as her son,
returned to the court; his grandfather consented to spare his life, but,
to avenge himself on Harpagus, he caused the limbs of the nobleman's own
son to be served up to him at a feast. Thenceforth Harpagus had but
one idea, to overthrow the tyrant and transfer the crown to the young
prince: his project succeeded, and Cyrus, having overcome Astyages,
was proclaimed king by the Medes as well as by the Persians. The real
history of Cyrus, as far as we can ascertain it, was less romantic. We
gather that Kurush, known to us as Cyrus, succeeded his father Cambyses
as ruler of Anshân about 559 or 558 B.C.,* and that he revolted against
Astyages in 553 or 552 B.C.,** and defeated him. The Median army
thereupon seizing its own leader, delivered him into the hands of the
conqueror: Ecbatana was taken and sacked, and the empire fell at one
blow, or, more properly speaking, underwent a transformation (550 B.C.).
The transformation was, in fact, an internal revolution in which the
two peoples of the same race changed places. The name of the Medes lost
nothing of the prestige which it enjoyed in foreign lands, but that of
the Persians was henceforth united with it, and shared its renown: like
Astyages and his predecessors, Cyrus and his successors reigned equally
over the two leading branches of the ancient Iranian stock, but whereas
the former had been kings of the Medes and Persians, the latter became
henceforth kings of the Persians and Medes.***

* The length of Cyrus' reign is fixed at thirty years by
Ctesias, followed by Dinon and Trogus Pompeius, but at
twenty-nine years by Herodotus, whose computation I here
follow. Hitherto the beginning of his reign has been made to
coincide with the fall of Astyages, which was consequently
placed in 569 or 568 B.C., but the discovery of the _Annals
of Nabonidus_ obliges us to place the taking of Ecbatana in