peoples, for a few words of a description which he gave of
the Khoramnians have been preserved to us.

*** Tomaschek identifies Kyra or Kyropolis with the present
Ura-Tepe, but distinguishes it from the Kyreskhata of
Ptolemy, to which he assigns a site near Usgent.

The steppes of Siberia arrested his course on the north, but to the
east, in the mountains of Chinese Turkestan, the Sakas, who were
renowned for their wealth and bravery, did not escape his ambitious
designs. The account which has come down to us of his campaigns against
them is a mere romance of love and adventure, in which real history
plays a very small part. He is said to have attacked and defeated
them at the first onset, taking their King Amorges prisoner; but this
capture, which Cyrus considered a decisive advantage, was supposed to
have turned the tide of fortune against him. Sparêthra, the wife of
Amorges, rallied the fugitives round her, defeated the invaders in
several engagements, and took so many of their men captive, that they
were glad to restore her husband to her in exchange for the prisoners
she had made. The struggle finally ended, however, in the subjection of
the Sakae; they engaged to pay tribute, and thenceforward constituted
the advance-guard of the Iranians against the Nomads of the East. Cyrus,
before quitting their neighbourhood, again ascended the table-land, and
reduced Ariana, Thatagus, Harauvati, Zaranka, and the country of Cabul;
and we may well ask if he found leisure to turn southwards beyond Lake
Hamun and reach the shores of the Indian Ocean. One tradition, of little
weight, relates that, like Alexander at a later date, he lost his army
in the arid deserts of Gedrosia; the one fact that remains is that the
conquest of Gedrosia was achieved, but the details of it are lost. The
period covered by his campaigns was from five to six years, from 545 to