Histories

So saying, he sent a messenger at once to one of Astyages' cowherds, who he knew pastured his herds in the likeliest spots and where the mountains were most infested with wild beasts. The man's name was Mitradates, and his wife was a slave like him; her name was in the Greek language Cyno, in the Median Spako: for “spax” is the Median word for dog.

The foothills of the mountains where this cowherd pastured his cattle are north of Hamadan [48.583,34.766] (inhabited place), Hamadan, Iran, Asia Ecbatana, towards the Black Sea [38,42] (sea)Euxine sea; for the rest of Media is everywhere a level plain, but here, on the side of the Saspires,[*](In the north-western part of Media: modern Azerbaijan [47.5,40.5] (nation), Asia Azerbaijan.) the land is very high and mountainous and covered with woods.

So when the cowherd came in haste at the summons, Harpagus said: “Astyages wants you to take this child and leave it in the most desolate part of the mountains so that it will perish as quickly as possible. And he wants me to tell you that if you do not kill it, but preserve it somehow, you will undergo the most harrowing death; and I am ordered to see it exposed.”

Hearing this, the cowherd took the child and went back the same way and came to his dwelling. Now as it happened his wife too had been on the verge of delivering every day, and as the divinity would have it, she did in fact give birth while the cowherd was away in the city. Each of them was anxious for the other, the husband being afraid about his wife's labor, and the wife because she did not know why Harpagus had so unexpectedly sent for her husband.