Histories

But the Scythians who pillaged the temple, and all their descendants after them, were afflicted by the goddess with the “female” sickness: and so the Scythians say that they are afflicted as a consequence of this and also that those who visit Scythian territory see among them the condition of those whom the Scythians call “Hermaphrodites”.[*](The derivation of this word is uncertain; it is agreed that the disease was a loss of virility. In Hdt. 4.67 e)narh/s = a)ndro/gonos.)

The Scythians, then, ruled Asia (continent)Asia for twenty-eight years: and the whole land was ruined because of their violence and their pride, for, besides exacting from each the tribute which was assessed, they rode about the land carrying off everyone's possessions.

Most of them were entertained and made drunk and then slain by Cyaxares and the Medes: so thus the Medes took back their empire and all that they had formerly possessed; and they took Nineveh (deserted settlement), Ninawa, Iraq, Asia Ninus (how, I will describe in a later part of my history), and brought all Assyria except the province of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon under their rule.

Afterwards, Cyaxares died after a reign of forty years (among which I count the years of the Scythian domination) and his son Astyages inherited the sovereignty. Astyages had a daughter, whom he called Mandane: he dreamed that she urinated so much that she filled his city and flooded all of Asia (continent)Asia. He communicated this vision to those of the Magi who interpreted dreams, and when he heard what they told him he was terrified;

and presently, when Mandane was of marriageable age, he feared the vision too much to give her to any Mede worthy to marry into his family, but married her to a Persian called Cambyses, a man whom he knew to be wellborn and of a quiet temper: for Astyages held Cambyses to be much lower than a Mede of middle rank.