Histories

and dressed it with all the other child's finery and left it out in the most desolate part of the mountains. Then on the third day after leaving the child out, the cowherd left one of his herdsmen to watch it and went to the city, where he went to Harpagus' house and said he was ready to show the child's dead body.

Harpagus sent the most trusted of his bodyguard, and these saw for him and buried the cowherd's child. So it was buried: and the cowherd's wife kept and raised the boy who was afterwards named Cyrus; but she did not give him that name, but another.

Now when the boy was ten years old, the truth about him was revealed in some such way as this. He was playing in the village where these herdsmen's quarters were, playing in the road with others of his age. The boys while playing chose to be their king this one who was supposed to be the son of the cowherd.

Then he assigned some of them to the building of houses, some to be his bodyguard, one doubtless to be the King's Eye; to another he gave the right of bringing him messages; to each he gave his proper work.

Now one of these boys playing with him was the son of Artembares, a notable Mede; when he did not perform his assignment from Cyrus, Cyrus told the other boys to seize him, and when they did so he handled the boy very roughly and whipped him.