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When everything was in order, he began his examination: King of Armenia, said he, I advise you in the first place in this trial to tell the truth, that you may be guiltless of that offence which is hated more cordially than any other. For let me assure you that being caught in a barefaced lie stands most seriously in the way of a man’s receiving any mercy. In the next place, said he, your children and your wives here and also the Armenians present are cognizant of everything that you have done; and if they hear you telling anything else than the facts, they will think that you are actually condemning your own self to suffer the extreme penalty, if ever I discover the truth. Well, Cyrus, said he, ask what you will, and be assured that I will tell the truth, let happen what will as a result of it.

Tell me then, said the other, did you ever have a war with Astyages, my mother’s father, and with the rest of the Medes?Yes, he answered, I did.And when you were conquered by him, did you agree to pay tribute and to join his army, wherever he should command you to go, and to own no forts? Those are the facts. Why, then, have you now failed to pay the tribute and to send the troops, and why have you been building forts? I longed for liberty; for it seemed to me to be a glorious thing both to be free myself and to bequeath liberty to my children.

You are right, said Cyrus; it is a noble thing to fight that one may never be in danger of becoming a slave. But if any one has been conquered in war or in any other way reduced to servitude and is then caught attempting to rob his masters of himself, are you the first man to reward him as an honest man and one who does right, or do you punish him as a malefactor if you catch him? I punish him, said he; for you will not let me[*](The king convicts himself) tell a lie.

Answer each of these questions explicitly then, said Cyrus; if any one happens to be an officer under you and does wrong, do you permit him to continue in office or do you put another in his place? I put another in his place. And what if he has great possessions—do you allow him to continue rich, or do you make him poor? I confiscate all that he may happen to possess, said he. And if you find out that he is trying to desert to the enemy, what do you do? I put him to death, said he; I may as well confess, for why should I convict myself of lying and be put him to death for that, instead of telling the truth?

Then his son, when he heard this, stripped off his turban and rent his garments, and the women cried aloud and tore their cheeks, as if it were all over with their father and they were already lost. But Cyrus bade them be silent and said: Very well, king of Armenia; so that is your idea of justice; in accordance with it, then, what do you advise us to do? Then the Armenian was silent, for he was in a quandary whether to advise Cyrus to put him to death or to propose to him a course opposite to that which he admitted he himself always took.

But[*](Tigranes pleads his father’s case) his son Tigranes put a question to Cyrus, saying: Tell me, Cyrus, since my father seems to be in doubt, may I advise you in regard to him what I think the best course for you? Now Cyrus had observed when Tigranes used to go hunting with him that there was a certain philosopher with him who was an object of admiration to Tigranes; consequently he was very eager to hear what he would say. So he bade him express his opinion with confidence.

Well said Tigranes, if you approve either of my father’s theory or his practice, then I advise you by all means to imitate him. But if you think he has done wrong throughout, I advise you not to imitate him.Well then, said Cyrus, if I should do what is right, I should surely not be imitating the one who does wrong. That is true, said he. Then, according to your reasoning, your father must be punished, if indeed it is right that the one who does wrong should be punished. Which do you think is better for you, Cyrus, to mete out your punishments to your benefit or to your own injury? In the latter case, at least, said he, I should be punishing myself.

Aye, but you would be doing yourself a great injury, said Tigranes, if you should put your friends to death just at the time when it was of the greatest advantage to you to have them. How said Cyrus, could men be of the greatest advantage to me just at the time when they were caught doing wrong?They would be, I think, if at that time they[*](The acquisition of discretion) should become discreet. For it seems to me to be true, Cyrus, said he, that without discretion there is no advantage at all in any other virtue; for what, he continued, could one do with a strong man or a brave man, or what with a rich man or a man of power in the state if he lacked discretion? But every friend is useful and every servant good, if he be endowed with discretion.

Do you mean to say, then,Cyrus answered, that in one day’s time your father has become discreet when he was indiscreet before? Yes said he, I do, indeed. By that you mean to say that discretion is an affection of the soul, as sorrow is, and not an acquisition.[*](Xenophon makes Cyrus apparently accept the Socratic doctrine that wisdom and the other virtues are matters for learning, the results of study and practice—not a mood, like sorrow, anger, or any other emotion.) For I do not suppose that a man could instantly pass from being indiscreet to being discreet, if indeed the one who is to be discreet must first have become wise.

What, have you never observed, Cyrus, said he, that when a man indiscreetly ventures to fight a stronger man than himself and has been worsted, he is instantly cured of his indiscretion toward that particular man? And again, he continued, have you never seen how when one state is in arms against another it is at once willing, when defeated, to submit to the victor instead of continuing the fight?

To what defeat of your father’s do you refer, said Cyrus, that you are so confident that he has been brought to discretion by it? Why that, by Zeus, Tigranes answered, which[*](How the king of Armenia learned discretion) he is conscious of having sustained, inasmuch as when he aimed at securing liberty he has become more of a slave than ever, and as he has not been able to accomplish a single thing of all that he thought he should effect by secrecy or by surprise or by actual force. And he knows that when you desired to outwit him, you did it as effectually as one could do who set out to deceive men blind or deaf or deprived of all their senses; and when you thought you ought to act secretly, you acted with such secrecy that the fortified places which he thought he had provided for his own safety you had secretly turned into prisons for him in advance. And so much did you surpass him in dispatch, that you came from a distance with a large army before he could muster the forces he had at home.