Sham S.Misri
About 550 years before Christ there lived a king whose name was Astyages. Those days there were three kingdoms situated in the heart of Asia. They were Assyria, Media, and Persia. Astyages was the King of Media and Cambyses was the ruling prince of Persia. Astyages had a daughter whose name was Mandane.
When Mandane was young and unmarried, living at her father's palace, king Astyages saw a dream. He had dreamed of a great flood, which destroyed his capital, and submerged a large part of his kingdom. The king thought that it perhaps indicated that after the marriage of his daughter, she should have a son who would rebel against him and snatch the supreme power, thus crushing his kingdom.
To guard against this imagined danger, the king made up his mind that his daughter be married to a husband in some foreign land, far away from Media altogether. He then selected Prince Cambyses, the ruling prince of Persia, for her husband. Persia was at that time a small territory and the distance between the two countries was large. King Astyages thought that in sending his daughter there to be the wife of the prince, he had taken precautions to guard against the danger of his dream. Mandane was accordingly married, and went with her husband to her new home in Persia.
A year later, her father, king Astyages had another dream. He dreamed that a vine tree grew from his daughter’s garden which grew so rapidly and abundantly that it extended itself over the whole land. Vine being a symbol of luck and plenty, the king considered this as an omen of good from his daughter. This awakened his fears again that he was doomed to find a rival for the possession of his kingdom in his daughter Mandane's son and heir. He called his wise men and related his dream to them, and asked for their interpretation. They decided that it meant that Mandane would have a son who would one day become a king.
King was now worried, and he called his daughter to come home and pay a visit to her father. The real purpose of having his daughter with him was that he might destroy her child as soon as one should be born.
The daughter came to her father, and stayed in a house near his palace. Only reliable people were put in charge of her household. A few months passed away, and then Mandane's child was born. On hearing of the birth of a child, the king called one tough man to his court. His name was Harpagus.
The king then ordered Harpagus to take his daughter Mandane's child to his house and put him to death. He was also informed to arrange the burial of the body in any way he thought best. The only thing was that the child was killed.
Harpagus obeyed the king, as it was his duty to do. He received the child. Nobody suspected the object for which the child was taken away. Everyone thought that the child was taken to be dressed with costly robes which his mother and the king had prepared for him.
Although Harpagus had expressed willingness to obey the cruel order of the king, his mind changed as soon as he received the child. He at once sent for a village herdsman named Mitridates to come to his home. In the mean time, Harpagus took the child to his house, and in a very excited manner related the whole thing to his wife. He kept the child down on the floor, leaving it neglected and alone. He then talked with his wife in a hurried and anxious manner in respect to the dreadful situation in which he found himself placed. She asked him what he intended to do. He replied that he himself would not destroy the child. He told his wife that it was the son of Mandane, the king’s grandson. Mandane was the king's daughter. If the king should die, Mandane’s son would succeed him! Harpagus further said that he did not dare to disobey the orders of the king so far as to save the child's life.
While they were talking this herdsman Mitridates came in. He found Harpagus and his wife talking with anxiety and distress, while the child was crying and feeling terrified and hungry.
Harpagus gave the child to the herdsman. He carried it to his hut. It so happened that his wife, whose name was Spaco, had at that very time delivered a child, but it was dead. Her dead son had been born during the absence of her husband, Mitridates. The wife was at grief at the loss of her child. Her anxiety and grief changed at seeing the beautiful babe which her husband brought to her. The herdsman then told his wife the whole story.
He told her that the king had given the child to him to carry it into the mountains and leave it to die. He said in the end that the child was the son of Mandane, the daughter of the king, and he was to be destroyed by the orders of king Astyages himself, for fear that at some future period he might attempt to take over the throne.
She drew the child to her bosom as if she was herself his mother. She begged her husband for his life. She, the herdsman’s wife, Spaco, became more and more earnest in her desires that the child might be saved. She rose from her couch and clasped her husband's knees, and begged him with many tears to grant her request. Her husband did not agree.
A thought then came to Spaco, his wife, that her own dead child might be substituted for the living one, and be exposed in the mountains instead. She proposed this plan, and the herdsman agreed to adopt it. They took off the fine robes of the living child, and put them on the corpse, and then the babe was restored in Spaco's bosom. The herdsman placed his own dead child, completely disguised by the royal robes, in the little basket and left him in the forest.
The herdsman then went to the Harpagus to inform him that the child was dead. The herdsman exhibited the dead child to him, and he was satisfied. Harpagus then ordered the body to be buried.
Thus the child of Mandane, called Cyrus, was brought up in the herdsman's hut, and passed everywhere for Spaco's child.
The king was then informed that his orders had been executed, and that the child was dead. The secret of the child's preservation remained concealed for about ten years. The truth was then discovered-The child was Cyrus the Great.
