CYRUS (filb or dl) , Kfipos), the celebrated Persian conqueror of Babylon, who promulgated the first edict for the restoration of the Jews to their own land (Ezra i. t, etc.) We are informed by Strabo that his original name was Agradates (xv. 3, p. 320, ed. Tauchn.); but he assumed that of Kouros, or Khouresh (whichever was the most accurate Persian form) doubtless on ascending the throne. For Ctesias tells us (Photius, Epit. Ctes. ch. xlix.) that the word means the Sun. We may perhaps compare it with the Hebrew kheres, which bears the same sense ; and with the name of the Egyptian deity Horns, or Apollo.
The authorities on which we have to rest for our knowledge of the life of Cyrus are chiefly three. First, Herodotus, who reported the tales concern ing him current in Asia a century later ; but se lected from them with the taste of a Greek epic or romance writer. Secondly, Xenophon, who has made the life of Cyrus the foundation of a philoso phical novel, written in a moral spirit, as unhistori cal as that of Fenelon's Telemaque. Thirdly, The epitome of Ctesias, preserved for us by the patriarch Photius. Ctesias was a Greek phy sician, who stayed seventeen years at the Persian court towards the end of the reign of Darius Nothus, about B. C. 416-400. (See Bahr's Ctesias, p. 15.) According to Diodorus, he drew his histories from the royal archives ; and, in part, that may be true. But a large number of the facts recorded by him would certainly never have been allowed a place in them ; and several great anachronisms which he commits are mistakes of a kind which can scarcely ever occur in books written in the form of annals. It would seem then that his sources of knowledge were not much better than those of Herodotus; but his lengthened stay in Persia so familiarized him with Persian institutions, and multiplied his oppor tunities of access to those sources, that, coteris pari bus, he appears to be a better authority. Unfortu nately, nothing remains to us but a mere epitome of his work.
From these and a few subordinate authorities, we must endeavour to give as good a reply as we can to the chief problems concerning the life of Cyrus.
On the parentage of Cyrus.-1Ierodotus and Xenophon agree that he was son of Cambyses prince of Persia, and of Mandane daughter of Astyages, king of the Median empire. Ctesias denies that there was any relationship at all be tween Cyrus and Astyages. According to him, when Cyrus had defeated and captured Astyages, he adapted him as a grandfather, and invested Amytis, or Amyntis, the daughter of Astyages (whose name is in all probability only another form of Mandane), with all the honours of queen dowager. His object in so doing was to facilitate the submis sion of the more distant parts of the empire, which were not yet conquered ; and he reaped excellent fruit of his policy in winning the homage of the an cient, rich, and remote province of Bactria. Ctesias adds, that Cyrus afterwards married Amytis. It is easy to see that the latter account is by far the more historical, and that the story followed by Herodotus and Xenophon is that which the cour tiers published in aid of the Persian prince's de signs. Yet there is no reason for doubting that, on the father's side, Cyrus belonged to the Achx menid, the royal clan of the military tribe of the Persians.
On the elevation of Cyrus.—It was the frequent practice of the Persian monarchs, and probably therefore of the Medes before them, to choose the provincial viceroys from the royal families of the subject nations, and thereby to leave to the van quished much both of the semblance and of the reality of freedom. This will be sufficient to account for the first steps of Cyrus towards eminence. But as the Persian armies were at that time composed of ruder and braver men than the Medes—(indeed, to this day the men of Shiraz are proverbially braver than those of Isfahan)—the account of Xenophon is credible, that in the general wars of the empire Cyrus won the attachment of the whole army by his bravery; while, as Herodotus tells, the atrocious cruelties of Astyages may have re volted the hearts of the Median nobility.