Mithras! unless I had used my fists a hundred times, I swear I could never have got near you at all. Well, you grasped my hand and gave me greeting, and bade me wait beside you, and there I waited, the cynosure of every eye, the envy of every man, standing there all day long, without a scrap to eat or a drop to drink. [54] So now, if any way can be found by which we who have served you longest can get the most of you, well and good: but, if not, pray send me as your messenger once more, and this time I will tell them they can all leave you, except those who were your friends of old.'
[55] This appeal set them all laughing, Cyrus with the rest. Then Chrysantas the Persian stood up and spoke as follows:
'Formerly, Cyrus, it was natural and right that you should appear in public, for the reasons you have given us yourself, and also because we were not the folk you had to pay your court to. We did not need inviting: we were with you for our own sakes. It was necessary to win over the masses by every means, if they were to share our toils and our dangers willingly. [56] But now you have won them, and not them alone; you have it in your power to gain others, and the moment has come when you ought to have a house to yourself. What would your empire profit you if you alone were left without hearth or home? Man has nothing more sacred than his home, nothing sweeter, nothing more truly his. And do you not think,' he added, 'that we ourselves would be ashamed if we saw you bearing the hardships of the camp while we sat at home by our own firesides? Should we not feel we had done you wrong, and taken advantage of you?'
[57] When Chrysantas had spoken thus, many others followed him, and all to the same effect. And so it came about that Cyrus entered the palace, and those in charge brought the treasures from Sardis thither, and handed them over. And Cyrus when he entered sacrificed to Hestia, the goddess of the Hearth, and to Zeus the Lord, and to any other gods named by the Persian priests.
[58] This done, he set himself to regulate the matters that remained. Thinking over his position, and the attempt he was making to govern an enormous multitude, preparing at the same time to take up his abode in the greatest of all famous cities, but yet a city that was as hostile to him as a city could be, pondering all this, he concluded that he could not dispense with a bodyguard for himself. [59] He knew well enough that a man can most easily be assassinated at his meals, or in his bath, or in bed, or when he is asleep, and he asked himself who were most to be trusted of those he had about him. A man, he believed, can never be loyal or trustworthy who is likely to love another more than the one who requires his guardianship. [60] He knew that men with children, or wives, or favourites in whom they delight, must needs love them most: while eunuchs, who are deprived of all such dear ones, would surely make most account of him who could enrich them, or help them if they were injured, or crown them with honour. And in the conferring of such benefits he was disposed to think he could outbid the world. [61] Moreover the eunuch, being degraded in the eyes of other men, is driven to seek the assistance of some lord and master. Without some such protection there is not a man in the world who would not think he had the right to over-reach a eunuch: while there was every reason to suppose that the eunuch would be the most faithful of all servants. [62] As for the customary notion that the eunuch must be weak and cowardly, Cyrus was not disposed to accept it. He studied the indications to be observed in animals: a vicious horse, if gelded, will cease to bite and be restive, but he will charge as gallantly as ever; a bull that has been cut will become less fierce and less intractable, but he will not lose his strength, he will be as good as ever for work; castration may cure a dog of deserting his master, but it will not ruin him as a watch-dog or spoil him for the chase. [63] So, too, with men; when cut off from this passion, they become gentler, no doubt, but not less quick to obey, not less daring as horsemen, not less skilful with the javelin, not less eager for honour. [64] In war and in the chase they show plainly enough that the fire of ambition is still burning in their hearts. And they have stood the last test of loyalty in the downfall of their masters. No men have shown more faithfulness than eunuchs when ruin has fallen on their lords. [65] In bodily strength, perhaps, the eunuchs seem to be lacking, but steel is a great leveller, and makes the weak man equal to the strong in war. Holding this in mind, Cyrus resolved that his personal attendants, from his doorkeepers onwards, should be eunuchs one and all.
[66] This guard, however, he felt was hardly sufficient against the multitude of enemies, and he asked himself whom he could choose among the rest. [67] He remembered how his Persians led the sorriest of lives at home owing to their poverty, working long and hard on the niggard soil, and he felt sure they were the men who would most value the life at his court. [68] Accordingly he selected ten thousand lancers from among them, to keep guard round the palace, night and day, whenever he was at home, and to march beside him whenever he went abroad. [69] Moreover, he felt that Babylon must always have an adequate garrison, whether he was in the country or not, and therefore he stationed a considerable body of troops in the city; and he bade the Babylonians provide their pay, his object being to make the citizens helpless, and therefore humble and submissive. [70] This royal guard that he established there, and the city guard for Babylon, survive to this day unaltered.
Lastly, as he pondered how the whole empire was to be kept together, and possibly another added to it, he felt convinced that his mercenaries did not make up for the smallness of their numbers by their superiority to the subject peoples. Therefore he must keep together those brave warriors, to whom with heaven's help the victory was due, and he must take all care that they did not lose their valour, hardihood, and skill. [71] To avoid the appearance of dictating to them and to bring it about that they should see for themselves it was best to stay with him and remember their valour and their training, he called a council of the Peers and of the leading men who seemed to him most worthy of sharing their dangers and their rewards. [72] And when they were met he began:
'Gentlemen, my friends and allies, we owe the utmost thanks to the gods because they have given us what we believed that we deserved. We are masters to-day of a great country and a good; and those who till it will support us; we have houses of our own, and all the furniture that is in them is ours. [73] For you need not think that what you hold belongs to others. It is an eternal law the wide world over, that when a city is taken in war, the citizens, their persons, and all their property fall into the hands of the conquerors. It is not by injustice, therefore, that you hold what you have taken, rather it is through your own human kindness that the citizens are allowed to keep whatever they do retain.
[74] 'Yet I foresee that if we betake ourselves to the life of indolence and luxury, the life of the degenerate who think that labour is the worst of evils and freedom from toil the height of happiness, the day will come, and speedily, when we shall be unworthy of ourselves, and with the loss of honour will come the loss of wealth. [75] Once to have been valiant is not enough; no man can keep his valour unless he watch over it to the end. As the arts decay through neglect, as the body, once healthy and alert, will grow weak through sloth and indolence, even so the powers of the spirit, temperance, self-control, and courage, if we grow slack in training, fall back once more to rottenness and death. [76] We must watch ourselves; we must not surrender to the sweetness of the day. It is a great work, methinks, to found an empire, but a far greater to keep it safe. To seize it may be the fruit of daring and daring only, but to hold it is impossible without self-restraint and self-command and endless care. [77] We must not forget this; we must train ourselves in virtue from now henceforward with even greater diligence than before we won this glory, remembering that the more a man possesses, the more there are to envy him, to plot against him, and be his enemies, above all when the wealth he wins and the services he receives are yielded by reluctant hands. But the gods, we need not doubt, will be upon our side; we have not triumphed through injustice; we were not the aggressors, it was we who were attacked and we avenged ourselves. [78] The gods are with us, I say; but next to that supreme support there is a defence we must provide out of our own powers alone; and that is the righteous claim to rule our subjects because we are better men than they. Needs must that we share with our slaves in heat and cold and food and drink and toil and slumber, and we must strive to prove our superiority even in such things as these, and first in these. [79] But in the science of war and the art of it we can admit no share; those whom we mean to make our labourers and our tributaries can have no part in that; we will set ourselves to defraud them there; we know that such exercises are the very tools of freedom and happiness, given by the gods to mortal men. We have taken their arms away from our slaves, and we must never lay our own aside, knowing well that the nearer the sword-hilt the closer the heart's desire. So. Does any man ask himself what profit he has gained from the fulfilment of his dreams, if he must still endure, still undergo hunger and thirst and toil and trouble and care? Let him learn the lesson that a man's enjoyment of all good things is in exact proportion to the pains he has undergone to gain them. Toil is the seasoning of delight; without desire and longing, no dish, however costly, could be sweet. [81] Yes, if some spirit were to set before us what men desire most, and we were left to add for ourselves that final touch of sweetness, I say that we could only gain above the poorest of the poor in so far as we could bring hunger for the most delicious foods, and thirst for the richest wines, and weariness to make us woo the deepest slumber. [82] Therefore, we must strain every nerve to win and to keep manhood and nobleness; so that we may
