646 



CYRUS 



CYST 



by Touttee (Paris, 1720 ; new ed. 2 vols. 1844) and 

 by Reischl and Rupp (2 vols. 1845-60). There is 

 an English translation by Dean Church in the 

 Oxford Library of the Fathers ( vol. iii. 1838 ). See 

 also works on Cyril by Plitt ( 1855 ), Gonnet ( 1876 ), 

 and Mader(1891). 



Cyrus THE GREAT (Kurus, perhaps from kur, 

 ' a mountain ' ), the founder of the Persian empire. 

 He was the fourth in a line of kings of Anzan or 

 Susiana (called by the Hebrews Elam) who formed 

 a branch of the royal dynasty of the Achoemenides 

 (q.v. ). According to Herodotus, Cyrus was the 

 son of Mandane, daughter of Astyages, king of 

 Media, and the Persian Cambyses. Moved by 

 superstitious fears, Astyages attempted to destroy 

 him in his infancy, but the child was saved by a 

 herdsman, who brought him up as his own son. 

 Being recognised in his boyhood bv Astyages, he 

 was sent to his parents in Persia. Cyrus in course 

 of time rose against Astyages and conquered him. 

 This narrative and the greatly varying accounts 

 of Xenophon, Ctesias, Nicolaus of Damascus, 

 Diodorus, and Trogus Pompeius, formerly re- 

 garded as the authorities for the life Cyrus, 

 have been superseded by the evidence of recently 

 discovered monuments. A new light has been 

 thrown on his history by the discovery of his own 

 cuneiform records on a clay tablet and cylinder 

 recently brought from Babylon to England. Cyrus 

 was the son of Cambyses I., grandson of Cyrus I., 

 and great-grandson of Teispes, conqueror of Elam, 

 who was also the great-grandfather of Hystaspes, 

 the father of Darius (q.v.). From the tablet- 

 inscription we learn that in the sixth year of 

 Nabonidus, king of Babylon (549 B.C.), Cyrus, 

 'king of Elam,' conquered Astyages, king of 

 Media, made him a prisoner, and took his capital, 

 Ecbatana. By the year 546 he had become ' king 

 of Persia.' Year after year was idly spent by 

 Nabonidus at Tema, a suburb of Babylon, while 

 his son (doubtless Belshazzar) was with his army 

 in Akkad (Northern Babylonia). In 538 Cyrus, 

 favoured by a revolt of the tribes on ' the Lower 

 Sea,' or Persian Gulf, advanced on Babylon from 

 the south-east, and, after giving battle to the army 

 of Akkad, took Sippara ( Sepharvaim ) and Babylon 

 itself ' without fighting.' The account of the siege 

 of Babylon by Cyrus recorded by Herodotus must 

 therefore be erroneous. The Greek historian seems 

 to have transferred to the reign of Cyrus events 

 which took place in the reign of Darius. On the 

 eighth day after Cyrus entered Babylon in person, 

 he appointed Gobryas its governor, and that veiy 

 day Nabonidus died. Nabonidus in his distress 

 had brought the images of many local gods to 

 Babylon, so as to protect it from the invader ; and 

 the cylinder-inscription shows very clearly that 

 Cyrus was a polytheist and an idolater, for he 

 there says, 'the gods dwelling within them left 

 their shrines in anger when [Nabonidus] brought 

 them to Babylon,' and, after telling how he had 

 restored them all to their sanctuaries, prays them 

 to intercede before Nebo and 'Merodach my lord,' 

 for himself and Cambyses his son. Cyrus at once 

 began a policy of religious conciliation. The 

 nations who had been carried into captivity in 

 Babylon along with the Jews were restored to 

 their native countries, and allowed to take their 

 gods with them. The empire of Lydia had fallen 

 before the army of Cyrus two years' before (in 540), 

 and after the conquest of Babylonia he was master 

 of all Asia from the Mediterranean to the Hindu 

 Rush. The conqueror's hold over Asia Minor and 

 Syria was much strengthened by his friendly rela- 

 tions with the Pho3nicians and also with the Jews, 

 who received the news of his triumphs with enthusi- 

 astic sympathy as the confirmation of the prophetic 

 aspirations for their national deliverance. In the 



Old Testament he is called the Shepherd and the 

 Anointed of Jehovah, because in 538 he gave 

 the Jews who were living in captivity in Babylon 

 permission to return ; yet it is expressly said of 

 him : ' For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My 

 chosen . . . I ( Jehovah ) have surnamed (or titled) 

 thee, though thou hast not known Me ... I 

 will gird thee, though thou hast not known Me ' 

 (Isa. xlv. 4, 5). The favour which he showed 

 to the Jewish people awoke the hope that he 

 might be won over to faith in Jehovah as the one 

 true God ; but doubtless he was less moved by 

 religious than by political motives to allow the 

 Jews to return to their own land. After the 

 great king had extended the boundaries of his 

 empire from the Arabian desert and the Persian 

 Gulf in the south, to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, 

 and the Caspian in the north, he died in 529 

 according to Herodotus and Diodorus, during an 

 unsuccessful struggle with Tomyris, queen of the 

 Massagetse, on the Jaxartes ; according to Ctesias, 

 of a wound which he had received while conquering 

 the Derbicci on the upper Oxus. The empire of 

 Cyrus was organised under satraps and minor 

 governors, after the manner of the second empire 

 of Assyria. Three years before his death, Cyrus 

 made his son and successor Cambyses ' king of 

 Babylon.' His own title was ' king of the world.' 

 The chief seat of his court was Ecoatana ; during 

 the spring months it was held at his old capital, 

 Susa, or Shushan, in Elam. Cyrus takes a high 

 rank among Asiatic conquerors ; he was a wise and 

 considerate ruler, whose aim was to soften by his 

 clemency the despotism which he was continually 

 extending by the sword. But he did little to con- 

 solidate the empire which he founded, contenting 

 himself with a declaration of allegiance, and leav- 

 ing the government nearly everywhere in the hands 

 of native rulers. He brought the greater part of 

 the Old World (Egypt excepted) under his sway, 

 but left the organisation of his conquests to his 

 successors. The Cyropcedia of Xenophon is obvi- 

 ously an historical romance. See Professor Sayce's 

 Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (2d 

 ed. Lond. 1887); also his Fresh Light from the 

 Ancient Monuments ( 1883). 



Cyrus THE YOUNGER, the second of the sons 

 of Darius Nothus (or Ochus) and Parysatis, was 

 born in 424 B.C. He conspired against his brother 

 Artaxerxes Mnemon, who had succeeded to the 

 throne (404 B.C.). The plot, however, being dis- 

 covered, he was at first sentenced to death, but 

 afterwards pardoned, and even restored to his 

 dignity as satrap of Asia Minor. Here he employed 

 himself in making arrangements for war against 

 his brother, although he concealed his purposes to 

 the very last. In the spring of 401 B.C. he left 

 Sardis at the head of 100,000 Asiatics and 13,000 

 Greek mercenaries, under pretence of chastising 

 the robbers of Pisidia. Artaxerxes being warned 

 of Cyrus's perfidy, made preparations to oppose 

 him, and the two armies encountered each other in 

 the plains of Cunaxa, 500 stadia from Babylon. 

 Cyrus was defeated and slain, although the Greeks 

 fought with the greatest courage, and even routed 

 that portion of Artaxerxes' troops immediately 

 opposed to them. The fortunes of the Greeks, on 

 their retreat through the highlands of Armenia, in 

 severe winter-weather, are recorded by Xenophon 

 in his Anabasis (q.v.). 



Cyst (kystis, 'a bladder'), a word sometimes 

 used in the original sense as applied to hollow 

 organs with thin walls, as the urinary bladder 

 and gall-bladder ; but commonly reserved for the 

 designation of pathological structures or new forma- 

 tions within the body having the bladder form. 

 Cysts may arise in two different ways : ( 1 ) either 



