16 REV. ANDREW CRAIG ROBINSON, M.A., ON DARIUS 



paternal god {Alt irarpww) and to the other gods, started 

 on his military expedition, and his father joined his escort. 

 But when they came forth from the palace, lightnings 

 and thunders auspicious to him broke out, and when these 

 appeared — seeking for no other omen — they set forth upon 

 their march, under the conviction that in presence of these 

 portents of the most mighty god there could be nothing lacking. 

 As they were going along, the father and son talked together on 

 thoughts relating to religion and to war. In regard to religion 

 Cambyses reminded his son that he had had him well instructed 

 in all matters concerned with the judging of omens, and he said 

 that he had done this in order that Cyrus should be perfectly 

 competent to judge of the significance of omens, whether in 

 sacrifices or in heavenly portents, so as not to be in the power 

 of soothsayers, who might, if they had any purpose to serve, 

 deceive him by telling him things different from those really 

 indicated by the gods ; or, again, he might be on some occasion, 

 perhaps, without any soothsayer, and might be at a loss what to 

 make of the divine signs. But on the other hand when, through 

 knowledge of the science of soothsaying, he should know for 

 himself the things which were counselled by the gods, he might 

 obey them. Cyrus assented to all this, and discussing such sub- 

 jects as these, and also matters connected with the military 

 expedition on which Cyrus was entering, they, reached the frontiers 

 of Persia ; and when an eagle, appearing on the right, went 

 before them, having prayed to the gods and heroes who held 

 the Persian land, to speed them propitiously and with good 

 favour, so they proceeded to cross the frontiers. But when they 

 had crossed, they prayed again to the gods who held the Median 

 land to receive them propitiously and with good favour. And 

 having done these things, and having embraced each other, as 

 was natural, the father went back to the city again, but Cyrus 

 marched into Media to Cyaxares. 



I have brought these passages in the Cyropaedia so fully 

 before you, because I consider they afford a key to understanding 

 what were the religious conceptions of Cyrus, as we find them 

 in the Cyropaedia. It has in the past appeared sometimes to 

 have been the idea of writers that Cyrus was a strict monotheist. 

 This, however, is not the hght in which Xenophon has portrayed 

 him in the Cyropaedia. The rehgious ceremonies brought 

 before us in these passages just quoted, and which are on all 

 similar occasions observed, in which we find him suppHcating 



