[317] Among the lost productions of Antisthenês the contemporary of Xenophon and Plato, and emanating like them from the tuition of Sokratês, was one Κῦρος, ἢ περὶ Βασιλείας (Diogenes Laërt. vi, 15).
[318] That this was the real story—a close parallel of Romulus and Remus—we may see by Herodotus, i, 122. Some rationalizing Greeks or Persians transformed it into a more plausible tale,—that the herdsman’s wife who suckled the boy Cyrus was named Κυνώ (Κυών is a dog, male or female); contending that this latter was the real basis of fact, and that the intervention of the bitch was an exaggeration built upon the name of the woman, in order that the divine protection shown to Cyrus might be still more manifest,—οἱ δὲ τοκέες παραλαβόντες τὸ οὔνομα τοῦτ (ἵνα θειοτέρως δοκέῃ τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι περιεῖναί σφι ὁ παῖς), κατέβαλον φάτιν ὡς ἐκκείμενον Κῦρον κύων ἐξέθρεψε· ἐνθεῦτεν μὲν ἡ φάτις αὐτὴ κεχωρήκεε.
In the first volume of this History, I have noticed various transformations operated by Palæphatus and others upon the Greek mythes,—the ram which carried Phryxus and Hellê across the Hellespont is represented to us as having been in reality a man named Krius, who aided their flight,—the winged horse which carried Bellerophon was a ship named Pegasus, etc.
This same operation has here been performed upon the story of the suckling of Cyrus; for we shall run little risk in affirming that the miraculous story is the older of the two. The feelings which welcome a miraculous story are early and primitive; those which break down the miracle into a common-place fact are of subsequent growth.
[319] Herodot. i, 95. Ὡς ὦν Περσέων μετεξέτεροι λέγουσιν, οἱ μὴ βουλόμενοι σεμνοῦν τὰ περὶ Κῦρον, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἐόντα λέγειν λόγον, κατὰ ταῦτα γράψω· ἐπιστάμενος περὶ Κύρου καὶ τριφασίας ἄλλας λόγων ὁδοὺς φῆναι. His informants were thus select persons, who differed from the Persians generally.
The long narrative respecting the infancy and growth of Cyrus is contained in Herodot. i, 107-129.
[320] See the Extracts from the lost Persian History of Ktêsias, in Photius Cod. lxxii, also appended to Schweighaüser’s edition of Herodotus, vol. iv, p. 345. Φησὶ δὲ (Ktêsias) αὐτὸν τῶν πλειόνων ἃ ἱστορεῖ αὐτόπτην γενόμενον, ἢ παρ᾽ αὐτῶν Περσῶν (ἔνθα τὸ ὁρᾷν μὴ ἐνεχώρει) αὐτήκοον καταστάντα, οὕτως τὴν ἱστορίαν συγγράψαι.
To the discrepancies between Xenophon, Herodotus, and Ktêsias, on the subject of Cyrus, is to be added the statement of Æschylus (Persæ, 747), the oldest authority of them all, and that of the Armenian historians: see Bähr ad Ktesiam, p. 85: comp. Bähr’s comments on the discrepancies, p. 87.
[321] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8, 26.
[322] Herodot. i, 71-153; Arrian, v, 4; Strabo, xv, p. 727; Plato, Legg. iii, p. 695.