obtained some successes, but laid down arms on hearing that Cyrus had married a daughter of Astyages.* This tradition was prevalent at a time when the Achaemenians were putting forward the theory that they, and Cyrus before them, were the legitimate successors of the old Median sovereigns; they welcomed every legend which tended to justify their pretensions, and this particular one was certain to please them, since it attributed the submission of Bactriana not to a mere display of brute force, but to the recognition of an hereditary right.  The annexation of this province entailed, as a matter of course, that of Margiana, of the Khoramnians,** and of Sogdiana.  Cyrus constructed fortresses in all these districts, the most celebrated being that of Kyropolis, which commanded one of the principal fords of the Iaxartes.***

     * This is the campaign which Ctesias places before the
     Lydian war, but which Herodotus relegates to a date after
     the capture of Sardes.

     ** Ctesias must have spoken of the submission of these
     peoples, for a few words of a description which he gave of
     the Khoramnians have been preserved to us.

     *** Tomaschek identifies Kyra or Kyropolis with the present
     Ura-Tepe, but distinguishes it from the Kyreskhata of
     Ptolemy, to which he assigns a site near Usgent.

The steppes of Siberia arrested his course on the north, but to the east, in the mountains of Chinese Turkestan, the Sakas, who were renowned for their wealth and bravery, did not escape his ambitious designs.  The account which has come down to us of his campaigns against them is a mere romance of love and adventure, in which real history plays a very small part.  He is said to have attacked and defeated them at the first onset, taking their King Amorges prisoner; but this capture, which Cyrus considered a decisive advantage, was supposed to have turned the tide of fortune against him.  Sparethra, the wife of Amorges, rallied the fugitives round her, defeated the invaders in several engagements, and took so many of their men captive, that they were glad to restore her husband to her in exchange for the prisoners she had made.  The struggle finally ended, however, in the subjection of the Sakae; they engaged to pay tribute, and thenceforward constituted the advance-guard of the Iranians against the Nomads of the East.  Cyrus, before quitting their neighbourhood, again ascended the table-land, and reduced Ariana, Thatagus, Harauvati, Zaranka, and the country of Cabul; and we may well ask if he found leisure to turn southwards beyond Lake Hamun and reach the shores of the Indian Ocean.  One tradition, of little weight, relates that, like Alexander at a later date, he lost his army in the arid deserts of Gedrosia; the one fact that remains is that the conquest of Gedrosia was achieved, but the details of it are lost.  The period covered by his campaigns was from five to six years, from 545 to 539, but Cyrus