The doorway is narrow, and so low that a man of medium statue finds some difficulty in entering.  It is surmounted by a hollow moulding, quite Egyptian in style, and was closed by a two-leaved stone door.  The golden coffin rested on a couch of the same metal, covered with precious stuffs; and a circular table, laden with drinking-vessels and ornaments enriched with precious stones, completed the furniture of the chamber.  The body of the conqueror remained undisturbed on this spot for two centuries under the care of the priests; but while Alexander was waging war on the Indian frontier, the Greek officers, to whom he had entrusted the government of Persia proper, allowed themselves to be tempted by the enormous wealth which the funerary chapel was supposed to contain.

[Illustration:  129.jpg THE TOMB OP CYRUS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the heliogravure of Dieulafoy.

They opened the coffin, broke the couch and the table, and finding them too heavy to carry away easily, they contented themselves with stealing the drinking-vessels and jewels.  Alexander on his return visited the place, and caused the entrance to be closed with a slight wall of masonry; he intended to restore the monument to its former splendour, but he himself perished shortly after, and what remained of the contents probably soon disappeared.  After the death of Cyrus, popular imagination, drawing on the inexhaustible materials furnished by his adventurous career, seemed to delight in making him the ideal of all a monarch should be; they attributed to him every virtue—­gentleness, bravery, moderation, justice, and wisdom.  There is no reason to doubt that he possessed the qualities of a good general—­activity, energy, and courage, together with the astuteness and the duplicity so necessary to success in Asiatic conquest—­but he does not appear to have possessed in the same degree the gifts of a great administrator.  He made no changes in the system of government which from the time of Tiglath-pileser III. onwards had obtained among all Oriental sovereigns; he placed satraps over the towns and countries of recent acquisition, at Sardes and Babylon, in Syria and Palestine, but without clearly defining their functions or subjecting them to a supervision sufficiently strict to ensure the faithful performance of their duties.  He believed that he was destined to found a single empire in which all the ancient empires were to be merged, and he all but carried his task to a successful close:  Egypt alone remained to be conquered when he passed away.

His wife Kassandane, a daughter of Pharnaspes, and an Achaemenian like himself, had borne him five children; two sons, Cambyses* and Smerdis,** and three daughters, Atossa, Roxana, and Artystone.***