Astyages

After this time, the destruction by Cyrus son of Cambyses of the sovereignty of Astyages son of Cyaxares, and the growth of the power of the Persians, distracted Croesus from his mourning;

for Cyrus, son of Cambyses, had conquered Astyages and held him in subjection.

Now Astyages, son of Cyaxares and the king of Media, was Croesus ' brother-in-law:

Why, mother,

said Astyages.

said Astyages.

You may hear her blamed by farmers and merchants, and by the rich on the score of their money, and by the beautiful on the score of their bodies, and by Pantheia on the score of her husband, and by Croesus on the score of his son, and by Astyages when he was conquered, and by Polycrates when he was taken.

Or do you not know that Cyrus was a lamp-maker of Astyages, and that, when he so resolved and it seemed good to him, he became at once free and king of all Asia?

And she says that she cares for those whom she destroys, and makes them happy—just as Cyrus once bound Astyages in fetters of gold, as though, plainly, out of care for his grandfather.

And Eudemus, in his Astrological Histories, says that Thales foretold the eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time when the Medes and the Lydians joined battle with one another, in the reign of Cyaxares, the father of Astyages, over the Medes, and of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, over the Lydians.

I do not doubt that Harpagus, too, gave some such counsel to his king and the king of the Persians, offended by which he set before him his own children to feast on, and asked again and again whether the seasoning pleased him;

Herodotus relates that Astyages, king of the Medes, saw in a dream that the bladder of his daughter Mandane, still a virgin, flowed forth into a deluge of Asia;