Cyaxares Quotes

Their degeneration was even more rapid than their rise. Astyages, who succeeded his father Cyaxares, proved again that monarchy is a gamble, in whose royal succession great wits and madness are near allied. He inherited the kingdom with equanimity, and settled down to enjoy it. Under his example the nation forgot its stern morals and stoic ways; wealth had come too suddenly to be wisely used. The upper classes became the slaves of fashion and luxury, the men wore embroidered trousers, the women covered themselves with cosmetics and jewelry, the very horses were often caparisoned in gold.7 These once simple and pastoral people, who had been glad to be carried in rude wagons with wheels cut roughly out of the trunks of trees,8 now rode in expensive chariots from feast to feast.

they used to ride around and plunder people’s belongings. Cyaxares and the Medes invited a great many of them to a feast, got them drunk, and then killed them.

Nabopolassar formed alliances with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians, and with both the Cimmerians and the Scythians.

Cyrus assessed his army’s situation somewhat differently. He was unconcerned, to say the least, to preserve the political balance either within the army or at home, but very concerned that the small size of the army’s most effective branch rendered it unfit for the tasks he had in mind for it. The obvious military solution was to give heavy weapons to the commoners (weapons to be paid for by the frightened Cyaxares) and to induce them, by the promise of equal treatment in the future, to join the ranks of the fighters-at-close-quarters.