(1) With his lifetime having advanced in this way, and Cyrus being very old, he arrived in Persia for the seventh time during his reign. Both his father and mother had long since died, as was to be expected. Cyrus made the customary sacrifices, began the dance for the Persians in accord with the ancestral ways, and gave gifts to everyone, just as was his habit. (2) After going to sleep in the king’s palace, he saw a dream like this: Someone more than human32 seemed to him to approach and say, “Get ready, Cyrus, for you are soon going away to gods.” On seeing this dream, he woke up and thought he almost certainly knew that the end of his life was at hand. (3) So he immediately got victims and sacrificed on the mountain peaks, as Persians do, to ancestral Zeus, to the Sun, and to the other gods, and he prayed as follows: “Ancestral Zeus, Sun, and all gods, accept these gifts for the completion of many noble actions and these gifts of gratitude because you gave signs to me in sacrificial victims, in heavenly signs, in birds, and in omens, both as to what I must do and what I must not. Let my gratitude to you be great because I knew your care and never began to think thoughts higher than a human being should over my good fortune. I ask you to give happiness now to my children, my wife, my friends, and my fatherland, and to give me an end of a sort similar to the life you have given me.”
(4) Having done such things and gone home, he thought that he would rest pleasantly, and he lay down. When it was time, those so assigned approached and bade him wash, yet he said that he was resting pleasantly. Others so assigned, when it was time, put his dinner beside him, but his soul was not inclined to food. Yet he did seem to thirst, and he drank pleasantly. (5) When these same things happened to him on the second and third days, he called his sons. They happened to have accompanied him and to have been in Persia. He called also his friends and the Persian magistrates. When all were present, he began a talk like this: (6) “My sons and all my friends who are here, the end of my life is now at hand. I know this clearly from many things. When I die, you must say and do everything about me as about one who was happy, for when I was a boy, I think that I enjoyed the fruits of what is believed to be noble for the boys;33 and when I was a youth, those for the youths; and when I became a mature man, those for the men. As time went forward, I thought that I recognized my power to be always on the increase, so that I did not ever perceive even my old age to be weaker than my youth, and I do not know that I undertook or desired anything that I did not obtain. (7) And I beheld my friends becoming happy because of me, and my enemies enslaved by me. And my fatherland, which before lived privately, I leave now as foremost in honor in Asia. Of what I acquired, I know of nothing that I did not preserve. And throughout the past, I fared just as I prayed I would, yet a fear accompanied me that in the time ahead I might see, hear, or suffer something harsh, and it did not allow me to think so very highly of myself or to take extravagant delight. (8) Now, if I die, I shall leave you alive, my sons, you who the gods granted to be born to me. I leave my fatherland and my friends happy. (9) Consequently, how should I not justly obtain for all time the memory of being blessedly happy?34 “I must now bequeath the kingship, and do so clearly, lest from being ambiguous it bring you trouble. Now I am similarly fond of you both, sons; but to deliberate and to lead, toward whatever may seem to be opportune, I assign to the one born earlier and, as is to be expected, more experienced. (10) I myself was educated like this by my fatherland and yours, to defer to my elders, not only to older brothers but also to other citizens, whether walking, sitting down, or speaking. And as for you, sons, I educated you like this from the beginning, to honor those who are older and to be honored ahead of those who are younger. So accept this, on the grounds that I am saying what is ancient, habitual, and lawful.
(11) “And you, Cambyses, have the kingship, since both gods and I, as far as I can, give it to you. To you, Tanaoxares, I give the satrapy over the Medes, the Armenians, and, thirdly, the Cadusians. In giving these things to you I believe that whereas I bequeath a greater empire and the name of king to your elder brother, to you I bequeath a happiness more free from pain. (12) I do not see in what sort of human delight you will be lacking; to the contrary, everything that seems to delight human beings will be at hand for you. As for loving things that are hard to accomplish, for being anxious over many things, for being unable to be at peace because you are goaded to compete against my deeds, for plotting and for being plotted against, these things must of necessity accompany the king more than you, and these, be assured, provide many interruptions to the leisure needed for taking delight.
(13) “You also know, Cambyses, that this golden scepter is not what preserves the kingship; rather, trustworthy friends are the truest and safest scepter for kings. Do not believe that human beings are born trustworthy by nature, for the same people would then be apparent as trustworthy to all, just as other natural things are apparent as the same to all. But each person needs to make people trustworthy to himself. The acquisition [of trustworthy people] is in no way possible by force, however, but rather by benefaction. (14) If you try to make any others fellow guardians of your kingship, do not begin from any place sooner than from one born from the same source. Human beings who are fellow citizens are more familiar than those from other places, and those who eat together are more familiar than those who tent separately.35 As for those who have been begotten from the same seed, have been nourished by the same mother, have grown up in the same house, are cherished by the same parents, and have called upon the same mother and the same father, how are they not the most familiar of all? (15) Let the two of you never make pointless those goods to which the gods lead for the sake of familiarity among brothers, but immediately build other friendly deeds on top of them. In this way your friendship will always be unsurpassable by others. He who takes forethought for his brother takes care of himself. For whom else is a brother who is great so noble as for his brother? Who else will be so honored because of a great man’s power as his brother? Whom will someone fear to treat unjustly so much as the brother of one who is great?”
(16) Do not then let anyone obey him more quickly than you, or report with more enthusiasm. For what is his, whether good or terrible, is closer to no one than to you.36 Consider this too: By gratifying whom rather than him could you expect to obtain greater things? By helping whom could you receive in return a stronger ally? To whom is it more shameful not to be friendly than to a brother? Whom is it more noble to honor over all others than a brother? It is only when a brother is foremost for his brother, Cambyses, that the envy from others does not reach him.
(17) “By ancestral gods,37 my sons, honor each other, if you care at all about gratifying me, for surely this, at least, is something you do not think you know clearly, that I will no longer exist when I end my human life, and not even now have you ever seen my soul, but you beheld it as existing through the things it accomplished. (18) Have you not yet considered what fear the souls of those who have suffered unjustly inflict upon those who are stained with their blood, and what avengers they send upon the impious? Do you think the honors to the dead would still continue if their souls were not lords of anything? (19) I, at least, my sons, was never persuaded of this, that the soul is alive as long as it is in a mortal body, but whenever it becomes free of it, it is dead, for I see that for as long a time as soul is in mortal bodies, it makes them alive. (20) Nor have I been persuaded that the soul will be senseless when it becomes sundered from the senseless body. But when mind is separated, unmixed and pure, then too it is likely to be most prudent. When a human being is dissolved, his several parts are evident going away to what is of like kind with them, except for the soul. This alone is not seen either when it is present or when it goes away. (21) Consider that of things human, nothing is nearer to death than sleep; but then, surely, the soul of the human being appears most divine and then it has some foresight of things to come, for then, as it seems, it is especially free.
(22) “So if these things are just as I think, and the soul leaves the body behind, do what I ask also out of respect for my soul. If they are not so, but if instead the soul remains in the body and dies along with it, then out of fear of the everlasting, all-seeing, and all-powerful gods, who hold even this order of the whole together unimpaired, without age, without defect, indescribable in both beauty and size, never either do or plan anything unholy or impious.
(23) “After gods, respect also the whole race of mankind, whose posterity is forever being born, for the gods do not hide you in the dark, but of necessity your deeds always live on, visible to all. If they appear pure and free from injustice, they will show you to be powerful among all human beings. But if you plot some injustice against each other, you will destroy your trustworthiness among all human beings, for no one would still be able to trust you any longer, not even if he were very enthusiastic to do so, after seeing him who is closely related by friendship treated unjustly. (24) Now if I am teaching you sufficiently how you ought to be toward one another, [fine]; but if I am not, learn also from what has happened in the past, for this teaching is best. Many parents have gone through their lives as friends to their children, and many brothers as friends with their brothers, but some of these have acted toward each other also in the opposite way. So in whichever of these ways you perceive actions that were advantageous, you would of course deliberate correctly in choosing it. (25) But perhaps there has now been enough of this.
“As for my body, children, when I die, do not put it in gold, silver, or anything else, but return it to the earth as quickly as possible. What is more blessedly happy than being mingled with the earth, which both gives birth to and nourishes everything noble on the one hand and everything good on the other? I was benevolent even in other ways, and I think I would now be pleased to be united as a partner with this benefactor of human beings.
(26) “But my soul seems to me to be leaving now, from the very point at which, as it seems, it begins to leave everyone. If one of you either wishes to touch my right hand or wants to look me in the eye while I am still alive, let him approach. When I cover myself, I ask you, children, let no human being see my body any longer, not even you yourselves. (27) Summon all Persians and the allies to my monument, in order that they may share in my pleasure, for I will now be in a safe place, since I cannot suffer evil any longer, whether I am with the divine or no longer exist at all. After doing such good things to those who come as are customary in the case of a happy man, send them back. (28) And remember this last thing from me, that by benefiting your friends, you will be able to punish your enemies. And farewell, my dear sons; report a farewell to your mother from me. Farewell, all you present and absent friends.” Having said this and shaken the right hand of each, he covered himself and thus died.