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So saying he sent off a messenger to fetch a certain Mitradates, one
of the herdsmen of Astyages, whose pasturages he knew to be the
fittest for his purpose, lying as they did among mountains infested
with wild beasts. This man was married to one of the king's female
slaves, whose Median name was Spaco, which is in Greek Cyno,
since in the Median tongue the word "Spaca" means a bitch. The
mountains, on the skirts of which his cattle grazed, lie to the north
of Agbatana, towards the Euxine. That part of Media which borders
on the Saspirians is an elevated tract, very mountainous, and covered
with forests, while the rest of the Median territory is entirely level
ground. On the arrival of the herdsman, who came at the hasty
summons, Harpagus said to him - "Astyages requires thee to take
this child and lay him in the wildest part of the hills, where he will
be sure to die speedily. And he bade me tell thee, that if thou dost
not kill the boy, but anyhow allowest him to escape, he will put thee
to the most painful of deaths. I myself am appointed to see the child exposed."
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