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Harpagus then, seeing him a prisoner, came near, and exulted over
him with many jibes and jeers. Among other cutting speeches which he
made, he alluded to the supper where the flesh of his son was given him
to eat, and asked Astyages to answer him now, how he enjoyed being a
slave instead of a king? Astyages looked in his face, and asked him
in return, why he claimed as his own the achievements of Cyrus?
"Because," said Harpagus, "it was my letter which made him
revolt, and so I am entitled to all the credit of the enterprise."
Then Astyages declared that "in that case he was at once the silliest
and the most unjust of men: the silliest, if when it was in his power
to put the crown on his own head, as it must assuredly have been, if
the revolt was entirely his doing, he had placed it on the head of
another; the most unjust, if on account of that supper he had brought
slavery on the Medes. For, supposing that he was obliged to invest
another with the kingly power, and not retain it himself, yet justice
required that a Mede, rather than a Persian, should receive the
dignity. Now, however, the Medes, who had been no parties to the
wrong of which he complained, were made slaves instead of lords, and
slaves moreover of those who till recently had been their subjects."
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