I I HAVE heretofore considered how many popular governments have been dissolved by men who chose to live under any other sort of government rather than the popular; and how many monarchies, and how many oligarchies, have been destroyed by the people; and how many of those who have attempted tyrannies have, some of them, been instantly and entirely destroyed; and others, if they have continued reigning but for any time, have been admired as able, wise, and happy men. And I thought I observed many masters, in their own private houses, some possessing more servants, some but very few, who yet were not able to preserve those few entirely obedient to their commands. I considered withal that keepers of oxen, and keepers of horses are, as it were, the magistrates and rulers of those oxen and horses; and, in general, all those called pastors or herdsmen may be properly accounted the magistrates of the animals they rule. I saw, I thought, all these several herds more willing to obey their pastors, than men their magistrates; for these herds go the way that their keepers direct them; they feed on those lands on which their keepers place them; they abstain from those from which their keepers drive them; they suffer their keepers to make what use they please of the fruits and profits that arise from them. Besides, I never did perceive a herd conspiring against its keepers, either so as not to obey them, or so as not to allow them the use of the fruits arising from them. Herds are rather more refractory towards any others than they are towards their rulers, and those who make profit of them; but men conspire

1 Xenophon's Cyropædia or Institution of Cyrus, from external evidence and because it contradicts other historians, is not considered as an authentic history, but rather as an historical romance, showing what should be

the conduct of a wise and virtuous monarch,

against none sooner than against those whom they perceive undertaking the government of them. When these things were in my mind, I came to this judgment on them; that to man it was easier to rule every other sort of creature than to rule man. But when I considered that there was the Persian Cyrus, who had rendered many men, many cities, and many nations, obedient to himself, I was necessitated to change my opinion, and to think that the government of men was not amongst the things that were impossible, nor amongst the things that are difficult, if one undertook it with understanding and skill. I knew there were those that willingly obeyed Cyrus, who were many days' journey distant from him; those who were months; those who had never seen him; and those who knew very well that they never should see him; yet would they submit to his government: for he so far excelled all other kings, both those that received their dominion by succession, as well as those that acquired it themselves, that the Scythian, for example, though his people be very numerous, has not been able to obtain the dominion of any other nation, but rests satisfied if he hold but the rule of his own; the Thracian the same; the Illyrian the same; and other nations, as I have heard, the same: for the nations of Europe are said to be sovereign and independent of each other. But Cyrus, finding in like manner the nations of Asia sovereign and independent, and setting forward with a little army of Persians, obtained the dominion of the Medes by their own choice and voluntary submission; of the Hyrcanians the same. He conquered the Syrians, Assyrians, Arabs, Cappadocians, both Phrygias, the Lydians, Carians, Phoenicians, and Babylonians. He ruled the Bactrians, Indians, and Cilicians; in like manner the Sacians, Paphlagonians, and Megadinians, and

A