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Cyrus the Great: Difference between revisions
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Cyrus (Persian: Kourosh) was one of the most famous rulers in history. He was born a prince of a recently-settled Iranian tribe, the Persians. According to a legend (familiar in biographies of conquerors) the previous king, at Cyrus' birth, heard in a dream that Cyrus was destined to seize his kingdom, whereupon the King ordered him abandoned. He was found by a herdsmen and raised as a son. Eventually. he proved himself as a warrior and came back to avenge himself. The more probable version of his story is that he was a vassal of the Medes, another Iranian tribe, and in a series of campaigns made himself king of both the Medes and the Persians. From their he began a life of conquest that spread until he had the largest and perhaps most successful empire yet created in the world.
One of the most notable things about Cyrus was not just his skill as a warrior, but his skill as a politician. Previous conquerors had ruled by fear alone. Cyrus grasped the fact that if he was magnanimous and made enough [[Pet the Dog]] gestures to his new subjects he would win their [[Happiness in Slavery|willing submission]] from comparison with the probable alternatives. In essence he conquered as much through bribery as through war. It would probably be overly cynical to say that this was all [[Pragmatic Villainy]]. Being a gracious conqueror(by comparison) seems to have fit his personality so well that there was some truth to it. In essence, while he was a bastard, he was a [[Magnificent Bastard|magnificent one]]. Among the most famous of his gestures was encouraging the resettlement of the Jews in exile in Babylon. This got him a curious place in [[
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=== Tropes associated with Kurosh a.k.a. Cyrus the Great: ===
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* [[Courier]]: Persian couriers were famous. It is from them that the US Postal Service gets the famous [[Badass Creed|Creed]] "Neither rain, nor wind, nor snow, nor hail..."
* [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]]: Sparing Croesus' life.
* [[Due to
* [[Fair for Its Day|Fair For His Day]]: Because he had hit upon the secret that pragmatic generosity won submission and sometimes loyalty he was a more pleasant ruler than the Babylonians, let alone the [[High Octane Nightmare Fuel|Assyrians]](whose idea of public relations was to build giant monuments boasting about what [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]] they were) .
* [[Founder of the Kingdom]]
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* [[Happily Married]]: With his wife, Cassandane.
* [[Improvised Weapon]]: According to one tale, he won a battle by herding baggage camels ahead of his army so that the enemy horses would be scared off by an unfamiliar scent.
* [[It Is Pronounced "Tro
* [[Magnetic Hero]]
* [[Magnificent Bastard]]
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* [[Rags to Royalty]]
* [[Take Over the World]]
* [[Shout
* [[Underestimating Badassery]]: While he was busy conquering Ionia, some emissaries came to him and told him that if he did not slow down he would have [[Foreshadowing|Sparta]] to answer to. Cyrus' army had gone farther then his intel reports, and so he turned to an aide and asked "Who are the Spartans?"
* [[Young Conqueror]]: He was this. Unlike [[Alexander the Great]], he was a good ruler of what he conquered.
* [[Warrior Prince]]
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Cyrus was a Persian that was actually admired by Greeks.
* [[You Killed My Father|You Killed My Son]]: According to [[
** This also worked against him. Cyrus killed the prince of the Massagetae in battle, and his enraged mother, Queen Tomyris (queen regnant, not the king's wife), took command of the army and defeated Cyrus, who was killed in the battle. Herodotus goes on to say that Tomyris beheaded and crucified Cyrus' corpse, and threw his head in a sack full of blood to "quench his thirst for blood."
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