Book 3
1.19
To what defeat of your father’s do you refer, said Cyrus, that you are so confident that he has been brought to discretion by it? Why that, by Zeus, Tigranes answered, whichHow the king of Armenia learned discretion he is conscious of having sustained, inasmuch as when he aimed at securing liberty he has become more of a slave than ever, and as he has not been able to accomplish a single thing of all that he thought he should effect by secrecy or by surprise or by actual force. And he knows that when you desired to outwit him, you did it as effectually as one could do who set out to deceive men blind or deaf or deprived of all their senses; and when you thought you ought to act secretly, you acted with such secrecy that the fortified places which he thought he had provided for his own safety you had secretly turned into prisons for him in advance. And so much did you surpass him in dispatch, that you came from a distance with a large army before he could muster the forces he had at home.
1.20
Well said Cyrus, do you really think that such a defeat is adequate to make men discreet—I mean, when they find out that others are their superiors? Yes said Tigranes, much more than when they are defeated in combat. For the one who is overcome by strength sometimes conceives the idea that, if he trains his body, he may renew the combat. Even cities too, when captured, think that by taking on new allies they might renew the fight. But if people are convinced that others are superior to themselves, they are often ready even without compulsion to submit to them.
1.21
You seem to think, said the other, that the insolent do not recognize those more discreet than they, that thieves do not recognize the truthful, and wrong-doers those who do right. Do you not know, he continued, that even now your father has played false and has not kept his agreement with us, although he knew that we have not been violating any of the agreements made by Astyages?
