A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Mandane

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MANDANE,

Daughter of Astyages and wife of Cambyses, receives her highest honour from being the mother of Cyrus the Great. Herodotus asserts that the birthright and glory of Cyrus came from his mother, and that his father was a man of obscure birth. This is partly confirmed by history, which records that Astyages, who was King of Media, dreamed that from the womb of his daughter Mandane, then married to Cambyses, King of Persia, there sprung up a vine which spread over all Asia. Cyrus was such a son as must have gladdened his mother's heart; and we must believe his mother was worthy of him. She lived B.C. 599.