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Entering the city of Babylon with his army, Cyrus prostrated himself before the god Marduk in order to win over the local people. He presented himself as the liberator of the Babylonians, divinely chosen and assisted by their own great deity. In his own words from the Cyrus cylinder:
When I made my gracious entry into Babylon, with rejoicing and pleasure I took up my lordly residence in the royal palace. Marduk, the great lord, turned the noble race of the Babylonians toward me, and I gave daily care to his worship.
I did not allow anybody to terrorize [any place] of the [country of Sumer] and Akkad. I strove for peace in Babylon and in all his [other] sacred cities. As to the inhabitants of Babylon … I abolished forced labour…From Nineveh, As-sur and Susa, Akkad, Eshnunna, Zamban, Me-Turnu and Der until the region of Gutium, I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time.”
Although this account is in part self-glorifying propaganda, it is nonetheless instructive of how Cyrus wished to be perceived by his subjects.
Classical sources consistently attest to Cyrus's tolerance and magnanimity. In his romanticized Cyropaedia, for example, Xeno-phon writes:
Believing this man [Cyrus] to be deserving of all admiration, we have therefore investigated who he was in his origin, what natural endowments he possessed, and what sort of education he had enjoyed, that he so greatly excelled in governing…That Cyrus's empire was the greatest and most glorious of all the kingdoms in Asia—of that it may bear its own witness…And although it was of such magnitude, it was governed by the single will of Cyrus; and he honoured his subjects and cared for them as if they were his own children; and they, on their part, revered Cyrus as a father.15
As a side note, Xenophon also writes admiringly of Cyrus's skill in cultivating his public image. At a parade in Persepolis, Cyrus “appeared so great and so goodly to look upon,” evidently in part because he chose to wear the physique-flattering Median native costume:
[Cyrus] thought that if anyone had any personal defect [the Median] dress would help to conceal it, and that it made the wearer look very tall and very handsome. For they have shoes of such a form that without being detected the wearer can easily put something into the soles so as to make him look taller than he is. He encouraged also the fashion of pencilling the eyes, that they might seem more lustrous than they are, and of using cosmetics to make the complexion look better than their nature made it. He trained his associates also not to spit or wipe the nose in public.16
The biblical accounts of Cyrus are even more exalting. After conquering Babylon, Cyrus freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to Jerusalem. For this benevolence, Jewish prophets hailed him as a savior. The book of Isaiah describes Cyrus as “anointed” by Yahweh, the Jewish name for God:
Thus says Yahweh to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he has taken by his right hand to subdue nations before him and strip the loins of kings, to force gateways before him that their gates be closed no more: I will go before you levelling the heights. I will shatter the bronze gateways, smash the iron bars. I will give you the hidden treasures, the secret hoards, that you may know that I am Yahweh.
According to the book of Ezra, Cyrus not only freed the Jews but he restored to Jerusalem “the vessels of gold and silver” that Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon. Cyrus also rebuilt the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, apparently at his own expense.17
There is no question: Cyrus the Great has had good press. From the classical Greek accounts to the Cyrus cylinder to the Old Testament, the