"Nay," said Cyrus, "if you will not answer that either, tell me at least if my offence lay in what followed, when you said that you did not care to stop your Medes in their merry-making and drive them out into danger, do you think it was wrong in me, without waiting to quarrel on that score, to ask you for what I knew was the lightest boon you could grant and the lightest command you could lay on your soldiers?
For I only asked that he who wished it might be allowed to follow me.

[22] And thus, when I had won your permission, I had won nothing, unless I could win them too.
Therefore I went and tried persuasion, and some listened to me, and with these I set off on my march, holding my commission from your own self.
So that, if you look on this act as blameworthy, it would seem that not even the acceptance of your own gifts can be free from blame.

[23] It was thus we started, and after we had gone, was there, I ask you, a single deed of mine that was not done in the light of day?
Has not the enemy's camp been taken?
Have not hundreds of your assailants fallen?
And hundreds been deprived of their horses and their arms?
Is not the spoiler spoiled?
The cattle and the goods of those who harried your land are now in the hands of your friends, they are brought to you, or to your subjects.

[24] And, above all and beyond all, you see your own country growing great and powerful and the land of your enemy brought low.

Strongholds of his are in your power, and your own that were torn from you in other days by the Syrian domination are now restored to you again.