[35] A man learns to keep his seat, no matter what the ground may be, as he follows the flying quarry, learns to hurl and strike on horseback in his eagerness to bring down the game and win applause.

[36] And here, above all, was the field in which to inure his colleagues to toil and hardship and cold and heat and hunger and thirst.

Thus to this day the Persian monarch and his court spend their leisure in the chase.

[37] From all that has been said, it is clear Cyrus was convinced that no one has a right to rule who is not superior to his subjects, and he held that by imposing such exercises as these on those about him, he would lead them to self-control and bring to perfection the art and discipline of war.

[38] Accordingly he would put himself at the head of the hunting-parties and take them out himself unless he was bound to stay at home, and, if he was, he would hunt in his parks among the wild creatures he had reared.
He would never touch the evening meal himself until he had sweated for it, nor give his horses their corn until they had been exercised, and he would invite his own mace-bearers to join him in the chase.