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[3] And hearing that Cyrus,1 the son of King Darius, had been dispatched by his father to aid the Lacedaemonians in the war, he went to him at Sardis, and stirring up the youth's2 enthusiasm for the war against the Athenians he received on the spot ten thousand darics3 for the pay of his soldiers; and for the future Cyrus told him to make requests without reserve, since, as he stated, he carried orders from his father to supply the Lacedaemonians with whatever they should want.

1 Cyrus the Younger, whose later attempt to win the Persian throne is told in Xenophon's Anabasis. Persia had finally decided to throw its power behind the combatant which could not support a fleet without Persian assistance. Cyrus was sent down as "caranus (lord) of all those whose mustering-place is Castolus" (a plain probably near Sardis), i.e. as governor-general of Asia Minor (Xen. Hell. 1.4.3) with abundant funds and orders to support the Lacedaemonians in the war. This decision of the Great King was the death-knell of the Athenian Empire.

2 Cyrus was seventeen years of age.

3 A Persian coin containing about 125 grains of gold, worth approximately one pound sterling or five dollars.

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