He was accompanied by the man in a Persian dress, who, as one of Cyrus' prisoners of war, had learnt the Persian language, and now interpreted one by one the sentences uttered by the spokesman of this wandering tribe.
"We know," began the latter, "that thou, great king, art wroth with the Massagetae because thy father fell in war with our tribe--a war which he alone had provoked with a people who had done naught to offend him." "My father was justified in punishing your nation," interrupted the king.
"Your Queen Tomyris had dared to refuse him her hand in marriage." "Be not wroth, O King," answered the Massagetan, "when I tell thee that our entire nation approved of that act.

Even a child could see that the great Cyrus only desired to add our queen to the number of his wives, hoping, in his insatiable thirst for more territories, to gain our land with her." Cambyses was silent and the envoy went on.

"Cyrus caused a bridge to be made over our boundary river, the Araxes.

We were not dismayed at this, and Tomyris sent word that he might save himself this trouble, for that the Massagetae were willing either to await him quietly in their own land, leaving the passage of the river free, or to meet him in his.

Cyrus decided, by the advice of the dethroned king of Lydia, (as we learnt afterwards, through some prisoners of war) on meeting us in our own land and defeating us by a stratagem.