[18] Sometimes, we are told, this post does not even halt at night: the night-messenger relieves the day-messenger and rides on.

Some say that, when this is done, the post travels more quickly than the crane can fly, and, whether that is true or not, there is no doubt it is the quickest way in which a human being can travel on land.

To learn of events so rapidly and be able to deal with them at once is of course a great advantage.
[19] After a year had passed, Cyrus collected all his troops at Babylon, amounting, it is said, to one hundred and twenty thousand horse, two thousand scythe-bearing chariots, and six hundred thousand foot.

[20] Then, seeing that all was got together, he set out for that campaign of his, on which, the story says, he subdued the nations from the borders of Syria as far as the Red Sea.

After that there followed, we are told, the expedition against Egypt and its conquest.