Cyrtostyle

[Gr. kyrtos, curved, and stylos, a pillar.] ( Arch.) A circular projecting portico. to separate IMG:content-0459.png:[ocr errors] Cyrus, surnamed THE ELDER, ( si'rus ,) founder of the Persian monarchy, was son of Cambyses, a Persian noble, and of Mandane, daughter of Astyages, king of Media. His story is more than half mythical, and it is impo ible fact from legend. The principal exploits attributed to him are the incitement to a revolt of the Persians, and consequent defeat of Astyages and the Medes, when he became king, B. с. 559; the conquest of Lydia and capture of Croesus; the siege and capture of Babylon in 538, and the invasion of Scythia, where he was defeated and slain by Tomyris, queen of the Ma a getæ, 529. He was interred at Psargardæ, and his tomb was visited by Alexander the Great. Xenophon's Cyropædia is ideal picture of a good and wise ruler, not an actual history of C. Cyrus, surnamed THE YOUNGER, was Fig . 760. - CYRUS. (From an A yrian Sculpture.) son of Darius II., king of Persia, and Parysatis. In B. C. 407 he was made governor of the western provinces of Asia Minor. He was of ambitious temper, and was sentenced to death for plotting against his brother Artaxerxes on his acce ion to the throne, but was pardoned. Still determined to be king himself, he raised an army, including a large body of Greek mercenaries, cro ed the Taurus, marched down the Euphrates, and av Cunaxa encountered the army of his brother, when he was defeated and slain, в. с. 401. Xenophon, who had served as a volunteer among the Greeks, conducted their retreat, and wrote an account of the expedition. Cys'icus, or CYzICUS, a town of Asia Minor, in Natolia, S.E. of the island of Marmora, and 70 miles S.W. of Constantinople. In ancient times C. was seated on an island of the same name; but an isthmus has gradually formed, and what was formerly an island is now a peninsula.