KynoCyno

The wife of the cowherd, Mitradates, who raised Kyrus (Cyrus) as her son; in Greek her name was Kyno but her Median name was Spako.

Her name played an important part in the legend that made Kyrus such a powerful and charismatic leader because Kyno and Spax mean female dog in Greek and Median respectively.

The story begins with the Median king, Astyages and his daughter, Mandane; Astyages wanted his daughter’s infant son murdered and gave the foul task to one of his trusted kinsmen, Harpagus; when Harpagus gave thought to the matter he decided to keep his hands clean and give the dirty deed to someone of lower rank; he ordered a herdsman named Mitradates to take the baby into the wilderness and leave it to the beasts and elements.

Mitradates took the baby back to his home and found that his wife, Kyno, had just given birth but that her baby had been born dead; Kyno persuaded Mitradates to spare the life of the king’s grandson and to present their dead baby to Harpagus and declare that the evil deed had been done; Harpagus believed Mitradates’ story and gave the matter no more thought.

Mitradates and Kyno raised the child as their own and all went well until the young boy had a dispute with his playmates; a group of boys were playing a game and Mandane’s son was chosen to play the role of the king; when one of the boys disobeyed a “royal” command, the “king” ordered that he be beaten; the boy who had been punished took offense at such base treatment because his family was of noble birth and a mere herdsman’s son had ordered him beaten; the boy’s father took the insulting matter to king Astyages for justice; Astyages called Mitradates and his “son” to stand trial but when Astyages saw the family resemblance of the boy to his daughter, and to himself, he realized that Mandane’s son was still alive.

Astyages demanded the truth from Mitradates and he soon understood the entire sequence of events; the young boy was taken from Mitradates and Kyno and given to his natural mother and father, Mandane and Kambyses; the boy was named Kyrus and as he grew to manhood he was the best and brightest of his peers; as an adult, Kyrus united the Persians and led a successful revolt against king Astyages.

In order to add an element of divine intervention to the life of Kyrus, his mother and father told a slightly augmented version of his early life; they claimed that he had been left in the wilderness, as Astyages had ordered, and that he had been nursed by a female dog, i.e. a Kyno, until he was old enough to take revenge on his grandfather, Astyages, and end the rule of the Medes.

• Histories, book 1, chapters 110-122