Life-Saving Reply

Cyrus the Great’s son, Cambyses, was a hard drinking man of violent rages. He was also find of asking people what he thought of him. It was a question that could cost an undiplomatic vassal his life. But the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, reported that at least one courtier, faced with this dangerous question, found a life saving reply. The courtier is said to have told the king: “I do not think you are equal to your father; for you do not have the son like the son he left behind him in yourself.”