The narrative of Pompeius Trogus has been preserved in excerpts only. Astyages had a daughter, but no male heirs. From her bosom, he saw, in a dream, a vine growing, of which the branches overshadowed all Asia. The interpreters of dreams declared that this vision portended the greatness of the grandson whom his daughter would bring forth, but it also involved the loss of the empire to him. To be rid of this fear, Astyages had not given his daughter to any eminent man, nor even to a Mede--that there might not be rank on the father's side as well as on the mother's, to excite the ambition of his grandson--but to Cambyses, a man of middle station, in the then unknown nation of the Persians. Even this did not remove the alarm of Astyages; when his daughter was pregnant he sent for her in order to have her child put to death before his eyes. When a boy was born he gave him to Harpagus, his trusted friend, to be put to death. But Harpagus, fearing that the daughter of Astyages if she should come to the throne would avenge on him the death of her son, gave the child to the herdman of the king, and bade him expose it. The herdman obeyed, but when his wife heard of the matter, she urged her husband to fetch the child and show it to her. Wearied by her entreaties, the herdman went back into the forest, and there found a dog beside the child, suckling it, and defending it from the beasts of prey. He took it up and carried it to his fold, while the dog followed in much distress. When the herdman's wife took it in her arms, the child smiled on her as though it had known her, and it was so full of life and sweet smiles that the woman induced her husband to expose her own child in place of the grandson of the king. After this the excerpt goes on to relate, like Herodotus, the game of the boys, the answer of Cyrus, the revenge of Astyages on Harpagus, the letter in the hare's belly, in which Harpagus imparts to Cyrus his plan for the desertion of the Medes to the Persians. When Cyrus had received and read this letter in Persepolis, a dream also urged the enterprise upon him, but at the same time bade him take as his associate the man whom he met first on the following day. Next day, before dawn, Cyrus went on a journey, and met a slave of the name of Oebares, belonging to the house of a Mede. When Cyrus found that he was a Persian by birth, he took his chains off and turned back with him to Persepolis. Cyrus then assembled the Persians. On the first day he made them cut down a wood on the way, and on the second he entertained them. Astyages sends Harpagus against them, and he passes over to their side with the army entrusted to him. Astyages now marches out in person, after summoning all his forces, against Persia. The struggle was severe. Astyages placed a portion of his army in the rear of his forces, and told the latter that they must try whether they could not break through the ranks of the enemy in battle more easily than through the ranks behind them in flight. The Medes attacked with great spirit; the Persians were forced back to their wives and children, by whom they were again driven into the battle with the cry: Would they fly for refuge into the bosoms of their mothers and wives? They put the Medes to flight. Here the excerpt of Justin breaks off, though he represents Astyages as having been taken prisoner in this battle after the rout. Cyrus merely took the government from him; he treated him as his grandfather, and made him satrap of the Hyrcanians; Oebares he made ruler of Persia, and gave him his sister in marriage.[534]