Little Cyrus, amidst the calm of his cradle, pondered his childhood; a period he knew nothing of, but history had shaped it with horrifying details. His mind traveled to his grandfather, the Median king, Astyages. Before giving his daughter Mandane in marriage, Astyages had awakened one night from a terrifying dream. In this dream, he saw a raging flood burst forth from his daughter Mandane's belly, engulfing not only the Median capital but all of Asia. This nightmare had shattered the king's peace and planted a deep terror in his heart.
Astyages, in his stone palace in Ecbatana, immediately summoned the Magi after awakening from this dream. With a sweating brow and a look filled with dread, he shared his dream with them and asked for a precise interpretation of this ominous vision. The Magi, interpreting the celestial signs, predicted that a son would be born from his daughter who would seize his grandfather's crown and become the lord of Asia. This prophecy doubled Astyages's fear and drove him to a frenzy, making him decide to change destiny at any cost.
To escape this dire fate, Astyages conceived a plan. He knew that if he married Mandane to one of the powerful Median nobles, the child born from that marriage could easily gain the necessary support for a rebellion. Therefore, he decided to give his daughter, Mandane, not to a Median noble, but to Cambyses, the king of Parsa and ruler of Anshan, in marriage. Astyages considered Cambyses a calm, peace-loving, and powerless man compared to the Median nobles, and thus, he deemed him a suitable choice to thwart the prophecies.
He thought to himself, "It is impossible for someone to be born from this incompetent individual who could threaten my throne." This false belief stemmed from Astyages's pride and illusion of power; he so firmly believed in Media's superiority over Parsa that he never imagined a threat could come from a vassal kingdom that he perceived as weak. This naive notion set him on a path that, ironically, helped bring about his own inevitable destiny.
After this event, Mandane went to Parsa and began a new life with Cambyses. Astyages, after a year, was delighted, believing that with this clever decision, he had escaped the ominous shadow of the prophecy. He rested easy, unaware that the seeds of his downfall were sprouting thousands of kilometers away from Ecbatana, and destiny, with its complexities, had taken another path to fulfill his dream.
Little Cyrus visualized this scene in his mind: a grandfather, fearing the future power of his grandson, sending him far away, oblivious that this very distance and upbringing in a different environment would make him stronger for his future role. This fate, while bitter and cruel, showed a will greater than humans, shaping the course of history.