Cyrus the Great A reimagining of the second king of Persia~s speech Carson Cummins t. Findley Elementary Grade 5 The man stood on the podium before me. He had just rampaged through Babylon on a tour of death and destruction. Many of the Babylonian men had died and the possibility ~hat he woulcl do something good seemed about one in a million. Yet he did. This stranger from a faraway land freed us all. We, the people of Babylon, expected many things from this conquering general but our freedom was not among our expectations. He gave a long and inspired speech. The scribes made it official on a long cylinder called .cul~l in Farsi. He did not know it at the time but he had started a revolution with this speech. It went like this: "My grandfather, Astyages was the king of Persia. His daughter and a royal man, Cambyses, were ordered to be married." He started in a slow voice. "I was their child. My life was happy and carefree, and filled with mirth. Until Astyages had a dream." He halted at this point. No one could guess what came next. "He dreamed that when I grew up I would overthrow his power. As often happens with dreams it was perceived to be much more than it was. Harpagus, his best general was sent to kill me." He stopped there and closed his eyes as if Harpagus brought back horrid memories. "He did not kill me. But instead he did something worse. He tore me away from my family." A determined expression filled his face. Everyone knew he wanted to continue. "He gave me to a family of farmers. I was well cared for but my grandfather discovered that I was not dead and ordered my death a second time but I escaped again." No one in the audience spoke. "I went on to command an army." "I saw many soldiers die under my command." He intoned. "And none of you deserve to suffer the same fate as them under the control of another man. You deserve to live, eat and protect yourselves and not be slaughtered in your innocence!" He exclaimed. "The Persian Empire has spread from Iran to India to the highest reaches of Africa! Yet all Jews are enslaved and we are still at war with Media! Under Natural Law this wouldn~t happen." He yelled. "Natural Law is the future!!" He screamed. "As Cyrus the great, the second king of Persia I decree that Natural Law is the Jaw! No man should be forced to do another man's bidding against his will." The noise reverberated off the farthest hills. The scribes behind him etched the Jaws into a clay cylinder. I couldn't make out the inscriptions nor could I understand the language, Akkadian Cuneiform, which was a script unique to Mesopotamia. It was later translated and could be boiled down to three main points. First was the proclamation of racial, linguistic and religious equality for all people. Second was a statement that all people who had been deported were to be allowed to return home. And, third was the order that all destroyed temples were to be restored. I do not remember every aspect of what is written on the cylinder, but one thing I do know is that without this cylinder have spent the rest of my life as a slave. When the cylinder was made official, the crowd's roars were deafening. Men and women alike yelled their approval. I later remembered the fables of his childhood and the wonders of Natural Law. The cylinder that set us free still spins in my mind like a writhing snake. I never saw the man again, but news came to us of his death in battle. And with his death, the first era of human rights ended. Citations Parsa, Darius 0. "Cyrus The Great." http://www.allempires.com. N.P, 13 Oct. 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2013. <http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=cyrus_the_great>. Ghasemi, shapour. "The Cyrus The Great Cylinder." http://www.iranchamber.com. N.P., 14 Oct. n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.iranchamber.com/histmy/cyrus/cyrus_charter.php>. .