Joe
Active member
When There Is Nothing More Intoxicating Than Victory, Let Your Success Shame Them
If only you know how many people await your failure, how many people want you to fail, uncountable people, most of these people are those who are familiar with you, connected with you, and most directly related to you. Yet want you to fail even when you can't afford to fail, neither can you blame them for such wishes cos that is the dirty part of human nature
While they go about wishing you, there are still a few who want your success among such few is you, so work, work smarter, invest in learning, keep investing in your self and let your success shame them, to those that want to see you fail
You see, in 559 B.C., a young man named Cyrus gathered an immense army from the scattered tribes of Persia and marched against his grandfather Astyages, king of the Medes.
On getting there, he defeated Astyages with ease and had himself crowned king of Medea and Persia, and began to forge the Persian Empire. The victory followed victory in quick succession. Cyrus defeated Croesus, ruler of Lydia, then conquered the Ionian islands and other smaller kingdoms also follows
He marched on Babylon and crushed it. Now he was known as Cyrus the Great, King of the World. After capturing the riches of Babylon, Cyrus set his sights on the east, on the half-barbaric tribes of the Massagetai, a vast realm on the Caspian Sea. A fierce warrior race led by Queen Tomyris, the Massagetai lacked the riches of Babylon, but Cyrus decided to attack them anyway, believing himself superhuman and incapable of defeat.
As he set up camp on the western bank, he received a message from Queen Tomyris: “King of the Medes,” she told him, “I advise you to abandon this enterprise, for you cannot know if, in the end, it will do you any good. Rule your people, and try to bear the sight of me ruling mine. But of course, you will refuse my advice, as the last thing you wish for is to live in peace.”
Tomyris, confident of her army’s strength and not wishing to delay the inevitable battle, offered to withdraw the troops on her side of the river, allowing Cyrus to cross its waters safely and fight her army on the eastern side if that was his desire.
Cyrus agreed, but instead of engaging the enemy directly, he decided to play a trick. The Massagetai knew few luxuries. Once Cyrus had crossed the river and made his camp on the eastern side, he set the table for an elaborate banquet, full of meat, delicacies, and strong wine.
Then he left his weakest troops in the camp and withdrew the rest of the army to the river. A large Massagetai detachment soon attacked the camp and killed all of the Persian soldiers in a fierce battle. Then, overwhelmed by the fabulous feast that had been left behind, they ate and drank to their hearts’ content.
Later, inevitably, they fell asleep. The Persian army returned to the camp that night, killing many of the sleeping soldiers and capturing the rest. Among the prisoners was their general, a youth named Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris.
When the queen learned what had happened, she sent a message to Cyrus, chiding him for using tricks to defeat her army. “Now listen to me,” she wrote, “and I will advise you for your good:
Give me back my son and leave my country with your forces intact, and be content with your triumph over a third part of the Massagetai. If you refuse, I swear by the sun our master to give you more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony.” Cyrus scoffed at her: He would not release her son. He would crush these barbarians.
The queen’s son, seeing he would not be released, could not stand the humiliation, and so he killed himself. The news of her son’s death overwhelmed Tomyris. She gathered all the forces that she could muster in her kingdom, and whipping them into a vengeful frenzy, engaged Cyrus’s troops in a violent and bloody battle. Finally, the Massagetai prevailed. In their anger they decimated the Persian anny, killing Cyrus himself.
After the battle, Tomyris and her soldiers searched the battlefield for Cyrus’s corpse. When she found it she cut off his head and shoved it into a wineskin full of human blood, crying out, “Though I have conquered you and live, yet you have ruined me by treacherously taking my son.
See now—I fulfill my threat: You have your fill of blood.” After Cyrus's death, the Persian Empire quickly unraveled. One act of arrogance undid all of Cyrus’s good work, these are what the famous author Robert Greene writes in his spectacular book, "The 48 Laws of Power." Sign up to world socio and make a plan to get the book, is an interesting book to read and reread