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When the Persians wished to acquire a level and tractable land in place of their own, which was mountainous and rugged, Cyrus would not allow them to do so, saying that both the seeds of plants and the lives of men are bound to be like the land of their origin.1
1 Plutarch probably took this from Herodotus, ix. 122, who in turn may have drawn upon Hippocrates; cf. Airs, Waters, and Places, chap. xxiv. (Hippocrates in L.C.L.; pp. 132-136). Cf. also Plato, Laws, p. 695 A; Livy, xxiv. 25. The idea is not novel, and may be found in other writers. It was again repeated in 1926 by Calvin Coolidge in regard to the rugged hills of Vermont.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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