The Good Book (42 page)

16. Some of the guards watching over Psammenitus went to Cambyses and described what had happened; and Cambyses was astonished, and sent a messenger to Psammenitus,

17. To ask for an explanation of why he had not wept at the disgrace and tribulation of his daughter and son, but had wept so copiously at sight of the old man.

18. To which Psammenitus answered, ‘Oh conqueror, my own misfortunes and the loss of my children are too great for tears.

19. ‘But the woe of my old friend deserved them. When a man falls into beggary in old age, one may well weep for him.’

20. When Cambyses heard this answer he recognised that it was just, and those who stood about him in his royal tent wept to hear what Psammenitus had said.

21. So he was touched with pity likewise, and sent an order that Psammenitus’ son and daughter were to be spared.

22. Alas, it was to late to save Psammenitus’ son; he had been the first who was cut to pieces on the execution ground, and lived no more.

23. But Psammenitus was brought to Cambyses’ court, and remained there, no longer a prisoner but a guest; for the justice of his pity had earned him a reprieve, and with it the life of his daughter.

24. If this is evidence of humanity in Cambyses, it should be balanced against what he next did,

25. Which was to go from Memphis to Sais, where King Amasis had been buried, and command that his embalmed body be exhumed,

26. For Cambyses held a grudge against Amasis, which was part of his reason for invading Egypt in the first place.

27. When the corpse of Amasis was brought out, Cambyses ordered his attendants to scourge the body,

28. And prick it with goads, and pluck the hair from it, and heap upon it all manner of insults.

29. The body, however, having been embalmed, resisted, and refused to come apart, do what they would to it;

30. So the attendants grew weary of their work; whereupon Cambyses bade them take the corpse and burn it.

31. This was felt by the Egyptians to be a great indignity to their deceased king. It was also among the first marks of madness that was creeping upon Cambyses.

Chapter 23

  1. Having designs on the land of the Ethiopians, and wishing to know their strength and dispositions, Cambyses dispatched an embassy there,

  2. With gifts for the Ethiopian king comprising a purple robe, a gold chain for the neck, armlets, an alabaster box of myrrh and a cask of palm wine.

  3. The Ethiopians are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in the world. In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the way they choose their kings;

  4. For they find out the man who is tallest of all the citizens, and of strength equal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them.

  5. The Persian ambassadors, on reaching this people, delivered the gifts to their king, and said,

  6. ‘Cambyses, king of the Persians, anxious to become your friend, has sent us to bring you these gifts,which are the things he himself most delights in.’

  7. To which the Ethiopian, who knew they came as spies, answered, ‘The Persian king did not send you with these gifts because he desired my friendship;

  8. ‘Nor is what you say of yourselves true, for you are here to spy on my kingdom.

  9. ‘Your king is not a just man, for were he so, he would not covet a land not his own, nor try to bring slavery on a people who never did him wrong.

10. ‘Take him this bow, and say, “The Ethiopians thus advise: when the Persians can pull a bow of this strength as easily as an Ethiopian, let him come with an army.

11. ‘“Until then, let him be thankful that it is not in the heart of the sons of Ethiopia to covet countries which do not belong to them.”’

12. So speaking, he unstrung the bow and gave it to the messengers. Then, taking the purple robe, he asked them what it was, and how it had been made.

13. They answered truly, telling him concerning the purple, and the art of the dyer; whereupon he observed that ‘the men were deceitful, and their garments also’.

14. Next he took the neck chain and the armlets, and asked about them. So the ambassadors explained their use as ornaments.

15. Then the king laughed, and believing they were fetters, said the Ethiopians had much stronger ones.

16. Thirdly, he inquired about the myrrh, and when they told him how it was made and rubbed upon the limbs, he said the same as he had said about the robe.

17. Last he came to the wine, and having learnt their way of making it, he drank a draught, which greatly delighted him;

18. Whereupon he asked what the Persian king liked to eat, and what age the longest-lived of the Persians attained.

19. They told him that the king ate bread, and described the nature of wheat; adding that eighty years was the longest term of man’s life among the Persians.

20. To this the Ethiopian king remarked that it did not surprise him, if they fed on dirt, that they died so young;

21. Indeed he was sure they never would have lived so long as eighty years, except for the refreshment they got from their wine, which he confessed to be superior to anything that the Ethopians drank.

22. When the spies had seen everything, they returned to Egypt and made report to Cambyses, who was stirred to anger by the words of the Ethiopian king.

23. Immediately he set out on his march against the Ethiopians without making any provision for the sustenance of his army,

24. Or reflecting that he was about to wage war in the uttermost parts of the earth.

25. Like a senseless madman, no sooner did he receive the report of the ambassadors than he began his march,

26. Instructing the Greeks who were with his army to remain where they were, and taking only his land force with him.

27. At Thebes, which he passed on his way, he detached from his main body some fifty thousand men, and sent them against the Ammonians with orders to carry the people into captivity, and burn their civic places.

28. Meanwhile he went on with the rest of his forces against the Ethiopians.

29. Before he had accomplished one-fifth of the distance, all the army’s provisions failed; whereupon the men began to eat the sumpter beasts, which were all soon consumed.

30. If, at this time, Cambyses, seeing what was happening, had confessed his mistake, and led his army back, he would have done the wisest thing;

31. But as it was, he took no heed, and continued the march.

32. So long as the earth gave them anything, the soldiers sustained life by eating the grass and herbs;

33. But when they came to the bare sand, some of them committed a horrid deed: by tens they cast lots for a man, who was slain to be the food of the others.

34. When Cambyses heard of this, alarmed at such cannibalism, he gave up his attack on Ethiopia, and retreating by the way he had come, reached Thebes, after he had lost vast numbers of his soldiers.

Chapter 24

  1. The men sent to attack the Ammonians started from Thebes, having guides with them,

  2. And reached as far as the city Oasis, which is inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe Aeschrionia.

  3. The place is seven days’ journey from Thebes across the desert. Thus far the army is known to have made its way;

  4. But thenceforth nothing is known of them, except what the Ammonians report.

  5. It is certain they neither reached the territory of Ammonians, nor ever came back to Egypt.

  6. The Ammonians say that the Persians set out from Oasis, and had reached about halfway across the desert when, while they were at their midday meal, a strong and deadly wind rose from the south,

  7. Bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which buried the troops entirely.

  8. About the time when Cambyses arrived at Memphis the Egyptians were making festival, arraying themselves in their gayest garments and giving themselves to feasting and jollity:

  9. Which, when Cambyses saw, believing that these rejoicings were on account of his failure, he summoned the officers in charge of Memphis, and asked,

10. Why, when he was in Memphis before, the Egyptians had no festival, but waited until now, when he had returned with the loss of so many troops?

11. When the officers answered that this was one of the regular holiday observances of the Egyptians, he would not believe them, and told them that they lied, and condemned them all to death.

12. Then he instructed his troops that any Egyptians found keeping festival were to be put to death. Thus was the feast stopped throughout the land of Egypt.

13. And now Cambyses, who even before had not been quite in his right mind, was forthwith, as the Egyptians say, smitten with madness, and gave himself over to worse crimes.

14. The first of his outrages was the slaying of Smerdis, his brother, whom he had sent back to Persia from Egypt out of envy,

15. Because he drew the bow brought from the Ethiopians by the ambassadors, which none of the other Persians were able to bend.

16. When Smerdis had departed, Cambyses began to fear that he would plot against him, purposing to kill him and rule in his stead.

17. So Cambyses sent his trusted servant Prexaspes into Persia, with instructions to assassinate Smerdis.

18. Prexaspes accordingly went to Susa and slew Smerdis. Some say he killed him as they hunted together, others, that he took him to the Erythraean Sea and there drowned him.

19. This was the first of the outrages that Cambyses committed against his own family. The second was the slaying of his sister, who had accompanied him to Egypt, and lived with him as his wife.

20. He had made her his wife in the following way. It was not the Persians’ custom, before this time, to marry their sisters, but Cambyses fell in love with her,

21. So he called together the royal judges, and put it to them, ‘Whether there was any law which permitted a brother to marry his sister?’

22. When Cambyses put his question to the judges, they gave him an answer which was at once true and safe:

23. They did not find any law, they said, allowing a brother to take his sister to wife, but they found a law that the Persian king might do whatever he pleased.

24. And so they neither betrayed the law through fear of Cambyses, nor ruined themselves by maintaining it; but brought a different law to the king’s help, which allowed him to have his wish.

25. Cambyses, therefore, married the object of his desire, and soon afterwards took another sister to wife.

26. It was the younger of these who went with him into Egypt, and there suffered death at his hands.

27. Concerning the manner of her death, it is said that Cambyses had put a young dog to fight the cub of a lioness, his wife looking on.

28. Now the dog was getting the worse, when a pup of the same litter broke his chain, and came to his brother’s aid; then the two dogs together conquered the lion.

29. This greatly pleased Cambyses, but his sister shed tears. Cambyses asked why she wept,

30. Whereon she told him that seeing the young dog come to his brother’s aid made her think of Smerdis, whom there was none to help. For this speech Cambyses put her to death.

Chapter 25

  1. Cambyses behaved with madness towards others besides his kindred, including Prexaspes, the man whom he esteemed beyond all the rest of his people,

  2. Who carried his messages, and whose son held the office of Cambyses’ cupbearer – a matter of no small account among Persians.

  3. Cambyses asked him: ‘What, Prexaspes, do the Persians say of me?’ Prexaspes answered, ‘O! sire, they praise you greatly in all things but one: they say you are too much given to wine.’

  4. Whereupon Cambyses, full of rage, answered, ‘What? they say that I drink too much, and so have gone out of my mind! Then their former speeches about me were untrue.’

  5. For once, when the Persians were sitting with him, and Croesus was by, he had asked them what sort of man they thought him compared to his father Cyrus.

  6. They had answered that he surpassed his father, for he was lord of all that his father ever ruled, and further had made himself master of Egypt, and the sea.

  7. Then Croesus, who disliked the comparison, said to Cambyses: ‘In my judgement, son of Cyrus, you are not equal to your father, for you have not yet left behind you such a son as he had.’

  8. Cambyses was delighted when he heard this reply, and praised the judgement of Croesus.

  9. Recollecting these answers, Cambyses spoke fiercely to Prexaspes, saying,

10. ‘Judge now for yourself, Prexaspes, whether the Persians tell the truth, or whether it is not they who are mad for speaking as they do.

11. ‘Look there at your son standing in the vestibule; if I shoot and hit him in the heart, it will be plain the Persians have no grounds for what they say:

12. ‘If I miss him, then I allow that the Persians are right, and that I am out of my mind.’