indignities in his own presence, he ordered it to be cast into the fire and burnt, which was a thing equally contrary to the customs of the Persians and Egyp tians. The rage this prince testified against the dead carcase of Amasis, shows to what a degree he hated his person. Whatever was the cause of that aversion, it seems to have been one of the chief motives Cambyses had for carrying his arms into Egypt.* The next year, which was the sixth of his reign, he resolved to make war in three different countries; against the Carthaginians, the Ammonians, and the Ethiopians. The first of these projects he was obliged to lay aside, because the Phoenicians, without whose assistance he could not carry on that war, refused to succour him against the Carthaginians, who were descended from them, Carthage being originally a Tyrian colony.f But, being determined to invade the other two nations, he sent ambassadors into Ethiopia, who, under that character, were to act as spies for him, to learn the state and strength of the country, and give him intelligence of both. They carried presents along with them, such as the Persians were used to make, as purple, golden bracelets, perfumes, and wine. These presents, among which there was nothing useful or serviceable to life, except the wine, were despised by the Ethiopians; neither did they make much more account of his ambassadors, whom they took for what they really were, spies and enemies in disguise. However, the king of Ethiopia was willing, after his manner, to make a present to the king of Persia; and taking a bow in his hands, which a Persian was so far from being able to draw, that he could scarcely lift it, he drew it in presence of the ambassadors, and told them: "This is the present and the counsel the king of Ethiopia gives the king of Persia. When the Persians shall be able to use a bow of this size and strength, with as much ease as I have now bent it, then let him come to attack the Ethiopians, and bring more troops with him than Cambyses is master of. In the mean time, let them thank the gods for not having put it into the hearts of the Ethiopians to extend their dominions beyond their own country."+ This answer having enraged Cambyses, he commanded his army to begin their march immediately, without considering, that he neither had provisions, nor any thing necessary for such an expedition: but he left the Grecians behind him, in his newly conquered country, to keep it in subjection during his absence.§ As soon as he arrived at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, he detached fifty thousand of his men against the Ammonians, ordered them to ravage the country, and to destroy the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was famous there. But, after they had made several days march in the desert, a violent wind blowing from the south, brought such a vast quantity of sand upon the army, that the men were all overwhelmed and buried under it.|| In the mean time, Cambyses marched forward like a madman against the Ethiopians, notwithstanding his being destitute of all sorts of provisions, which quickly caused a terrible famine in his army. He had still time, says Herodotus, to remedy this evil; but Cambyses would have thought it a dishonour to have desisted from his undertaking, and therefore proceeded in his expedition. At first his army was obliged to live upon herbs, roots, and leaves of trees: but, coming afterwards into a country entirely barren, they were reduced to the necessity of eating their beasts of burden. At last they were brought to such a cruel extremity, as to be obliged to eat one another; every tenth man upon whom the lot fell, being doomed to serve as meat for his companions; a meat, says Seneca, more cruel and terrible than famine itself: Decimum quemque sortiti, alimentum habuerunt fame sævius. Notwithstanding all this, the king still persisted in his design, or rather in his madness, nor did the miserable desolation of his army make him sensible of his error. But at length, beginning to be afraid for his own person, he ordered them to return. Ďu *Herod. 1. iii. c. 16. Idem. c. 25. Idem. c. 17, 19. Idem. c. 20-24. De Ira, I. iii. c. 20 363 ring all this dreadful famine among the troops, (who would believe it?) there was no abatement of delicacies at his table, and camels were still reserved to carry his kitchen furniture, and the instruments of his luxury Servabantur illi interim generosæ aves, et instrumenta epularum camelis vehebantur, cum sortirentur milites ejus quis male periret, quis pejus viveret.* : The remainder of his army, of which the greatest part was lost in this expedition, he brought back to Thebes, where he succeeded much better in the war declared against the gods, whom he found more easy to be conquered than men. Thebes was full of temples, that were incredibly rich and magnificent. All these Cambyses pillaged, and then set them on fire. The richness of these temples must have been vastly great, since the very remains, saved from the flames, amounted to an immense sum, three hundred talents of gold, and two thousand three hundred talents of silver. He likewise carried away at this time the famous circle of gold, that encompassed the tomb of Ozymandias, being three hundred and fifty-five cubits in circumference, and in which were represented all the motions of the several constellations. From Thebes he went back to Memphis, where he dismissed all the Greeks, and sent them to their respective homes; but on his return into the city, finding it full of rejoicings, he fell into a great rage, supposing all this to have been for the ill success of his expedition. He therefore called the magistrates before him, to know the meaning of these public rejoicings; and upon their telling him, that it was because they had found their god Apis, he would not believe them, but caused them to be put to death as impostors that insulted him and his misfortunes. And then he sent for the priests, who made him the same answer; upon which he replied, that since their god was so kind and familiar as to appear among them, he would be acquainted with him, and therefore commanded him forthwith to be brought to him. But when instead of a god he saw a calf, he was strangely astonished, and falling again into a rage, he drew out his dagger, and run it into the thigh of the beast; and then, upbraiding the priests for their stupidity in worshipping a brute for a god, ordered them to be severely whipped, and all the Egyptians in Memphis, that should be found celebrating the feast of Apis, to be slain. The god was carried back to the temple, where he languished of his wound for some time, and then died.§ The Egyptians say, that after this fact, which they reckoned to have been the highest instance of impiety that ever was committed among them, Cambyses grew mad. But his actions showed him to have been mad long before, of which he continued to give various instances: among the rest are these following. He had a brother, the only son of Cyrus, besides himself, and born of the same mother: his name, according to Xenophon, was Tanaoxares, but Herodotus calls him Smerdis, and Justin, Mergis. He accompanied Cambyses in his Egyptian expedition. But, being the only person, among all the Persians, that could draw the bow which the ambassadors of Cambyses brought him from the king of Ethiopia, Cambyses from hence conceived such a jealousy against him, that he could bear him no longer in the army, but sent him back into Persia. And not long after, dreaming that somebody told him that Smerdis sat on the throne, he conceived a suspicion that his brother aspired to the throne, and sent after him into Persia, Prexaspes, one of his chief confidents, with orders to put him to death, which he accordingly executed. T This murder was the cause of another still more criminal. Cambyses had with him in the camp his youngest sister, whose name was Meroe. Herodotus informs us in what a strange manner his sister became his wife. As the princess was exceedingly beautiful, Cambyses absolutely resolved to marry her. To that end he called together all the judges of the Persian nation, to whom belonged the interpretation of their laws, to know of them, whether there was any law that would allow a brother to marry a sister. The judges, being un * De Ira, l. iii. c 20. † Diod. Bic. 1. i. p. 43. + Idem. p. 46. willing on the one hand directly to authorize such an incestuous marriage, and on the other, fearing the king's violent temper should they contradict him, endeavoured to find out a subterfuge, and gave him this crafty answer: that they had no law indeed which permitted a brother to marry a sister, but they had a law which allowed the king of Persia to do what he pleased. This answer, serving his purpose as well as a direct approbation, he solemnly married her, and hereby gave the first example of that incest, which was afterwards practised by most of his successors, and by some of them carried so far as to marry their own daughters, how repugnant soever it be to modesty and good order. This lady he carried with him in all his expeditions, and her name being Meroe, he gave it to an island in the Nile, between Egypt and Ethiopia, on the conquering of it, having advanced thus far in his wild march against the Ethiopians. The circumstance that gave occasion to his murdering this princess, was as follows. One day Cambyses was diverting himself in seeing a combat between a young lion and a young dog; the lion having the better, another dog, brother to him that was engaged, came to his assistance, and helped him to master the lion. This adventure mightily delighted Cambyses, but drew tears from Meroe, who being obliged to tell her husband the reason of her weeping, confessed that this combat made her call to mind the fate of her brother Smerdis, who had not the same good fortune as that little dog. There needed no more than this to excite the rage of this brutal prince, who immediately gave her, notwithstanding her being with child, such a blow with his foot on the belly, that she died of it. So abominable a marriage deserved no better end.* He caused also several of the principal of his followers to be buried alive, and daily_sacrificed some one or other of them to his wild fury. He had obliged Prexaspes, one of his principal officers and favourites, to declare to him what his Persian subjects thought and said of him. "They admire, Sir," says Prexaspes, "a great many excellent qualities they see in you, but they are somewhat mortified at your immoderate love of wine." "I understand you," replied the king, "that is, they pretend that wine deprives me of my reason; you shall be judge of that immediately." Upon which he began to drink excessively, pouring it down in larger quantities than he had ever done before. Then ordering Prexaspes's son, who was his chief cup-bearer, to stand upright at the end of the room, with his left hand upon his head, he took his bow, and levelled it at him; and declaring that he aimed it at his heart, let fly, and actually shot him in the heart. He then ordered his side to be opened, and showing the father the heart of his son, which the arrow had pierced, asked him, in an insulting, scoffing manner, if he had not a steady hand? The wretched father, who ought not to have had either voice or life remaining, after a stroke like this, was so mean-spirited as to reply, "Apollo himself could not have shot better." Seneca, who copied this story from Herodotus, after having shown his detestation of the barbarous cruelty of the prince, condemns still more the cowardly and monstrous flattery of the father: Sceleratius telum illud laudatum est, quam missum.† When Croesus took upon him to advise Cambyses against these proceedings, and laid before himn the ill consequences they would lead to, he ordered him to be put to death. And when those who received his order, knowing he would repent of it the next day, deferred the execution, he caused them all to be put to death, because they had not obeyed his commands, though at the same time he expressed great joy that Croesus was alive.‡ It was about this time, Oretes, one of the satraps of Cambyses, who had the government of Sardis, after a very strange and extraordinary manner, brought about the death of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. The story of this Polycrates is of so singular a nature, that the reader will not be displeased if I repeat it here. This Polycrates was a prince, who, through the whole course of his life, had been perfectly prosperous and successful in all his affairs, and had never met † Idem. c. 34, 35. Sen. 1. iii. de Ira, c. 14. Herod. 1. iii. c. 31, 32. Herod. 1. iii. c. 36. with the least disappointment, or unfortunate accident, to disturb his felicity. Amasis, king of Egypt, his friend and ally, thought himself obliged to send him a letter of admonition upon that subject. In this letter he declared to him, that he had terrible apprehensions concerning his condition; that such a long and uninterrupted course of prosperity was to be suspected; that some malignant invidious god, who looks upon the fortune of men with a jealous eye, would certainly, sooner or later, bring ruin and destruction upon him; and, in order to prevent such a fatal stroke, he advised him to procure some misfortune to himself by some voluntary loss, that he was persuaded would prove a sensible mortification to him.* The tyrant followed his advice. Having an emerald ring which he highly esteemed, particularly for its curious workmanship, as he was walking upon the deck of one of his galleys with his courtiers, he threw it into the sea without any one's perceiving what he had done. Not many days after, some fishermen, having caught a fish of an extraordinary size, made a present of it to Polycrates. When the fish was opened, the king's ring was found in the belly of it. His surprise was very great, and his joy still greater. When Amasis heard what had happened, he was very differently affected with it. He wrote another letter to Polycrates, telling him, that to avoid the mortification of seeing his friend and ally fall into some grievous calamity, he from that time renounced his friendship and alliance. A strange, whimsical notion! as if friendship was merely a name, or a title destitute of all substance and reality. Be that as it will, the thing did really happen as the Egyptian king apprehended. Some years after, about the time Cambyses fell sick, Oretes, who, as I said before, was his governor at Sardis, not being able to bear the reproach which another satrap had cast upon him, in a private quarrel, for his not having yet conquered the isle of Samos, which lay so near his government, and would be so commodious to his master, Oretes, upon this resolved, at any rate, to destroy Polycrates, that he might get possession of the island. The way he took to effect his design was this. He feigned an inclination, upon some pretended discontent, to revolt from Cambyses, and in order, he said, to secure his treasure and effects, he was determined to deposit them in the hands of Polycrates, at the same time to make him a present of one half of them, which would enable him to conquer Ionia and the adjacent islands, a project he had long had in view. Oretes knew the tyrant loved money, and passionately coveted to enlarge his dominions. He therefore laid that double bait before him, by which he equally tempted his avarice and ambition. Polycrates, that he might not rashly engage in an affair of that importance, thought it proper to inform himself more surely of the truth of the matter, and to that end sent a messenger of his own to Sardis. When he came there, Oretes showed him a vast number of bags full of gold as he said, but in truth filled with stones, and having only the mouth of them covered with gold coin. As soon as he was returned home, Polycrates, impatient to go and seize his prey, set out for Sardis, contrary to the advice of all his friends, and, and took along with him Democedes, a celebrated physician of Crotona. Immediately on his arrival, Oretes had him arrested, as an enemy to the state, and as such caused him to be hanged. In such an ignominious and shameful manner did he end a life, which had been but one continued series of prosperity and good fortune.t Cambyses, in the beginning of the eighth year of his reign, left Egypt in order to return into Persia. When he reached Syria, he found a herald there, sent from Susa to the army, to let them know that Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, was proclaimed king, and to command them all to obey him. This event had been brought about in the following manner. Cambyses, at his departure from Susa on his Egyptian expedition, had left the administration of affairs during his absence in the hands of Patisithes, one of the chief of the Magi. This Herod. 1. iii. c. 39–43 ↑ Herod. l. iii. c 120—125. Patisithes had a brother strongly resembling Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, and who, perhaps, for that reason was called by the same name. As soon as Patisithes was fully assured of the death of that prince, which was concealed from the public, knowing, at the same time, that Cambyses indulged his extravagance to such a degree, that he was grown insupportable, he placed his own brother upon the throne, giving out that he was the true Smerdis, the son of Cyrus; and immediately despatched heralds into all the parts of the empire, to give notice of Smerdis's accession, and to require all the subjects thereof to pay him obedience.* Cambyses caused the herald that came with these orders into Syria to be arrested; and having strictly examined him in the presence of Prexaspes, who had received orders to kill his brother, he found that the true Smerdis was certainly dead, and he who had usurped the throne was no other that Smerdis the Magian. Upon this he made great lamentations, that being deceived by a dream, and the identity of the names, he had been induced to destroy his own brother; and immediately gave orders for his army to march and cut off the usurper. But as he was mounting his horse for this expedition, his sword slipped out of its scabbard, and gave him a wound in the thigh, of which he died soon after. The Egyptians remarking, that it was upon the same part of the body where he had wounded their god Apis, looked upon it as a judgment upon him for that sacrilegious impiety.t While he was in Egypt, having consulted the oracle of Butos, which was famous in that country, he was told that he should die at Ecbatana; understanding this of Ecbatana in Media, he resolved to preserve his life by never going thither; but what he thought to avoid in Media, he found in Syria; for the town where he lay sick of this wound was also called Ecbatana. On this being made known to him, taking it for certain that he must die there, he assembled the chiefs of the Persians together, and representing to them that it was Smerdis the Magian who had usurped the throne, earnestly exhorted then not to submit to that impostor, nor to suffer the sovereignty to pass from the Persians again to the Medes, of which nation the Magian was, but to take care to set up a king over them of their own people. The Persians, thinking he had said all this out of hatred to his brother, paid no regard to it, but upon his death, quietly submitted to him whom they found on the throne, supposing him to be the true Smerdis.‡ Cambyses reigned seven years and five months. In Scripture he is called Ahasuerus. When he first came to the crown, the enemies of the Jews made their addresses directly to him, desiring him to prevent the building of their temple. And their application was not in vain. Indeed, he did not openly revoke the edict of his father Cyrus, perhaps out of some remains of respect for his memory, but in a great measure frustrated its intent, by the many discouragements he laid the Jews under; so that the work went on very slowly during his reign.§ CHAPTER III. THE HISTORY OF SMERDIS THE MAGIAN. THIS prince is called in Scripture Artaxerxes. As soon as he was settled on the throne, by the death of Cambyses, the inhabitants of Samaria wrote a letter to him, setting forth what a turbulent, seditious, and rebellious people the Jews were. By virtue of this letter, they obtained an order from the king, prohibiting the Jews from proceeding any farther in the rebuilding of their city and temple. So that the work was suspended till the second year of Darius, for about the space of two years. *Herod. 1. iii. c. 61. ↑ Herod. 1. iii. c. 62-64. |