THE DEATH OF CAMBYSES.
"When Cambyses returned from Thebes to Memphis," so Herodotus narrates,
"Apis appeared to the Egyptians. They put on their best clothes, and
made holiday. Cambyses seeing this, formed the opinion that they held
the festival because misfortune had happened to him. He summoned the
governors of Memphis, and when they came into his presence asked them
why the Egyptians had done nothing of this kind when he had been in
Memphis before, but only now that he had lost the greater part of his
army. They replied that their god had appeared to them, who for a long
time had been wont to appear, and when he appeared all the Egyptians
were delighted. When Cambyses heard this he said that they lied, and
punished them with death. He then sent for the priests, and when they
said the same, he said that he would soon ascertain whether a tame deity
had appeared to the Egyptians, and commanded them to bring out Apis.
Apis was brought out, and Cambyses mad as he was drew his sword. He
meant to stab Apis in the belly, but he hit the thigh and said with a
laugh to the priests: 'Wretches, are these creatures gods, which have
flesh and blood, and feel iron? Such a god is worthy of the Egyptians.
But you shall not mock me for nothing,' He gave command to scourge the
priests and slay every Egyptian who was found making holiday. In this
way the festival came to an end; the priests were punished, the Apis
died in the temple of the wound in his thigh, and the priests buried him
secretly unknown to Cambyses.[176] But the king remained in Memphis and
raged against the Egyptians, the allies, and the Persians. He caused the
old sepulchres to be opened and looked at the corpses; he went into the
temple of Hephaestus (Ptah, I. 43), and desecrated the image of the god
in various ways. He also entered the temple of the Cabiri (belonging to
the Phenicians at Memphis, III. 310), which none but the priests may
enter, and outraged the images and burned them."[177] Diodorus observes
that Cambyses, as was said, took away the Golden Zone in the Ramesseum,
which measured 365 cubits, one for each day in the year, and was a cubit
thick.[178] Justin tells us quite generally that Cambyses, enraged at
the superstition of the Egyptians, gave orders for the destruction of
the temples of Apis and the other gods.[179]
In the narrative of Herodotus the best reason given for the wounding of
Apis is the vexation of the king at the failure of his campaigns against
the Ethiopians and Ammonians, and the refusal of the Phenicians; and the
belief that the festival of Apis was merely an excuse for making merry
over the blows which had fallen upon him. If Cambyses tells the priests,
who exhibit Apis to him as a god who has recently appeared to them, that
"they lied," it was very difficult for a worshipper of Auramazda to
believe that a young bull was a god, and the highest god, and the "lie"
with which Cambyses charges them, seems to be an accurate trait
corresponding to the conceptions of the Avesta about the "lying gods,"
and to the Zoroastrian respect for the truth. There could hardly be a
more strongly-marked contrast than between the worship of Auramazda, the
creator of heaven and earth, and surrounded by the light spirits of the
sky, in which no images were allowed, and the rites of the Egyptians,
their worship of numerous images of the most extraordinary form in
splendid temples, their adoration of the sacred animals, in which these
deities appeared, and were thought to be present,--between their anxious
care for the preservation of the corpse, and the eagerness of the
Iranians to remove the impure remains of man. Cambyses might in all
honesty believe that he was in contact with a stupid worship of idols, a
senseless adoration of calves, crocodiles, and serpents, and a nation of
"liars."
But if he held such opinions, he did not act on them. If he had outraged
the worship of Egypt in the manner represented by the legends of the
Egyptians in Herodotus and Justin, the country could hardly have
remained at rest after his death, when almost all the other lands
rebelled against the Persians. Egyptian inscriptions prove that under
Cambyses there was no sort of religious persecution, but quite the
reverse. In the tombs of the Apis, on the plateau of Memphis, on the
vestibule of the new gallery which Psammetichus had caused to be
hollowed out for them, when the old gallery of Ramses II. was filled, we
see on a pillar Cambyses adoring the Apis. The inscription tells us: "In
the year four, in the month Epiphi, in the reign of Cambyses
(Kambathet), the immortal, the god was brought here for the burial which
the king ordained for him. A second Apis, the successor of that which
was buried, was born, as the inscription of the Apis tombs tells us, on
the 28th Tybi, in the fifth year of the reign of Cambyses.[180]
Inscriptions found on the statue of an Egyptian, Uzahorsun (at present
in the Vatican), tell us that he had been a magistrate under Amasis and
Psammenitus (Psamtik III.), and afterwards under Cambyses and Darius.
'When the great prince, the lord of the world, Kambathet,'[181] so we
are told in these, 'marched against Egypt, all the nations of the earth
were with him.' He became lord of the whole land, and settled therein.
He was the great lord of Egypt, the great prince of the whole world, the
king of upper and lower Egypt, Ra-mesut (_i.e._ Ra born again[182]). And
his holiness conferred on me the dignity of a counsellor and overseer of
the royal gates, and commanded that I should ever be where he was. I
brought a complaint before his holiness touching the people who were in
the temple of Neith, that they might be driven out, that the temple
might be purified and clean as before. His holiness commanded the temple
to be purified, and the sacred gifts to be brought as before to Neith,
the great mother of the great gods who dwell in Sais. And his holiness
commanded to celebrate all the great and little festivals, as had been
done before. This his holiness did because he had commanded me to
announce to him the greatness of Sais, which is the city of all the
gods, who are there enthroned on their seats for ever. When the king of
upper and lower Egypt came to Sais, he entered himself into the temple
of Neith. He visited the sacred place of her holiness the goddess, as
every king had done. His holiness did this on the information which he
had received of the greatness of her holiness, who is the mother of the
sun himself. His holiness performed all the rites in the temple of
Neith. He offered a libation of the lord of Eternity (Osiris) in the
inner chamber of the temple of Neith, as all kings had done before him.
On the command of his holiness, the worship of Neith, the great mother
of the gods, was re-established in all its completeness for ever. I have
provided the sacred worship of Neith, the lady of Sais, with all good
things, as a good servant does for his master. I have re-established the
priests in their office, and on the command of the king have given them
rich possessions to be their own for ever. I have erected a good
sepulchre for him who was without a coffin. I was a good citizen of my
city. I have caused its children to live. I have set up all their
houses; I have shown them every kindness as a father for his son. I have
rescued their population, when disaster fell upon their canton, at a
time when there was great calamity in all the land. Never did such
calamity fall upon their land before."[183]
This inscription, like those on the Apis tombs, proves that Cambyses in
Egypt, like his father in Babylon, wished to take the place of the old
princes of the land, and did take it; and that he bore the titles of the
ancient Pharaohs, and that a regal-name Ra-mesut was added to his name,
as was the custom with his predecessors. He undertook the protection of
the ancient gods of the land; he allowed Egyptians, servants of the old
king's, to come into his immediate service; he listened to their advice;
heard their complaints about the outrages done to the temple, which
could hardly have been avoided in the occupation (p. 147), and removed
the cause; restored the priests to the enjoyment of their incomes;
showed respect to their religion, and allowed it to continue without
restriction. However great we suppose the care to be which the Egyptian
inscriptions take to say no evil of the Persian king, whatever weight we
ascribe to the fact that after the Persians had once become their
masters, the priests followed the traditional custom in denoting the
kings of the Persians by the titles of their Pharaohs; whatever
importance we allow to the fact that the priests were closely interested
in representing religious affairs as unaltered even after the change in
the rulers, and however much we deduct from their formal style on the
score of these considerations--it still remains an established fact,
from these inscriptions, that Cambyses did not oppress the Egyptians or
their religion. The purification of one of the largest and most sacred
temples in Egypt, the restoration of the priesthood and the worship at
the temple, could not have been ascribed to Cambyses if the opposite was
known to be the case. On the other hand, the narrative of Uzahorsun
presents us with the natural course of affairs. If he speaks of a great
calamity such as had never before fallen on the district of Sais and the
whole land, this refers to the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, since
he claims the merit of having rescued the population at Sais in this
calamity. We saw above, from the narrative of Herodotus, that Cambyses
went to Sais, after the capture of Memphis. The inscriptions show that
the priests had been driven from the temple of Neith, that the soldiers
were quartered in it, that sacrifice and worship came to an end. But it
also teaches us that Cambyses removed these evils. Whether he felt
himself called upon to offer gifts in the temple of Neith and pour
libations, or whether the priests when restored to possession of the
temple property did this on his behalf, is indifferent; the inscription
and Herodotus tell us that he entered the temple in person. Of the two
Apis-bulls which the inscriptions mention as belonging to the reign of
Cambyses, the first, which was buried in Epiphi of the fourth year of
Cambyses, may have been that which the king is said to have wounded
after his return from Napata. But Herodotus observes that the priests
buried this Apis "secretly." This is contradicted by the sepulchral
pillar, inasmuch as Cambyses causes a place to be prepared for the
burial of this Apis, and we have a picture of Cambyses in adoration
before this Apis. The hypothesis, which we might frame, that the priests
have given themselves the satisfaction of representing Cambyses as
entreating the pardon of the god whom he had slain in a holy place,
little visited by the Persians, would be very artificial and
insufficient to account for this glaring contradiction.
Hence we have to correct in some very essential points the
Greek-Egyptian tradition of Cambyses. Though the Egyptians might
attempt, as we saw, to change Cambyses into the grandson of their own
Pharaoh Hophra, the people could hardly fail to attribute evil deeds and
crimes to the man who had deprived their land of its independence, who
had caused them painfully to feel the loss of their pride, the antiquity
and the monuments of their history, their wisdom and art, a loss which
they felt deeply as their repeated and stubborn rebellions show. But
Herodotus would be the more ready to give credence to the narrative of
the Egyptians of the wounding of Apis, because it explained the
miserable death of Cambyses as the just punishment for this crime.
Besides there were narratives of the Persians, which tended to impress
on Cambyses the traits which he bears in Herodotus.
"Smerdis, the brother of Cambyses," so Herodotus further narrates, "was
with him in Egypt. Cambyses sent him back out of jealousy, because he
was able to draw the bow of the Ethiopians further than all the rest of
the Persians. When Smerdis had returned to Persia, Cambyses saw in a
dream a messenger from Persia, who told him, that his brother sat up on
the throne and that his head touched heaven. He was afraid that his
brother would slay him and take possession of the kingdom; hence he sent
Prexaspes the Persian in whom he had most confidence to Persia to put
him to death. Prexaspes went to Susa, and slew Smerdis as some say,
while hunting with him, but according to others, by taking him out on
the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf) and throwing him into the water. This was
the first evil deed which Cambyses committed immediately after his crime
against Apis. The second he committed against his own sister, by the
same father and mother (_i.e._ against the youngest of the three
daughters whom Cassandane bore to Cyrus; her name has not come down to
us with certainty). He was seized with a passion for one of his sisters,
and desired to have her to wife; but as he saw that this was unusual,
for up to this time the Persians had not taken sisters to wife, he asked
the royal judges (p. 105) whether there was any law which stood in the
way of his wish to marry his sister. The judges made a reply which was
both just and safe; they could find no law which bade the brother marry
the sister, but they had found a law which allowed the king of the
Persians to do as he pleased. Then Cambyses married the sister whom he
loved, and after this a second younger sister. The latter followed him
to Egypt. Here she witnessed, together with Cambyses, a young lion
fighting against a young dog, and when the dog was being beaten, its
brother broke its chain and came to its aid, and the two together got
the better of the lion. Cambyses was delighted at the sight, but his
sister wept. When Cambyses perceived this he asked the cause of her
tears; she replied that she wept because she thought of Smerdis when she
saw the brother running to help the brother, and knew that no one would
come to help him (Cambyses). For this speech, the Greeks say, Cambyses
put his sister to death. The Egyptian account is that at table she took
a lettuce, stripped off the leaves and asked Cambyses whether it looked
better when bare or when full of leaves, and when he replied that it
looked better when full of leaves, she retorted: 'And yet you have made
it bare by desolating the house of Cyrus.' In a rage Cambyses gave her a
kick, and as she was pregnant, she miscarried and died. Such was the
fury of Cambyses against his own family, and he was guilty of similar
acts against the Persians. He asked those Persians who sat with him and
Croesus what sort of a man he appeared to be in comparison with his
father. They replied that he was greater than his father; for he
possessed all that Cyrus had possessed, and Egypt and the sea in
addition. This answer did not please Croesus, who said: 'O son of
Cyrus, to me thou seemest not to be equal to thy father, for thou hast
not a son to leave behind thee such as he left in thee'; and when he
heard this Cambyses was pleased and praised the answer of Croesus. He is
said once to have asked Prexaspes whom he most honoured, and who carried
in messages to him--his son was cup-bearer to Cambyses, an office of no
slight honour--What do the Persians think and say of me? Prexaspes
replied: 'O Sire, in all other things they praise thee greatly, but they
say thou art too much given to wine.' Cambyses answered in displeasure:
'So the Persians now say that owing to wine I am mad and not in my right
mind; their previous answer was untrue.' He remembered that they had
called him greater than Cyrus, and said to Prexaspes: 'See now for
yourself whether the Persians speak the truth, or whether they tell
foolish tales. There is your son in the portico; if I hit him in the
heart it is clear that the Persians are wrong in what they say. But if I
miss they are right and I am not in my senses.' The king drew the bow,
hit the youth, ordered the body to be opened and the wound to be
examined. When it was found that the arrow was in the heart he laughed,
and in great delight said to the father: 'Now I have proved to you,
Prexaspes, that I am not mad, but that the Persians are out of their
senses. Tell me now, did you ever see such an archer?' As Prexaspes saw
that he was not in his right mind, and was afraid for himself, he
replied: 'I believe that God himself could not shoot so well.' On
another occasion he caused twelve of the leading Persians for some
trifling cause to be buried alive, head downwards. Then Croesus felt it
right to warn him with words such as these: 'O king, do not yield in
everything to youth and anger; restrain and bridle thyself. It is good
to look beforehand, and prudence is wise. Thou slayest men of thy own
nation without good reason and killest youths. If thou persistest in
this, beware lest the Persians fall from thee. Thy father Cyrus charged
and bade me many times to warn thee and counsel thee for good.' Cambyses
answered: 'Dost thou venture to advise me, who hast governed thine own
land so well, and advised my father to cross the Araxes against the
Massagetae, when they were willing to come over the river? A bad ruler of
your country, you have brought yourself to destruction, and Cyrus also
who followed your advice: you shall not escape me; I have long been
seeking for an excuse to take you.' He seized his bow in order to shoot
him, but Croesus escaped and ran out. As he could not shoot him, he
ordered his servants to seize him and put him to death. The servants,
who knew his manner, hid Croesus; if Cambyses changed his mood and asked
for Croesus they intended to bring him and receive presents, but if not,
they would put him to death. Not long after Cambyses asked for Croesus,
and the servants said that he was alive. Then Cambyses said he was glad
that Croesus was alive; but those who had preserved him should not
escape, but die; and this sentence he executed."
"While Cambyses was passing his time in Egypt two brothers rose up
against him, two Magians, one of whom Cambyses had left behind as the
overseer of his house. This man, whose name was Patizeithes, rebelled
when he found that the death of Smerdis was concealed, that few Persians
knew of it, and the majority believed him to be alive. Building on this,
he intended to make himself master of the throne. He had a brother who
was very like Smerdis and had also the same name. When he had persuaded
this brother to take his advice in everything, he put him on the throne,
and sent heralds in every direction, even to Egypt, to announce to the
army that henceforth they should obey Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and not
Cambyses. The envoy to Egypt found Cambyses and the army at Ecbatana in
Syria; he came forward and proclaimed his message. When Cambyses heard
this, he thought that what was said was true, that Prexaspes had
betrayed him, and when sent to kill Smerdis had not done so. He said to
Prexaspes: 'Is this the way you have carried out my commands?' But
Prexaspes answered: 'Sire, it is not true that thy brother has rebelled
against thee, and no war will ever proceed from him. I myself, after
executing your commands, buried him with my own hands. If the dead can
rise then expect that Astyages the Mede will rise again; but if things
continue as they have hitherto been, no evil will happen to you from
Smerdis. I think that we should send for the herald and find out from
him by whose order he announces to us that we are to obey Smerdis.' This
advice pleased Cambyses. The herald was fetched, and Prexaspes asked
him: 'You say that you come as a messenger from Smerdis, the son of
Cyrus. If you tell us the truth, whether you saw Smerdis when he gave
these orders, or whether you received them from one of his servants, you
shall go away uninjured from this place.' The man replied: 'Since
Cambyses left for Egypt I have not seen Smerdis; the Magian whom
Cambyses left as overseer of his house gave me these commands; he said
that Smerdis the son of Cyrus bade me make this proclamation to you.'
Then Cambyses said: 'Prexaspes, you like a brave man have done what I
commanded, and avoided all blame; but who of the Persians is it that has
taken the name of Smerdis and revolted against me.' Prexaspes replied:
'O king, I believe that I understand what has happened; the rebels are
the Magians, Patizeithes, the overseer of the palace, and his brother
Smerdis.' Then Cambyses was struck with the truth of the speech, and the
fulfilment of the dream, and when he found that he had killed his
brother for no result, he wept and bewailed his misfortune, and
determined to lead his army with all haste against Susa and the Magians.
But as he was mounting his horse, the button fell from the end of the
sheath of his sword, and the naked point entered his thigh in the same
place in which he had once stabbed Apis. As he believed that the wound
was mortal, he asked for the name of the city. He was told that it was
Ecbatana. It had been previously announced to him at Buto that he would
die at Ecbatana; and he believed that he would end his days as an old
man at Ecbatana in Media. But when he heard the name he was brought to
his senses by the terror of the calamity which threatened him from the
Magians, and by the wound, and said, with clear understanding of the
oracle, that it was fated for the son of Cyrus to die there. After some
twenty days he caused the most distinguished of the Persians who were
with him to be summoned, and said: 'Persians, I am brought to such a
state that I must reveal to you what I have most carefully concealed.
When I was in Egypt I saw in my sleep a dream,--would that I had never
seen it. It seemed to me that a messenger came from home, who announced
that my brother sat on the royal throne and touched heaven with his
head. Then I was afraid that my brother was taking the throne from me,
and I acted more rashly than wisely,--it is not permitted to human
nature to avoid the coming future. I sent, fool that I was, Prexaspes to
Susa to slay Smerdis. After the crime, I felt myself secure; I never
believed that another would rise up against me after the death of
Smerdis. Wholly in error concerning that which was to come, I have
murdered my brother without sufficient cause, and am nevertheless
deprived of the sovereignty. It was the rebellion of the Magian Smerdis
which the demon revealed to me in a dream. This deed I have done: be ye
assured that Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, is no longer alive. The Magian
whom I left behind as overseer of the palace and his brother Smerdis
have obtained possession of the throne. He who before all others would
have averted this disgrace from me, is no more; he has met his death by
wicked murder at the hands of his nearest relation. As he is no more,
and I am dying, Persians, I must tell you what to do after my death. And
so I charge you, calling on the royal gods, all of you, but chiefly the
Achaemenids, who are here present, not to allow the dominion to pass over
to the Medes. If they obtain it by craft, take it from them by craft; if
they maintain it by force, take it away by yet stronger force. If ye do
this, the earth will bring forth fruit for you, and your wives will bear
children, and your flocks will increase, and ye will be free men for all
time. But if ye do not acquire the sovereignty again or attempt to
recover it, I pray the gods that the opposite may happen to you all, and
that every Persian may come to such an end as mine.' When Cambyses had
thus spoken he lamented all the deeds that he had done, and the Persians
rent their garments and lamented and cried aloud. When the bone had
gangrened and the thigh became inflamed, Cambyses, the son of Cyrus
died, after he had sat on the throne for seven years and four months,
without leaving behind him son or daughter."
If in the narrative given by Herodotus of the fate of Psammenitus and
the campaign of Cambyses against the Ethiopians we perceived Egyptian
and Greek traditions, and along with them a poetical source, so in this
account of the crimes of Cambyses and his death we have obviously
Greek-Egyptian legends and echoes of Iranian poetry existing side by
side. To the first we may trace the wounding of Apis, as already
observed, and then the explanation of a custom which is hinted at in the
Avesta, the marriage with a sister, by the decision of the judges and
the example of Cambyses, the oracle of Buto, and its explanation by the
Syrian Ecbatana, the reason for the wound in the thigh of Cambyses (the
similar wound inflicted on Apis), and, as we shall see, the warning of
Croesus. The legends did not trouble themselves with the contradiction
that, though they represent Cambyses as outraging Osiris-Apis, and Ptah,
they allow him to ask advice from Egyptian gods--a proceeding which is
not made more credible by the fact that Stephanus of Byzantium
identifies the Syrian Ecbatana with Bataneia, and observes that the city
of Hamath (Amatha) was also called Akmatha, though the invention of the
oracle is thus made more intelligible.[184] Like his countrymen before
him, Herodotus must have been struck by the contrast between the long
reign, the achievements and successes of Cyrus, and the short reign and
disastrous end of his son. The Egyptian-Greek tradition explained it by
the wickedness of Cambyses, and this wickedness is the result of his
attack on Apis; the frenzy of Cambyses begins immediately after this
with the murder of his brother. In Herodotus the frenzy begins even
earlier; the supposed maltreatment of the corpse of Amasis must belong
to the period immediately after the victory over the Egyptians, _i.e._
to the period before the march to the South, and consequently Herodotus
represents Cambyses as out of his mind when entering on this campaign,
and continuing in his frenzy till he is compelled to return. The reason
which he gives for this madness is that Cambyses, though Herodotus
represents him in another story as full of ambitious plans from his
youth, was afflicted from his birth, as it was said, with a severe
disease, which some call "the sacred sickness," and that in great
sickness of the body it was not strange that the mind also should be
affected.[185] By the sacred sickness the Greeks meant epilepsy, or
spasmodic attacks in general, which were ascribed to the anger of the
gods. With complete consistency Herodotus represents the madness as
going on, till Cambyses is seized with anxiety concerning the rebellion
of the Magian, and finds himself wounded in the thigh. With this
observation he introduces the public confession and remorse--the last
words of Cambyses. Other Greeks explain the crimes of Cambyses in a more
natural manner. Diodorus is of opinion that he was naturally furious and
changeful in his moods; the greatness of the kingdom made him yet wilder
and more proud of spirit, and after the capture of Pelusium and Memphis
he could not bear his prosperity as a man should.[186] The "Laws" (of
Plato) lay the blame on the education of Cambyses. In the field from his
youth, surrounded by war and danger, Cyrus left the education of his
sons to the royal women, and overlooked the fact that his children were
not brought up and educated in the customary Persian manner. The women
and eunuchs brought them up as if they needed no control, and, while yet
mere children, were prosperous and perfect men. No one was allowed to
contradict them; all must praise what they said or did; thus they grew
up luxurious and uncontrolled; their spirits were over-full of ambition.
When after such adulation and uncontrolled freedom they grew up and
received the kingdom, one slew the other, enraged at his equal position,
and then, maddened by drink and debauchery, lost the dominion owing to
the Medes and the so-called eunuch, who despised the foolishness of
Cambyses.[187]
It is more difficult to trace the tendencies of the poetical source
which has become united with the legends in the narrative of Herodotus
than to separate the legends themselves, and fix the motives which have
determined the conception and judgment of the Greeks about Cambyses.
From what other source could the vision of Cambyses, the shot into the
heart of the cup-bearer, have come, or the conversations of Cambyses
with Prexaspes, or the final words of Cambyses? If these traits are only
before us as fragments at third or fourth hand, their connection with
the narrative of the campaign against the long-lived Ethiopians is
undeniable (the bow of the Ethiopians is the point of connection). And
if we call to mind that in his last exhortations to his two sons, Cyrus
calls down blessings on the son who remains well disposed to his
brother, and imprecates curses on the son who is the first to do evil
(p. 123), the structure of the poem becomes clear. It founds the
misfortune of Cambyses on his disobedience to his father's command, and
exhibits the penalty of disobedience and crime committed against a
brother. Smerdis is able to draw the bow of the Ethiopian further than
Cambyses and all the other Persians. This excites envy and jealousy in
his brother, who sends Smerdis back to Persia. Then in a dream he sees
him on the throne, and his head reaches to heaven. He sends Prexaspes to
Persia, who slays the son of Cyrus in the chase and buries him with his
own hand. The instrument of the murder is quickly overtaken by
punishment. Had Cambyses slain Prexaspes himself intentionally or in
anger, it would be conceivable; but the murder of his son is
unintelligible. Only poetical justice could execute vengeance for the
fact that Prexaspes had laid his hand on the son of Cyrus, by
representing Cambyses as slaying with his own hand, without any personal
reason whatever, the son of the man who by his own command had slain his
brother, and who is best acquainted with this secret crime, the
revelation of which would rouse the hearts of all the Persians against
the king. As the poem goes on, it has in store even heavier penalties
for the man who has slain the son of Cyrus. But it is not merely the
murder of the young Prexaspes which belongs to a poetical source. The
same authority represents Cambyses as becoming more and more deeply
involved in guilt and crime against his house. When looking on at the
two dogs which together got the better of the lion, his sister reminds
him of the death of his brother. In his rage he ill-treats her and so
destroys his long-cherished hope of posterity. The house of Cyrus is
desolate. He has mistrusted his brother without reason--the man whom he
has trusted and made the governor of his palace rebels against him; he
places his brother on the throne as the younger son of Cyrus, and causes
him to be proclaimed as king. In despair at such calamities, at the ruin
of the kingdom of which he is the guilty cause, Cambyses ends his days.
He pays the penalty of his heavy guilt by confessing and lamenting his
offence before the assembly of the chief Persians. The curse of Cyrus is
fulfilled. If Herodotus gives the account of the death of Cambyses after
the Greek-Egyptian legend, he is obviously following Iranian poetry in
the accompanying circumstances and in the speech of the dying Cambyses.
We have Iranian conceptions in the answer of Prexaspes: "If the dead can
rise, your brother will return"; in the saying of Cambyses to the
Persians: "If ye strive earnestly to win back the dominion, the earth
will bring forth fruit, and your wives will bear children, and your
flocks will increase." Conceptions and ideas of this kind, expressed
almost in the same words, have met us frequently in the Avesta. The
close of the speech of Cambyses removes the guilt and points to the
future, for he charges the Persians, and above all the Achaemenids, to
risk everything that the dominion may not again pass to the Medes. If
the Persians fight bravely with all the means at their disposal for the
dominion, all will go well with them, if not Cambyses prays the gods
that the reverse may happen to them; may every Persian die like himself
by a most miserable death, _i.e._ by suicide, which the doctrines of
Zarathrustra from their whole tenor must have most severely condemned.
No doubt the Persian epos had to explain the contrast in which the reign
of Cambyses stood to that of Cyrus; no doubt it was a fact that the race
of Cyrus came to an end in the male line owing to his guilt. It was due
to him that his reign was followed by that of an usurper; that rebellion
broke out in all quarters, the kingdom became completely disintegrated,
and the establishment of Cyrus seemed ruined. The songs of the Persians
gave a reason for the sudden change in the manner indicated, by the
murder of the brother and its results. But they would not have charged
Cambyses with madness or with any other offences than this combination
required. They would not have forgotten his services to Persia; the
establishment of the Persian power in the Mediterranean, the victory
over Egypt, over the Ethiopians of Napata, and the negroes. It was not
these poems which branded his campaign to the south as a mad
undertaking, and represented it as a failure; they could not have
opposed Croesus as a wise adviser to Cambyses, or allowed Cambyses to
speak of the miserable end of Cyrus in the land of the Massagetae. If
these elements in the narratives of Herodotus have not come down from
Greek-Egyptian tradition, if the warning of Croesus, in the form in
which we have it, was not attached by him to his account of the death of
Cambyses, we should have to assume that in this case also the Persian
poems came to Herodotus in their Median counterparts--a hypothesis which
is excluded by the distinctly ante-Median and Persian traits in the
dying speech of Cambyses.
Let us see whether information from other sources puts us in a position
to establish the actual connection of affairs free from the admixture of
Greek-Egyptian tradition and Persian poetry. Ctesias treated the reign
of Cambyses in detail in the twelfth book of his Persian History. Of
this only a meagre excerpt has come down to us, according to which the
narrative began with the statement that Cambyses, in accordance with the
last commands of his father, handed over Chorasmia, Bactria, Parthia,
and Carmania to his brother Tanyoxarkes, as Ctesias calls him. Then
follows the conquest of Egypt, as given above; and after this we are
told: "There was a Magian of the name of Sphendadates who had committed
some fault and been scourged by Tanyoxarkes. The Magian went to Cambyses
to calumniate his brother, saying that his mind was set on evil. As a
proof of defection he alleged that Tanyoxarkes would not come if he were
sent for. Cambyses bade his brother come, but he refused, being occupied
with other business. Then the Magian became more persistent in his
calumnies. Amytis, who saw what was the Magian's object, warned her son
Cambyses not to trust him. Cambyses pretended not to trust him, but in
reality reposed entire confidence in him. When Cambyses bade his brother
come for the third time, he obeyed. Cambyses embraced him, but was none
the less determined to put him out of the way; but he was anxious to
carry out his design unknown to his mother. The deed was accomplished.
The Magian advises the king as follows: He was very like Tanyoxarkes,
the king might give orders that his head should be cut off as having
accused his brother falsely; he would then secretly slay Tanyoxarkes,
and clothe him (the Magian) in his robes, so that he might be taken for
him. This was done. Tanyoxarkes died by drinking bull's blood, and the
Magian was clothed in his garments and called Tanyoxarkes. This was for
a long time concealed from all except Artasyras the Hyrcanian and the
eunuchs Bagapates and Izabates, who were most intimate with Cambyses;
to them alone had Cambyses ventured to mention the matter. He caused the
eunuchs of Tanyoxarkes and Labyzus, the chief of them, to be summoned,
showed them the Magian thus attired, and said: Do you believe that this
is Tanyoxarkes? Labyzus was astonished and said: What other man are we
to think that he is? so greatly did the Magian deceive men by his
likeness to Tanyoxarkes. The Magian was now sent to Bactria, and there
conducted himself in all respects as Tanyoxarkes. When five years had
gone by Amytis learnt what had been done from the eunuch Tibetheus, whom
the Magian had caused to be beaten. She asked Cambyses to give up
Sphendadates, but he refused. Then she pronounced her curse, took
poison, and died. When Cambyses sacrificed, the blood of the sacrificial
animals did not flow. He became dejected, and when Roxane bore him a boy
without a head, he was even more out of heart, and the Magians
interpreted the signs to mean that he could leave no successor. His
mother appeared to him in a dream and threatened him for the murder, and
this made him more dejected than ever. When he came to Babylon, by way
of pastime he chipped a piece of wood with a sword, and so hit the
muscle of his thigh, and died on the eleventh day after, when he had
reigned eighteen years. Before his death Artasyras and Bagapates had
resolved that the Magian should reign; and he reigned after the death of
Cambyses."
The length of the reign of Cambyses is incorrect, as indeed almost all
the numbers in Ctesias are wrong. It is also a mistake that in his
account Cambyses and his brother are the sons of Cyrus and Amytis the
daughter of Astyages. As we have said, they were the sons of Cyrus and
Cassandane, who died before Cyrus (V. 384). The object of Ctesias was to
prove the statements of Herodotus incorrect by opposing them with
others. The elevation of Amytis to be the mother of the brothers, and
the part which the account of Ctesias ascribes to this supposed mother,
shows that Ctesias has here followed a Median version, in which the
daughter of Astyages became, not the mother of Cyrus, it is true, but
the mother of his successor, the ruler of Persia and Media,--the same
version which, as we have already seen, assigns to Amytis the greatest
influence on Cyrus, and in the present instance on his son Cambyses.
Without doubt this version is derived from a poetical source; that is
proved by a number of traits: the calumniation of the brother, the
double introduction of the scourging, the three-fold summoning before
the king, the conversation of Cambyses with the eunuch, the three-fold
increase of the distress of Cambyses, the suicide and curse of Amytis,
the signs at sacrifice and the abortion, the appearance of the dead,
which fills up the measure and drives Cambyses to death. As in the
previous case, in this form of the poems, it was the Median queen who
punished Oebares, who incited Cyrus to revolt, for this act and for the
death of her father, so here she visits the ruler of the Persians and
Medes for his crime. Against this view of the account of Ctesias it may
be urged that the Medes would take the side of the Magian more
vigorously than that of Amytis, for the Magian was apparently a Mede.
Herodotus, at any rate, once represents Gobryas as calling him a
Mede.[188] Cambyses, it is true, does not call him so, but in his last
speech merely urges the Persians not to let the empire revert to the
Medes, which means no more than that the empire is not to go back to the
Medes on the extinction of the house of Cyrus, when his kingdom is being
broken up. We shall see that the usurper was not a Mede, and is only
called a Mede by Herodotus because he wrongly thought that all the
Magians were exclusively Medes (V. 194). But as the story of Ctesias
obviously goes back to a poetical source, we are not carried any further
by it in establishing the actual facts of the case.
A third story of the death of Cambyses, that of Trogus, is also retained
in an excerpt only. It is apparently taken from the Persian history of
Deinon. "Cambyses added Egypt to the kingdom of his father. Enraged at
the superstition of the Egyptians, he commanded the temples of Apis and
the other gods to be destroyed. He also sent an army to conquer the
far-famed temple of Ammon, but it was overwhelmed by storms of sand.
Then in a dream he saw his brother as the future king. Terrified by this
vision, he did not hesitate to add the murder of a brother to the
burning of temples. For this horrible service he sent Cometes, a Magian,
one of his trusted servants. Meantime, his sword coming accidentally out
of the sheath, he wounded himself deeply in the thigh, and died, as a
penalty either for the murder of his brother which he had commanded, or
for the burning of the temples. When the Magian heard this he hastened
to commit the crime before the news of the death of the king was spread
abroad; and when he had killed Smerdis, to whom the throne belonged, he
brought in his brother Oropastes. This brother was very like Smerdis in
form and feature; and as no one suspected the deception, Oropastes
became king instead of Smerdis. The matter was the more secret because
among the Persians the king lives in retirement by reason of his
majesty."[189]
Darius, in his inscriptions on Mount Behistun, has left us the authentic
though very compressed history of Cambyses. "Kambujiya, the son of
Kurus," he tells us, "was of our race, was previously king here. This
Kambujiya had a brother, Bardiya by name, of the same father and mother
as Kambujiya. Kambujiya slew this Bardiya. When Kambujiya had slain
Bardiya the people did not know that Bardiya was dead. Then Kambujiya
marched against Egypt. When Kambujiya marched against Egypt the people
became rebellious, and the lie spread both in Persia and in Media and in
the other provinces. There was a man, a Magian, Gaumata by name; he rose
up from Pisiyauvada, from mount Arakadris, which is there. It was in the
month Viyakhna, on the fourteenth day, that he rose up. He lied to the
people; I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus, the brother of Kambujiya. Then
the whole kingdom rebelled against Kambujiya; it went over to the other,
both Persia and Media and the rest of the provinces. He took them for
his own; he was king; he seized the empire. In the month Garmapada, on
the ninth day, it was that he seized the dominion. Then Kambujiya died,
for he took his own life."[190]
Hence we may establish the true course of events in something like the
following form. Cyrus made a certain division of the kingdom; under the
sovereignty of the elder son he assigned to the younger Chorasmia,
Bactria, Parthia, and Carmania, and thus sowed the germ of contention
between the brothers. The younger was called Bardiya. This name sounded
to the Greek as Berdis, and then it passed into Smerdis, as Bagabukhsa
becomes Megabyzus.[191] If Xenophon calls Smerdis Tanaoxares, and
Ctesias Tanyoxarkes, this can only be an epithet which the Persians gave
to Smerdis. The old Bactrian _thanvarakhshathra_ would mean king of the
bow. The Persians might give this name to Smerdis, as their poems
celebrate him as the best drawer of the bow; it was this superiority of
Smerdis which, according to the poems of the Persians, aroused the
jealousy of Cambyses. The tradition of Iran can tell of the three best
shots that were ever made:[192]--the best was made by Arshana, the son
of Kava Kavata (V. 37, 253); and king Bahram Gor slays his beloved
because she does not sufficiently admire his skill with the bow.
Bardiya did not accompany his brother to Egypt; so that he could not
have been sent back from thence. On the contrary, Cambyses had conceived
a suspicion of him even before the campaign to Egypt; he was afraid that
his brother in Bactria would make use of the distance at which he would
be to seize the throne in secret, and the more extensive the conquests
which Cambyses intended to make in Africa the more dangerous would the
possibility appear to him. He caused him to be put to death before he
set out to Egypt. His death remained a secret. By whom and how Bardiya
was killed, and how the secret was kept, whether by an arrangement such
as that described by Ctesias or by some other means, we cannot decide.
The kingdom, the Persians, and the princes of the Persians did not know
but that Bardiya was alive. But the Magian Gaumata is aware of the fact.
Of the writers of the West, Trogus Pompeius alone gives the true name of
the usurper in the Grecised form of Cometes. As the name is correct in
Trogus, the name of the brother of Cometes, whom he calls Oropastes, may
also be correct. But the narrative in the excerpt in Trogus must be so
far altered in accordance with the version of Herodotus that Cambyses
left Oropastes behind as overseer of the palaces, and that he placed his
brother Gaumata on the throne. In Ctesias the man who suggests the
murder becomes himself the false Bardiya and the future king. The
inscription of Darius speaks only "of the Magian Gaumata," of "his
leading adherents." The rebellion of Gaumata was not delayed till the
death of Cambyses, as Ctesias supposed. It occurred, as the inscription
shows, while he was still on the Nile. During the absence of Cambyses
the lie spread in Persia, Media, and the rest of the provinces. The
inscription mentions the day on which Gaumata rebelled, and the place
where it happened: at Pisiyauvada in mount Arakadris this false Bardiya
arose. As the position of this place and mountain is not defined, as is
elsewhere the case in the inscription of Darius, by the addition of the
name of the country, we may assume that it was in Persia that the false
Bardiya, as his interests and the position of affairs required, came
forward, and that he first called on the Persians to acknowledge him as
king and lord of the realm, as indeed he must have done if he desired
success. The inscription does not tell us that Gaumata was a Mede, or
that the Medes first recognized him as their king; it merely says: on
the fourteenth of the month Viyakhna (_i.e._ in the spring of the year
522 B.C.) the whole kingdom rose in rebellion against Cambyses, both
Persia and Media and the rest of the provinces. We shall see below that
even after the fall of Gaumata it was not Media which gave the sign for
rebellion against his murderers, but that that country followed the
example of the Elamites and Babylonians, and was led by Uvakhshathra, a
man of the race of Cyaxares. First Persia, then Media, then the rest of
the lands recognized the false Bardiya as their king; "he took from
Cambyses Persia, Media, and the rest of the provinces," says the
inscription. Then in the month of Garmapada (_i.e._ in July or August)
the false Bardiya was crowned at Pasargadae (V. 358). That Gaumata was
recognized as king in Babylonia is not only proved by the assertion of
Darius, but also by two Babylonian tablets, which are dated from the
20th Elul and 1st Tisri "in the first year of king Barziya."[193] On the
news of the rebellion Cambyses makes Aryandes satrap of Egypt,[194] and
sets out against the usurper. On this march, at Ecbatana in Syria,
according to Herodotus, _i.e._ at Batanea or Hamath, or at Babylon, as
Ctesias asserts, or on the return to Damascus, according to
Josephus,[195] he died.
However dark may be the shadows which fall on the figure of Cambyses, it
has received blacker traits than truth can confirm in the legends of
Greece and Egypt, and, to some extent, in the poems of Media and Persia.
We have mentioned the story which ascribes to him ambitious plans in his
boyish years; in the estimate which the Persians form of him according
to their poems it is only his love of wine which is reprobated. More
important is the judgment which the Persians really passed on Cambyses;
Herodotus tells us they called Cyrus the father, but Cambyses, because
he was severe and ambitious, they called the master.[196] From this
sentence--from despotic severity and violence, whatever may have been
the degree in which they were present--it is a long way to the picture
of the frantic tyrant which Herodotus has sketched on the basis of these
legends and poems. What we know by credible tradition of the crimes of
Cambyses, apart from his act against his brother, and the supposed
outburst of rage against his sister, is limited to the penalty which he
imposed upon Memphis for the murder of the herald and the crew, and the
punishment of Sisamnes, one of the seven judges who was found guilty of
bribery and unjust judgment. He had him executed, the corpse was flayed,
and the judge's seat covered with the skin, on which the son, who was
named his successor, was to give judgment.[197] The punishment of
Memphis cannot be called cruel in the spirit of these times; and the
punishment of the unjust judge is in the manner of an oriental prince
who loves justice. The reign of Cambyses was undoubtedly marked by the
effort to continue the acts of his father, and in this effort he shows
both vigour and resolution. The idea of creating a fleet for the Persian
empire was bold and happy, and bore fruits in the submission of Cyprus
and Samos without a blow. The preparations for the campaign against
Egypt were made with great prudence, and proved adequate and effectual.
But even before he set out for Egypt he had cast the lot which decided
his life. How far the conduct of his brother, which is suggested in the
version of Ctesias, excused the suspicion of Cambyses, we cannot decide.
He did not venture to leave the kingdom so long as his brother ruled
over the eastern half of it; he feared his rebellion during his absence,
and removed him out of the way. The painful secrecy of the deed shows
that Cambyses was tormented with remorse and shame for this crime. At
the gates of Egypt he conquered in a mighty battle. He used the victory
to storm the strong border fortresses of Egypt, and then at once turned
against Memphis, the most important city and fortress of the enemy. The
treatment of the captive Psammenitus repeats the mild manner of Cyrus
towards conquered princes; we have seen above what clemency Cambyses
showed after the conquest was completed towards the Egyptians and their
temples. In possession of Egypt, he intended to achieve in Africa what
his father had done in Asia; far to the south and west the country was
to be subject to the Persians. The campaign against Napata led to the
conquest of that kingdom. By maintaining this conquest, the supremacy of
Persia over Egypt was rendered secure from attacks on that side, and the
negro tribes to the south of Napata were kept in obedience, though
previously they had been visited by the Pharaohs only in flying
incursions. It was at Napata that, according to the tradition preserved
by Diodorus, Strabo, and Josephus, Cambyses lost his sister, and with
her the hope of an heir, by his own brutal violence, as the songs
represent, when his sister reminded him of the death of his brother. But
Strabo and Diodorus observe, as has been shown above, that he named the
city after his sister "to honour her." No doubt the disquiet of his
conscience increased the longer he remained without children. What was
to become of the kingdom after his death? The brother, whom he had
killed, had only left a daughter.[198] Burdened with new anxiety, if not
with new guilt, he turned back from Napata. The disaster, which befell
the army at Premnis, and the failure of the expedition against the oasis
of Sivah, though it did not involve the loss of 50,000 men, might seem
to him proofs that he had brought upon himself the anger of Auramazda
and Mithra. Then the Phenicians refused to march against the
Carthaginians, and he was unable to compel them. The absence of any
heir, the misfortunes which had fallen upon him, increased his inward
torments. He became more distrustful, passionate, and savage. He may
have sought forgetfulness in wine, but the remedy only increased his
violence. He shrank from seeing again his home and the desolate house of
Cyrus, and remained inactive and irresolute for a year and a half in
Egypt; in spite of the danger which attached to the absence of the ruler
of so vast a kingdom.
In Persia and the provinces nothing was known of the death of Bardiya.
The neglect of the kingdom, the absence of the king for three years,
inspire Gaumata with the courage to make use of his opportunity, and
turn the secrecy of the crime against Cambyses. The Persians declare for
the brother who is among them, as against the distant king who seemed to
have forgotten Persia in Egypt; even the satraps of the other countries
soon decide in favour of Bardiya, as for years they had seen nothing of
Cambyses. In three months after his appearance Gaumata was formally
crowned. The account of the rebellion startled Cambyses from his stupor
in Egypt; he placed a satrap over the conquests he had made and hastened
to Syria, where he learnt the full amount of the usurper's success. With
anger he sees the crown of Cyrus on the head of a miserable pretender.
If he is effectually to contend against the opponent who has risen to
such power, he must acknowledge himself before the Persians and the
kingdom as the murderer of his brother, and even if he makes this
shameful confession, will the Persians believe and follow him? Will they
not think that he announces the murder in order to thrust his brother
from the throne? In despair he perceives that he has destroyed the house
of Cyrus, and ruined the work of his father, the fruit of thirty years
of effort and struggle. He sees no means of preventing the course of
affairs, the ruin of the kingdom of which he is the cause. He
acknowledges before the princes of the Persians what he has done,
commands them to make good the damage which he has caused, and seals his
declaration by taking his own life. Such was the tragical end of the son
of the great Cyrus.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] Herod. 3, 27-30.
[177] Herod. 3, 37.
[178] Vol. I. 175. Diod. 1, 49.
[179] Justin. 1, 8.
[180] The reading "year 4" in the first is confirmed by "year 5" in the
second inscription. Lepsius ("Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1854, s. 224,
495) has examined the difficulties which arise regarding the time of
Cambyses' campaign against Egypt, from the contradiction between these
dates and the statements of the Greeks.
[181] The inscriptions also give the name Cambyses in the form Kambuza.
[182] Lepsius, "Z. Aegypt. Spr." 1874, s. 76.
[183] De Rouge, "Revue Archeol." 8, 37 ff.; Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypt," p.
267, 269. In the "History of Egypt," Brugsch reads Uzahorenpiris for
Uzahorsun.
[184] Stephen. Byz. [Greek: Agbatana Batana Amatha]. Cf. V. 307, and von
Gutschmid, "N. Beitrage," s. 96.
[185] Herod. 3, 3, 33.
[186] "Excerpt. de virt." p. 557 = 10, 13.
[187] Plato, "Legg." p. 691, 694, 695.
[188] Herod. 3, 73.
[189] Justin. 1, 9.
[190] So Oppert according to the Persian inscription in "Journal
Asiatique," 4, 17, 385, 386; and according to the second series,
"Records of the Past," 7, 90.
[191] Barziya in the Babylonian text. Smerdis, the favourite of
Polycrates (Anacreon, fragm. 4, ed. Bergk), was no doubt named after the
brother of Cambyses.
[192] Sachau, "Albiruni," p. 205; Noeldeke, "Tabari," s. 91, 271.
[193] Elul and Tisri fall in September and October. The last year of
Cambyses is 522 B.C. According to Herodotus, Cambyses reigned seven
years and five months, and the Magian more than seven months; the two
make up eight years. The number of the Persian days of the month are
repeated in the Babylonian version of the Behistun inscription. Hence
the Persians adopted the year of the Assyrians and Babylonians as well
as their cuneiform writing, but they had independent names for the
months. Unfortunately the names of the months in the Babylonian text are
more frequently destroyed than not, so that we can only be certain in
giving Kislev (November-December) as corresponding to the Athriadiya of
the Persians, Tebet (December-January) to Anamaka, Iyar (May-June) to
Taigarshis. Oppert maintains that we can also identify the Babylonian
Adar or Veadar (Febr.-March) with the Viyakhna of the Persians; but the
text is uncertain in this passage. Finally, we may with tolerable
certainty regard Garmapada (_i.e._ the path of heat) as corresponding to
July and August, to the Tammuz or Ab of the Babylonians. If Viyakhna is
really Adar, the proclamation of the Magian took place in March, 522
B.C., and his coronation in Garmapada (July and August). This according
to Darius was followed by the death of Cambyses. The two tablets quoted
date from September and October in the first year of Barziya. According
to Herodotus, the Magian reigned more than seven months after the death
of Cambyses, _i.e._ down to the spring of 521 B.C. According to the
inscription of Behistun, Darius slew him on the tenth of Bagayadis
(_i.e._ sacrifice to the gods), which would thus be parallel to the
Nisan of the Babylonians, _i.e._ to our April.
[194] Herod. 4, 166.
[195] "Antiqu." 11, 2.
[196] Herod. 3, 89.
[197] Herod. 5, 25.
[198] Herod. 3, 88; 7, 78.