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Updated: August 6, 2024
By some means or other, at all events, the Arab chief provided supplies of water in the desert for Cambyses's army, and the troops made the passage safely. Psammenitus came forward to meet the invaders. A great battle was fought. The Egyptians were routed.
Now the return of Smerdis was publicly and generally known, while his assassination by Prexaspes was kept a profound secret. Even the Persians connected with Cambyses's court in Egypt had not heard of the perpetration of this crime, until Cambyses confessed it on his dying bed, and even then, as was stated in the last chapter, they did not believe it.
"The beauty of Cambyses's dresses," said he, "is as deceitful, it seems, as the fair show of his professions of friendship." As to the golden bracelets and necklaces, the king looked upon them with contempt.
The army of Cambyses, too, in Egypt, believed the same. It was natural that they should do so for they placed no confidence whatever in Cambyses's dying declarations; and since intelligence, which seemed to be official, came from Susa declaring that Smerdis was still alive, and that he had actually taken possession of the throne, there was no apparent reason for doubting the fact.
These, and a constant succession of similar acts of atrocious and reckless cruelty and folly, led the world to say that Cambyses was insane. Cambyses's profligate conduct. He marries his own sisters. Consultation of the Persian judges. Their opinion. Smerdis. Jealousy of Cambyses. The two magi. Cambyses suspicious. He plans an invasion of Ethiopia. Island of Elephantine. The Icthyophagi.
One of these princesses was Atossa. Cambyses invaded Egypt, and in the course of his mad career in that country he killed his brother Smerdis and one of his sisters, and at length was killed himself. Atossa escaped the dangers of this stormy and terrible reign, and returned safely to Susa after Cambyses's death.
For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert, through the land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, through the land where the African princes watched from afar the destruction of Cambyses's army, past Meroe, Thebes, Cairo; bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing tumult of thousands of years of life, ever flowing, ever ebbing, with the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled.
Classes of savage nations. Embassadors sent to Ethiopia. The presents. The Ethiopian king detects the imposture. The Ethiopian king's opinion of Cambyses's presents. The Ethiopian bow. Return of the Icthyophagi. Jealousy of Cambyses. He orders Smerdis to be murdered. Cambyses grows more cruel. Twelve noblemen buried alive. Cambyses's cruelty to his sister. Her death. The venerable Croesus.
The murder of Prexaspes's son, though related in the last chapter as an illustration of Cambyses's character, did not actually take place till after Prexaspes returned from this expedition. Prexaspes went to Persia, and executed the orders of the king by the assassination of Smerdis. There are different accounts of the mode which he adopted for accomplishing his purpose.
Prexaspes was a man of high rank and of great influence, and the magi thought that his public espousal of their cause, and his open and decided contradiction of the rumor that he had killed Cambyses's brother, would fully convince the Persians that it was really the rightful monarch that had taken possession of the throne.
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