The bull Apis had died shortly before the close of the Ethiopian campaign, and the Egyptians, after mourning for him during the prescribed number of weeks, were bringing his successor with rejoicings into the temple of Phtah, when the remains of the army re-entered Memphis. Cambyses, finding the city holiday-making, imagined that it was rejoicing over his misfortunes. He summoned the magistrates before him, and gave them over to the executioner without deigning to listen to their explanations. He next caused the priests to be brought to him, and when they had paraded the Apis before him, he plunged his dagger into its flank with derisive laughter: “Ah, evil people! So you make for yourselves divinities of flesh and blood which fear the sword! It is indeed a fine god that you Egyptians have here; I will have you to know, however, that you shall not rejoice overmuch at having deceived me!” The priests were beaten as impostors, and the bull languished from its wound and died in a few days*1 its priests buried it, and chose another in its place without the usual ceremonies, so as not to exasperate the anger of the tyrant,** but the horror evoked by this double sacrilege raised passions against Cambyses which the ruin of the country had failed to excite.
* Later historians improved upon the account of Herodotus,
and it is said in the De Iside, that Cambyses killed the
Apis and threw him to the dogs. Here there is probably a
confusion between the conduct of Cambyses and that
attributed to the eunuch Bagoas nearly two centuries later,
at the time of the second conquest of Egypt by Ochus.
** Mariette discovered in the Serapseum and sent to the
Louvre fragments of the epitaph of an Apis buried in Epiphi
in the sixth year of Cambyses, which had therefore died a
few months previously. This fact contradicts the inference
from the epitaph of the Apis that died in the fourth year of
Darius, which would have been born in the fifth year of
Cambyses, if we allow that there could not have been two
Apises in Egypt at once. This was, indeed, the usual rule,
but a comparison of the two dates shows that here it was not
followed, and it is therefore simplest, until we have
further evidence, to conclude that at all events in cases of
violence, such as sacrilegious murder, there could have been
two Apises at once, one discharging his functions, and the
other unknown, living still in the midst of the herds.
The manifestations of this antipathy irritated him to such an extent that he completely changed his policy, and set himself from that time forward to act counter to the customs and prejudices of the Egyptians. They consequently regarded his memory with a vindictive hatred. The people related that the gods had struck him with madness to avenge the murder of the Apis, and they attributed to him numberless traits of senseless cruelty, in which we can scarcely distinguish truth from fiction. It was said that, having entered the temple of Phtah, he had ridiculed the grotesque figure under which the god was represented, and had commanded the statues to be burnt. On another occasion he had ordered the ancient sepulchres to be opened, that he might see what was the appearance of the mummies. The most faithful members of his family and household, it was said, did not escape his fury. He killed his own sister Roxana, whom he had married, by a kick in the abdomen; he slew the son of Prexaspes with an arrow; he buried alive twelve influential Persians; he condemned Croesus to death, and then repented, but punished the officers who had failed to execute the sentence pronounced against the Lydian king.*
* The whole of this story of Croesus is entirely fabulous.
He had no longer any reason for remaining in Egypt, since he had failed in his undertakings; yet he did not quit the country, and through repeated delays his departure was retarded a whole year. Meanwhile his long sojourn in Africa, the report of his failures, and perhaps whispers of his insanity, had sown the seeds of discontent in Asia; and as Darius said in after-years, when recounting these events, “untruth had spread all over the country, not only in Persia and Media, but in other provinces.” Cambyses himself felt that a longer absence would be injurious to his interests; he therefore crossed the isthmus in the spring of 521, and was making his way through Northern Syria, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Hamath,* when he learned that a revolution had broken out, and that its rapid progress threatened the safety of his throne and life.
* Herodotus calls the place where Cambyses died Agbatana
(Ecbatana). Pliny says that the town of Carmel was thus
named at first; but the place here mentioned cannot well
have been in that direction. It has been identified with
Batansea in the country between the Orontes and the
Euphrates, but the most likely theory is the one suggested
by a passage in Stephen of Byzantium, that the place in
question is the large Syrian city of Hamath. Josephus makes
him die at Damascus.
Tradition asserted that a herald appeared before him and proclaimed aloud, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and summoned whoever had till that day obeyed him to acknowledge henceforth Smerdis, son of Cyrus, as their lord. Cambyses at first believed that his brother had been spared by the assassins, and now, after years of concealment, had at length declared himself; but he soon received proofs that his orders had been faithfully accomplished, and it is said that he wept at the remembrance of the fruitless crime. The usurper was Gaumâta, one of the Persian Magi, whose resemblance to Smerdis was so remarkable that even those who were cognisant of it invariably mistook the one for the other,* and he was brother to that Oropastes to whom Cambyses had entrusted the administration of his household before setting out for Egypt.**
* Greek tradition is unanimous on this point, but the
inscription of Behistun does not mention it.
** The inscription of Behistun informs us that the usurper’s
name was Gaumâta. Pompeius Trogus alone, probably following
some author who made use of Charon of Lampsacus, handed down
this name in the form Comètes or Gometes, which his
abbreviator Justin carelessly applied to the second brother.
Ctesias gives the Mage the name Sphendadates, which answers
to the Old Persian Spentôdâta, “he who is given by the Holy
One,” i.e. by Ahura-mazdâ. The supporters of the Mage gave
him this name, as an heroic champion of the Mazdoan faith
who had destroyed such sanctuaries as were illegal, and
identified him with Spentôdâta, son of Wistâspa.
Both of them were aware of the fate of Smerdis; they also knew that the Persians were ignorant of it, and that every one at court, including the mother and sisters of the prince, believed that he was still alive. Gaumâta headed a revolt in the little town of Pasyauvadâ on the 14th of Viyakhna, in the early days of March, 521, and he was hailed by the common people from the moment of his appearance. Persia, Media, and the Iranian provinces pronounced in his favour, and solemnly enthroned him three months later, on the 9th of Garmapada; Babylon next accepted him, followed by Elam and the regions of the Tigris. Though astounded at first by such a widespread defection, Cambyses soon recovered his presence of mind, and was about to march forward at the head of the troops who were still loyal to him, when he mysteriously disappeared. Whether he was the victim of a plot set on foot by those about him, is not known. The official version of the story given by Darius states that he died by his own hand, and it seems to insinuate that it was a voluntary act, but another account affirms that he succumbed to an accident;* while mounting his horse, the point of his dagger pierced his thigh in the same spot in which he had stabbed the Apis of the Egyptians. Feeling himself seriously wounded, he suddenly asked the name of the place where he was lying, and was told it was “Agbatana” (Ecbatana). “Now, long before this, the oracle of Buto had predicted that he should end his days in Agbatana, and he, believing it to be the Agbatana in Media where were his treasures, understood that he should die there in his old age; whereas the oracle meant Agbatana in Syria. When he heard the name, he perceived his error. He understood what the god intended, and cried, ‘It is here, then, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, must perish!’” He expired about three weeks after, leaving no posterity and having appointed no successor.**
* It has been pointed out, for the purpose of harmonising
the testimony of Herodotus with that of the inscription of
Behistun, that although the latter speaks of the death of
Cambyses by his own hand, it does not say whether that death
was voluntary or accidental.
** The story of a person whose death has been predicted to
take place in some well-known place, and who has died in
some obscure spot of the same name, occurs several times in
different historians, e.g. in the account of the Emperor
Julian, and in that of Henry III. of England, who had been
told that he would die in Jerusalem, and whose death took
place in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. Ctesias has
preserved an altogether different tradition—that Cambyses
on his return from Babylon wounded himself while carving a
piece of wood for his amusement, and died eleven days after
the accident.