Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

At certain periods the votaries of Serapis celebrated festivals in the temple and recorded them on votive tablets, which were found in the galleries of the Serapeum. From these we gather that the reign of Psammetichus was brief; that there were six kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, 666 B. C.; that following Psammetichus I came Necho II, in the sixteenth year of whose reign an Apis was born. That another was installed in the temple of Ptah in the first year of the reign of Psamettic II; that an Apis died in the twelfth year of Apries, and that this king was succeeded by Amasis and Psammetic III.

Unable to carry away all of his finds to place them in greater security in various museums, Mariette buried some of them temporarily near the spot, which Miss Edwards says was betrayed and sold by the Arabs to a certain Austrian arch-duke, who took possession and carried them to Trieste. Among them was said to be the bull stabbed by Cambyses, while in the rooms of the New York Historical Society the same, or very similar, mummy of an Apis is to be seen. Whether the wound of the bull proved fatal and he was secretly buried by the priests, or whether he survived till the fourth year of Darius’ reign, as the Serapeum tablets seem to indicate, is a mooted point. Ne-chatano, a subsequent and native Egyptian king, is believed to have rebuilt or restored the Serapeum in 350 B. C. One tablet in the collection records the death of an Apis in the sixth year of Cambyses.

But the reign of this cruel king at last came to an end. A revolt took place in Persia, the murdered Smerdis was represented by an imposter, who for some time deceived the people, and Cambyses, hastening home, either died or, some say, committed suicide by stabbing himself with his dagger, so runs the legend, while mounting a horse in the same place as he had wounded the bull. It was the custom of the Egyptian women to go two days in the week to the tombs of their dead and to throw upon them a sweet smelling herb, like basil, but for Cambyses we can imagine no such mourning was made. The world was well rid of a monster, and even his wives must have felt that they were freed from the tyrant. Custom permitted the Persian king to have several legal wives, but one only was the legal queen. Atossa probably occupied this position. Her experiences in husbands were varied and her charms probably great.

Magus, by others called Gomates, personated the dead Smerdis or Bardiya and took Cambyses’ wives, but kept them in separate establishments that his secret might not be discovered. The story goes that for some previous crime the ears of the impostor had been cut off, but that he covered the place with his hair. In his sleep, however, one of his wives, the daughter of Otanes, suspecting his impersonation, passed her hand over his head, and thus his fraud was made public. In the end he was slain by Darius, a member of the royal family, who now laid claim to the throne and proved to be an excellent sovereign.

He again took Queen Atossa to wife, and her influence over him is said to have been unbounded, and she became the mother of Xerxes, who succeeded him. She survived Salamis and was actually, in part, contemporary with Herodotus, from whom we derive the information regarding her so numerous marriages. Cyrus had one legal wife, Cambyses three and Darius five.

His wives are given as first a daughter of Gobryas, whose children were Artabazanes, and two others—Atossa, by whom he had Xerxes; Hystaspes, Akhaemenes and Masistes; Arystone, by whom he had Arsames and Gobryas; Parmys, by whom he had Ariomardas, and, lastly, Phrataguma, by whom he had Abrocome and Hyperanthe.

Darius seems to have been the one Persian king beloved by the Egyptians, towards whom he showed himself in great contrast to his predecessor, most considerate and regardful, associating with the priests and studying their theology. During his lifetime he was called a god by the Egyptians and he is the only Persian king whose name is accompanied with a titular shield and whose phonetic shield bears the crest of the vulpauser and disk ‘son of the sun.’ The only one whose phonetic name is accompanied by a pre-nomen, like those of the ancient kings. He obtained while living the title of “Divus” and received, after death, the same honors as the native Egyptian sovereigns, of the earlier centuries. On an ornament of porcelain in the museum at Florence he is called “beneficent god.” He is even represented in sculpture as worshipping the Egyptian god Athor, and the mummy of Osiris, with the lighted lamp, the emblem of fire (the great divinity of Persia) in each hand. But in spite of this another authority states that no Persian king’s name is found on a public monument in Egypt.

When the Persian kings were present in Egypt comparative peace reigned, but, when they left the government in the hands of deputies, revolts were numerous. Darius put his satrap Aryandes to death for presuming to coin money; he being so distasteful to the Egyptians that they were on the point of revolt when Darius returned. But spite of the personal popularity of Darius the Persian yoke was hateful to the Egyptians, and when the king’s back was once turned, his presence withdrawn, and he became involved in other wars, they again rose against the invaders.

While preparing to crush Egypt Darius died, leaving the task to Xerxes, his son by the beloved Atossa. His first wife had been a daughter of Gobryas and her son, older than Xerxes, would naturally have, succeeded, but Artobazanes had been born before his father became king, and this fact, coupled doubtless with the paramount influence of Queen Atossa, decided the question in favor of Xerxes, who had been born after his father ascended the throne.