[134] Strabo, p. 514, 520; Plin. "H. N." 6, 16; Ptolem. 4, 20; Curtius, 3, 2; Diod. 2, 2; Steph. Byz. Δερβίκκαι.
[135] Ctes. "Pers." 6-9.
[136] "Cyri inst." 8, 7.
[137] Ctes. "Pers." 7; Arrian, "Anab." 6, 28; Strabo, p. 730; Plin. "H. N." 6, 29; Plut. "Alex." 69. Curtius (10, 1) asserts after Cleitarchus, that when Alexander visited the tomb of Cyrus on his return from India, he only found the shield of Cyrus, then rotten, two Scythian bows, and a sword in the sepulchre.
[138] In the wings, the clothing, and the peculiar head-dress this portrait (Tenier, "Descript." pl. 84) differs essentially from the representation of Darius and his successors at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem. It is not Cyrus but his Fravashi which is here represented. The building at Murghab is somewhat like the description of the tomb of Cyrus given in the text, but the site will not allow us to regard it as the tomb at Pasargadae. It must be a building which one of his successors has dedicated to the memory of the great king. The profile in the relief confirms to some degree Plutarch's statement that Cyrus had an aquiline nose, and the Persians therefore considered beaked noses the most becoming: "Praec. ger. reip." c. 30. The nose of Darius, as we see it in the monuments, appears straighter and longer.
CHAPTER X.
THE FALL OF EGYPT.
After the death of the great king who had founded the Persian empire, Cambyses (Kambujiya), the elder of the two sons whom Cassandane had borne to Cyrus, ascended the throne of the new kingdom in the year 529 B.C. A few years before his death Cyrus had entrusted him with the vice-royalty of Babylonia.[139] Herodotus tells us that "Cambyses again reduced the nations which Cyrus had subjugated, and then marched against Egypt." Egypt was the oldest of the great powers of the ancient East, and, after the fall of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, it still remained independent beside the kingdom which had risen up so rapidly and brilliantly out of their ruins. A hundred and fifty years previously Egypt had succumbed to the arms of the Assyrians; how could an ambitious ruler of Persia imagine that it could now resist the incomparably greater forces which were at his command?
We know how Psammetichus and his descendants had restored Egypt to her ancient position, the place which they had assigned to the Greeks and Greek civilisation in their state, a place which had not been altered by Amasis, though brought to the throne by a revolution which had removed the house of Psammetichus (570 B.C.). The attempt of Necho to renew the achievements of the Tuthmosis, Amenophis, and Ramses in Syria and on the Euphrates was wrecked by the sudden rise of the Babylonian kingdom under Nebuchadnezzar, and Hophra had in vain attempted to prevent the fall of Jerusalem and the advance of Babylon to the borders of Egypt. The growth of the Persian power threatened to give Egypt a far more dangerous neighbour than she had had in Babylonia. Amasis did not underrate the crisis. Herodotus told us above that he had combined with Lydia against Cyrus, that Crœsus had called upon the Egyptian auxiliaries for the second campaign, and finally for the rescue of Sardis. The rapid progress of the war and the fall of Sardis defeated the aims of Amasis. Then, as we saw, a decade elapsed before Cyrus directed his arms against Babylonia. That Amasis made every attempt to support Nabonetus against the Persians is not told us by tradition, unless indeed we accept as tradition Xenophon's statement, who represents the Lydians and Egyptians as fighting against the Persians with the Babylonians (p. 17). The fall of Babylon was followed directly by the subjugation of Syria, the conquest of Gaza (p. 90), and the advance of the Persian border to the desert. Amasis does not appear to have been wholly inactive in the face of the approaching danger. Herodotus tells us that he took the island of Cyprus and made it tributary, and Diodorus narrates that he subjugated the cities in Cyprus, and adorned many of the temples there with splendid offerings.[140] We may assume that the enterprise of Amasis against Cyprus was intended to provide a counterpoise to the incorporation of Syria in the Persian empire. It may have appeared more desirable to the princes of the Cyprian cities to be vassals of the remote and less powerful Egypt than of the rising and powerful kingdom of Persia. In any case, when he had set foot in Cyprus, Amasis prevented that rich island, with its numerous cities, from falling into the power of the Persians; the ships of the Cyprian cities could assist him in keeping off the fleet of the Phenicians from their coasts, should the Persian monarch call out that fleet against Egypt. That this was the object of the occupation of Cyprus by Amasis is confirmed by the fact that some years after the fall of Babylon he entered into communication with the island of Samos. While Chios and Lesbos, as has been observed, submitted to the Persians without compulsion, Samos had remained independent. Polycrates, the son of Aeaces, who had made himself master of the island in the year 536 B.C., built a splendid fleet of eighty heavy and a hundred light ships, with which he could maintain his independence against the Persians. The fleet of Polycrates could hold the fleet of the Ionians in check if it were called upon by the Persians, just as the Cyprians could restrain the Phenicians. Amasis entered into close and friendly relations with the prince of Samos, who on his part must have gladly accepted the support of Egypt against the Persians. Besides the possession of Cyprus and this union with Samos, Egypt's power of resistance rested essentially on the difficulty of crossing the desert which separates Egypt from Syria with a large army, on the considerable numbers of the warrior caste, in spite of the emigration under Psammetichus, and the fidelity and bravery of the Ionian and Carian mercenaries, to whom Amasis had entrusted his personal protection. The danger of an attack from Persia seemed to have passed over when, after the subjugation of Syria, Cyrus turned towards the distant East, the Indus and Jaxartes; and Amasis may have been careful not to irritate his powerful neighbour. The skill of the physicians of Egypt was in great repute. When Cyrus asked Amasis for the best oculist, the Pharaoh, according to the Persian story, may have acceded to his wish.[141] The death of Cyrus would then bring still greater prospects of power to Amasis, until at last the decisive moment came thirteen years after the fall of Babylon.