[523-522 B.C.]
At first Cambyses tried to win over his new subjects by complying with their customs. He adopted the double cartouche, the protocol, and the royal costume of the Pharaohs; and in the double hope of appeasing their personal rancour and of conciliating the loyalist party, he repaired to Saïs, violated the tomb of Aahmes, and burnt his mummy; and after accomplishing this posthumous act of justice, he treated Ladike, the widow of the usurper, with deference and sent her back to her parents. He gave orders for the evacuation of the great temple of Nit, where Persian troops were installed to the great distress of the devotees, and repaired the harm they had done at his own expense. His zeal even led him to receive instruction in the Egyptian religion, and to be initiated in the mysteries of the goddess, by the priest Uzaharrasenti. In fact, he acted in Egypt as his father had done in Babylon, and he had his reasons for this condescension to the vanquished, for he hoped to make Memphis and the Delta the basis for his operations in southern Africa. He seemed to care little about the voluntary submission of Cyrene; at least Dorian tradition maintains that he scorned the gifts of Arcesilaus III and gave to his soldiers, in handfuls, the five hundred minas (Egyptian measure) of gold which the prince had paid him as a tribute. The Greeks of Libya were not rich enough to arouse interest, but the fame of Carthage, exaggerated by time and distance, excited his cupidity. Carthage was then at the height of her grandeur. She commanded the old Phœnician settlements in Sicily, Africa, and Spain, her navy had unrivalled sway over the western basin of the Mediterranean, and her merchants penetrated into the distant fabulous regions of southern Europe and Mauretania.
At first Cambyses wished to attack the city by sea, but the Phœnicians who manned her fleet declined to act against their colony. Forced therefore to approach it by land, he sent to Thebes an army of fifty thousand men to take possession of the oasis of Ammon, and to clear the road for the rest of the troops. The fate of this avant-garde was never clearly learnt. It crossed the great oasis, and took a northeasterly course towards the temple of Ammon. The natives relate that when halfway, it was surprised by a Sudanese storm, and was buried under the heaps of sand. This story was probably true, for it never reached the oasis, and never returned to Egypt. The expedition towards the south promised to be more fortunate, for it seemed that there would not be great difficulty in reaching the heart of Africa if it went up the Nile. Cambyses had the country explored by spies, and their account led him to start off from Memphis at the head of an army. The expedition was partially a success, and partially a failure. It seems that the invaders went up the Nile as far as Napata, and then pushed right across the desert in the direction of Berua; their provisions were exhausted when they were a quarter of the way there, and famine forced them to retreat, after having lost several lives. The result of the expedition was the subjugation of the cantons of Nubia, nearest to Syene, to the Persian dominion; however, the Egyptian people, always disposed to believe unfavourable reports of their masters, only took the failure at Berua into consideration.[30]
Cambyses had from his infancy been subject to epileptic fits, during which he was quite furious and unconscious of his actions. The failure of his efforts in Africa increased his illness, and added to the frequency and length of the attacks; he lost his former political power, and gave full fling to his naturally violent temper. The Apis bull had died during his absence, and after the expiration of the regulation number of days of mourning for the departed, a new Apis had been installed, when the Persian army returned from Memphis.
Finding the town en fête, Cambyses thought it was rejoicing at his misfortunes, and he sent for the magistrates and priests, and condemned them to punishment without listening to their explanations. The ox was brought to him, and he stabbed it with his dagger in the thigh. The animal expired a few days later, and the sacrilege caused more excitement amid the devotees, than the ruin of the country. The rancour of the people was increased when they saw the conqueror now as active in offending their deities as he had previously been anxious to conciliate them. He entered the temple of Ptah and mocked at the grotesque forms under which this god was worshipped. He violated the ancient tombs so as to examine the mummies. Even the Aryans and the people of his court were not safe from his rage. He killed his own sister, whom he had married in spite of the law forbidding marriage between children of the same father and mother. He killed the son of Prexaspes [by shooting an arrow into his heart as a proof that his aim was not the unsteadier for drink[31]], he buried twelve of the Persian generals alive, ordered the execution of Crœsus, and then, repenting of his precipitancy, condemned the officers who had not executed the order, which he regretted having given. The Egyptians maintained that the gods struck him with madness as a punishment for his sacrilegious conduct.
[522 B.C.]
As there was nothing to detain him longer on the banks of the Nile, he started on his return to Asia. On arriving at the north of Syria, he was met by a herald, who proclaimed, within earshot of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and Bardius, son of Cyrus, was now king in his place. Cambyses thought at first that his orders had not been obeyed, and that his brother’s life had been spared by the man sent to assassinate him. But he soon learned that his orders had been only too faithfully fulfilled, and he bemoaned the useless crime, when he found that the usurper was a certain Gaumata, or Gometes, so strikingly like Bardius that the people were easily deceived. This Gaumata had a brother Patizeithes, to whom Cambyses had entrusted the care of his household. They were both cognisant of the death of Bardius, but they knew that the majority of the Persians were still ignorant of his death, and believed that the prince was still alive.
Gaumata therefore incited the rebellion in the town of Pasargada at the beginning of March, 522, and after a little hesitation Persia and Media and the body of the empire declared in his favour and solemnly accepted him on the 9th Garmapada (July), 522. Utterly overwhelmed at the turn of affairs, Cambyses took the head of the troops which had remained faithful to him, but he died in a mysterious way. The inscription of Behistun seems to intimate that he lost his life by his own hand in a fit of despair. Herodotus says that as he was mounting his horse his dagger entered his thigh at the same spot as he had stabbed the Apis bull.
“Feeling that his death was at hand, he asked the name of the place where he was, and he was told it was Ecbatana.” Now, some time before he had been told by the oracle of Buto that he would end his days at Ecbatana. He had always thought that Ecbatana was in Syria, so when he heard the name of the place, he recollected the words of the oracle, and said, “It is here that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, is destined to die”; and he expired twenty days later without leaving any posterity, or nominating a successor.[g]