Volume Vi Part 8 (2/2)
We have mentioned the story which ascribes to him ambitious plans in his boyish years; in the estimate which the Persians form of him according to their poems it is only his love of wine which is reprobated. More important is the judgment which the Persians really pa.s.sed on Cambyses; Herodotus tells us they called Cyrus the father, but Cambyses, because he was severe and ambitious, they called the master.[196] From this sentence--from despotic severity and violence, whatever may have been the degree in which they were present--it is a long way to the picture of the frantic tyrant which Herodotus has sketched on the basis of these legends and poems. What we know by credible tradition of the crimes of Cambyses, apart from his act against his brother, and the supposed outburst of rage against his sister, is limited to the penalty which he imposed upon Memphis for the murder of the herald and the crew, and the punishment of Sisamnes, one of the seven judges who was found guilty of bribery and unjust judgment. He had him executed, the corpse was flayed, and the judge's seat covered with the skin, on which the son, who was named his successor, was to give judgment.[197] The punishment of Memphis cannot be called cruel in the spirit of these times; and the punishment of the unjust judge is in the manner of an oriental prince who loves justice. The reign of Cambyses was undoubtedly marked by the effort to continue the acts of his father, and in this effort he shows both vigour and resolution. The idea of creating a fleet for the Persian empire was bold and happy, and bore fruits in the submission of Cyprus and Samos without a blow. The preparations for the campaign against Egypt were made with great prudence, and proved adequate and effectual.
But even before he set out for Egypt he had cast the lot which decided his life. How far the conduct of his brother, which is suggested in the version of Ctesias, excused the suspicion of Cambyses, we cannot decide.
He did not venture to leave the kingdom so long as his brother ruled over the eastern half of it; he feared his rebellion during his absence, and removed him out of the way. The painful secrecy of the deed shows that Cambyses was tormented with remorse and shame for this crime. At the gates of Egypt he conquered in a mighty battle. He used the victory to storm the strong border fortresses of Egypt, and then at once turned against Memphis, the most important city and fortress of the enemy. The treatment of the captive Psammenitus repeats the mild manner of Cyrus towards conquered princes; we have seen above what clemency Cambyses showed after the conquest was completed towards the Egyptians and their temples. In possession of Egypt, he intended to achieve in Africa what his father had done in Asia; far to the south and west the country was to be subject to the Persians. The campaign against Napata led to the conquest of that kingdom. By maintaining this conquest, the supremacy of Persia over Egypt was rendered secure from attacks on that side, and the negro tribes to the south of Napata were kept in obedience, though previously they had been visited by the Pharaohs only in flying incursions. It was at Napata that, according to the tradition preserved by Diodorus, Strabo, and Josephus, Cambyses lost his sister, and with her the hope of an heir, by his own brutal violence, as the songs represent, when his sister reminded him of the death of his brother. But Strabo and Diodorus observe, as has been shown above, that he named the city after his sister ”to honour her.” No doubt the disquiet of his conscience increased the longer he remained without children. What was to become of the kingdom after his death? The brother, whom he had killed, had only left a daughter.[198] Burdened with new anxiety, if not with new guilt, he turned back from Napata. The disaster, which befell the army at Premnis, and the failure of the expedition against the oasis of Sivah, though it did not involve the loss of 50,000 men, might seem to him proofs that he had brought upon himself the anger of Auramazda and Mithra. Then the Phenicians refused to march against the Carthaginians, and he was unable to compel them. The absence of any heir, the misfortunes which had fallen upon him, increased his inward torments. He became more distrustful, pa.s.sionate, and savage. He may have sought forgetfulness in wine, but the remedy only increased his violence. He shrank from seeing again his home and the desolate house of Cyrus, and remained inactive and irresolute for a year and a half in Egypt; in spite of the danger which attached to the absence of the ruler of so vast a kingdom.
In Persia and the provinces nothing was known of the death of Bardiya.
The neglect of the kingdom, the absence of the king for three years, inspire Gaumata with the courage to make use of his opportunity, and turn the secrecy of the crime against Cambyses. The Persians declare for the brother who is among them, as against the distant king who seemed to have forgotten Persia in Egypt; even the satraps of the other countries soon decide in favour of Bardiya, as for years they had seen nothing of Cambyses. In three months after his appearance Gaumata was formally crowned. The account of the rebellion startled Cambyses from his stupor in Egypt; he placed a satrap over the conquests he had made and hastened to Syria, where he learnt the full amount of the usurper's success. With anger he sees the crown of Cyrus on the head of a miserable pretender.
If he is effectually to contend against the opponent who has risen to such power, he must acknowledge himself before the Persians and the kingdom as the murderer of his brother, and even if he makes this shameful confession, will the Persians believe and follow him? Will they not think that he announces the murder in order to thrust his brother from the throne? In despair he perceives that he has destroyed the house of Cyrus, and ruined the work of his father, the fruit of thirty years of effort and struggle. He sees no means of preventing the course of affairs, the ruin of the kingdom of which he is the cause. He acknowledges before the princes of the Persians what he has done, commands them to make good the damage which he has caused, and seals his declaration by taking his own life. Such was the tragical end of the son of the great Cyrus.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] Herod. 3, 27-30.
[177] Herod. 3, 37.
[178] Vol. I. 175. Diod. 1, 49.
[179] Justin. 1, 8.
[180] The reading ”year 4” in the first is confirmed by ”year 5” in the second inscription. Lepsius (”Monatsberichte Berl. Akad.” 1854, s. 224, 495) has examined the difficulties which arise regarding the time of Cambyses' campaign against Egypt, from the contradiction between these dates and the statements of the Greeks.
[181] The inscriptions also give the name Cambyses in the form Kambuza.
[182] Lepsius, ”Z. Aegypt. Spr.” 1874, s. 76.
[183] De Rouge, ”Revue Archeol.” 8, 37 ff.; Brugsch, ”Hist. d'Egypt,” p.
267, 269. In the ”History of Egypt,” Brugsch reads Uzah.o.r.enpiris for Uzahorsun.
[184] Stephen. Byz. [Greek: Agbatana Batana Amatha]. Cf. V. 307, and von Gutschmid, ”N. Beitrage,” s. 96.
[185] Herod. 3, 3, 33.
[186] ”Excerpt. de virt.” p. 557 = 10, 13.
[187] Plato, ”Legg.” p. 691, 694, 695.
[188] Herod. 3, 73.
[189] Justin. 1, 9.
[190] So Oppert according to the Persian inscription in ”Journal Asiatique,” 4, 17, 385, 386; and according to the second series, ”Records of the Past,” 7, 90.
[191] Barziya in the Babylonian text. Smerdis, the favourite of Polycrates (Anacreon, fragm. 4, ed. Bergk), was no doubt named after the brother of Cambyses.
[192] Sachau, ”Albiruni,” p. 205; Noldeke, ”Tabari,” s. 91, 271.
[193] Elul and Tisri fall in September and October. The last year of Cambyses is 522 B.C. According to Herodotus, Cambyses reigned seven years and five months, and the Magian more than seven months; the two make up eight years. The number of the Persian days of the month are repeated in the Babylonian version of the Behistun inscription. Hence the Persians adopted the year of the a.s.syrians and Babylonians as well as their cuneiform writing, but they had independent names for the months. Unfortunately the names of the months in the Babylonian text are more frequently destroyed than not, so that we can only be certain in giving Kislev (November-December) as corresponding to the Athriadiya of the Persians, Tebet (December-January) to Anamaka, Iyar (May-June) to Taigars.h.i.+s. Oppert maintains that we can also identify the Babylonian Adar or Veadar (Febr.-March) with the Viyakhna of the Persians; but the text is uncertain in this pa.s.sage. Finally, we may with tolerable certainty regard Garmapada (_i.e._ the path of heat) as corresponding to July and August, to the Tammuz or Ab of the Babylonians. If Viyakhna is really Adar, the proclamation of the Magian took place in March, 522 B.C., and his coronation in Garmapada (July and August). This according to Darius was followed by the death of Cambyses. The two tablets quoted date from September and October in the first year of Barziya. According to Herodotus, the Magian reigned more than seven months after the death of Cambyses, _i.e._ down to the spring of 521 B.C. According to the inscription of Behistun, Darius slew him on the tenth of Bagayadis (_i.e._ sacrifice to the G.o.ds), which would thus be parallel to the Nisan of the Babylonians, _i.e._ to our April.
[194] Herod. 4, 166.
[195] ”Antiqu.” 11, 2.
[196] Herod. 3, 89.
[197] Herod. 5, 25.
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