ed such a career of
inhuman and reckless folly, that people at last considered him insane.
He began with some small semblance of moderation, but he proceeded, in
the end, to the perpetration of the most terrible excesses of violence
and wrong.

As to his moderation, his treatment of Psammenitus personally is
almost the only instance that we can record. In the course of the war,
Psammenitus and all his family fell into Cambyses's hands as captives.
A few days afterward, Cambyses conducted the unhappy king without the
gates of the city to exhibit a spectacle to him. The spectacle was
that of his beloved daughter, clothed in the garments of a slave, and
attended by a company of other maidens, the daughters of the nobles
and other persons of distinction belonging to his court, all going
down to the river, with heavy jugs, to draw water. The fathers of all
these hapless maidens had been brought out with Psammenitus to
witness the degradation and misery of their children. The maidens
cried and sobbed aloud as they went along, overwhelmed with shame and
terror. Their fathers manifested the utmost agitation and distress.
Cambyses stood smiling by, highly enjoying the spectacle. Psammenitus
alone appeared unmoved. He gazed on the scene silent, motionless, and
with a countenance which indicated no active suffering; he seemed to
be in a state of stupefaction and despair. Cambyses was disappointed,
and his pleasure was marred at finding that his victim did not feel
more acutely the sting of the torment with which he was endeavoring to
goad him.

When this train had gone by, another came. It was a company of young
men, with halters about their necks, going to execution. Cambyses had
ordered that for every one of the crew of his galley that the
Egyptians had killed, ten Egyptians should be executed. This
proportion would require two thousand victims, as there had been two
hundred in the crew. These victims were to be selected from among the
sons of the leading families; and their parents, after having seen
their delicate and gentle daughters go to their servile toil, were now
next to behold their sons march in a long and terrible array to
execution. The son of Psammenitus was at the head of the column. The
Egyptian parents who stood around Psammenitus wept and lamented aloud,
as one after another saw his own child in the train. Psammenitus
himself, however, remained as silent and motionless, and with a
countenance as vacant as bef