prove that the
Persians are right. If I do, then they are wrong, as it will show
that I do not drink so much as to make my hand unsteady." So saying,
he drew the bow, the arrow flew through the air and pierced the poor
boy's breast. He fell, and Cambyses coolly ordered the attendants to
open the body, and let Prexaspes see whether the arrow had not gone
through the heart.

These, and a constant succession of similar acts of atrocious and
reckless cruelty and folly, led the world to say that Cambyses was
insane.

CHAPTER II.

THE END OF CAMBYSES.

B.C. 523-522

Cambyses's profligate conduct.--He marries his own
sisters.--Consultation of the Persian judges.--Their
opinion.--Smerdis.--Jealousy of Cambyses.--The two magi.--Cambyses
suspicious.--He plans an invasion of Ethiopia.--Island of
Elephantine.--The Icthyophagi.--Classes of savage nations.--Embassadors
sent to Ethiopia.--The presents.--The Ethiopian king detects the
imposture.--The Ethiopian king's opinion of Cambyses's presents.--The
Ethiopian bow.--Return of the Icthyophagi.--Jealousy of Cambyses.--He
orders Smerdis to be murdered.--Cambyses grows more cruel.--Twelve
noblemen buried alive.--Cambyses's cruelty to his sister.--Her
death.--The venerable Croesus.--His advice to Cambyses.--Cambyses's
rage at Croesus.--He attempts to kill him.--The declaration of the
oracle.--Ecbatane, Susa, and Babylon.--Cambyses returns
northward.--He enters Syria.--A herald proclaims Smerdis.--The herald
seized.--Probable explanation.--Rage of Cambyses.--Cambyses mortally
wounded.--His remorse and despair.--Cambyses calls his nobles about
him.--His dying declaration.--Death of Cambyses.--His dying declaration
discredited.

Among the other acts of profligate wickedness which have blackened
indelibly and forever Cambyses's name, he married two of his own
sisters, and brought one of them with him to Egypt as his wife. The
natural instincts of all men, except those whose early life has been
given up to the most shameless and dissolute habits of vice, are
sufficient to preserve them from such crimes as these. Cambyses
himself felt, it seems, some misgivings when contemplating the first
of these marriages; and he sent to a certain council of judges, whose
province it was to interpret the laws, asking them their opinion of
the rightfulness of such a marriage. Kings ask the opinion of their
legal advisers in such cases, not because they really wish to know
whether the act i