very soon to despise. The purple vest first
attracted his attention. He asked whether that was the true, natural
color of the stuff, or a false one. The messengers told him that the
linen was dyed, and began to explain the process to him. The mind of
the savage potentate, however, instead of being impressed, as the
messengers supposed he would have been through their description, with
a high idea of the excellence and superiority of Persian art, only
despised the false show of what he considered an artificial and
fictitious beauty. "The beauty of Cambyses's dresses," said he, "is as
deceitful, it seems, as the fair show of his professions of
friendship." As to the golden bracelets and necklaces, the king looked
upon them with contempt. He thought that they were intended for
fetters and chains, and said that, however well they might answer
among the effeminate Persians, they were wholly insufficient to
confine such sinews as he had to deal with. The wine, however, he
liked. He drank it with great pleasure, and told the Icthyophagi that
it was the only article among all their presents that was worth
receiving.

In return for the presents which Cambyses had sent him, the King of
the Ethiopians, who was a man of prodigious size and strength, took
down his bow and gave it to the Icthyophagi, telling them to carry it
to Cambyses as a token of his defiance, and to ask him to see if he
could find a man in all his army who could bend it. "Tell Cambyses,"
he added, "that when his soldiers are able to bend such bows as that,
it will be time for him to think of invading the territories of the
Ethiopians; and that, in the mean time, he ought to consider himself
very fortunate that the Ethiopians were not grasping and ambitious
enough to attempt the invasion of his."

When the Icthyophagi returned to Cambyses with this message, the
strongest men in the Persian camp were of course greatly interested in
examining and trying the bow. Smerdis was the only one that could be
found who was strong enough to bend it; and he, by the superiority to
the others which he thus evinced, gained great renown. Cambyses was
filled with jealousy and anger. He determined to send Smerdis back
again to Persia. "It will be better," thought he to himself, "to incur
whatever danger there may be of his exciting revolt at home, than to
have him present in my court, subjecting me to continual mortification
and chagrin by the perpetual parade of his superiority.