truth I am the
daughter of Apries against whom Amasis rose up with the Egyptians and
murdered him, who was his lord and master." These words uttered and this
occasion having arisen, led Cambyses the son of Cyrus against Egypt,
moved to very great anger.

2. Such is the report made by the Persians; but as for the Egyptians
they claim Cambyses as one of themselves, saying that he was born of
this very daughter of Apries; for they say that Cyrus was he who sent to
Amasis for his daughter, and not Cambyses. In saying this however they
say not rightly; nor can they have failed to observe (for the Egyptians
fully as well as any other people are acquainted with the laws and
customs of the Persians), first that it is not customary among them for
a bastard to become king, when there is a son born of a true marriage,
and secondly that Cambyses was the son of Cassandane the daughter of
Pharnaspes, a man of the Achaimenid family, and not the son of the
Egyptian woman: but they pervert the truth of history, claiming to be
kindred with the house of Cyrus. Thus it is with these matters;

3, and the following story is also told, which for my part I do not
believe, namely that one of the Persian women came in to the wives of
Cyrus, and when she saw standing by the side of Cassandane children
comely of form and tall, she was loud in her praises of them, expressing
great admiration; and Cassandane, who was the wife of Cyrus, spoke
as follows: "Nevertheless, though I am the mother of such children of
these, Cyrus treats me with dishonour and holds in honour her whom he
has brought in from Egypt." Thus she spoke, they say, being vexed by
Nitetis, and upon that Cambyses the elder of her sons said: "For this
cause, mother, when I am grown to be a man, I will make that which is
above in Egypt to be below, and that which is below above." This he is
reported to have said when he was perhaps about ten years old, and the
women were astonished by it: and he, they say, kept it ever in mind, and
so at last when he had become a man and had obtained the royal power, he
made the expedition against Egypt.

4. Another thing also contributed to this expedition, which was as
follows:--There was among the foreign mercenaries 3 of Amasis a man who
was by race of Halicarnassos, and his name was Phanes, one who was both
capable in judgment and valiant in that which pertained to war. This
Phanes, having (as we may suppose) some quarrel with Amasis, fled away