ore, when war at last broke out, found himself left
to face the enemy alone. The struggle was inevitable, and all the
inhabitants of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean had long foreseen
its coming. Without taking into consideration the danger to which the
Persian empire and its Syrian provinces were exposed by the proximity of
a strong and able power such as Egypt, the hardy and warlike character
of Cambyses would naturally have prompted him to make an attempt to
achieve what his predecessors, the warrior-kings of Nineveh and Babylon,
had always failed to accomplish successfully. Policy ruled his line of
action, and was sufficient to explain it, but popular imagination sought
other than the very natural causes which had brought the most ancient
and most recent of the great empires of the world into opposition;
romantic reasons were therefore invented to account for the great drama
which was being enacted, and the details supplied varied considerably,
according as the tradition was current in Asia or Africa. It was said
that a physician lent to Cyrus by Amasis, to treat him for an affection
of the eyes, was the cause of all the evil. The unfortunate man,
detained at Susa and chafing at his exile, was said to have advised
Cambyses to ask for the daughter of Pharaoh in marriage, hoping either
that Amasis would grant the request, and be dishonoured in the eyes
of his subjects for having degraded the solar race by a union with a
barbarian, or that he would boldly refuse, and thus arouse the hatred
of the Persians against himself. Amasis, after a slight hesitation,
substituted Nitetis, a daughter of Apries, for his own child. It
happened that one day in sport Cambyses addressed the princess by the
name of her supposed father, whereupon she said, "I perceive, O king,
that you have no suspicion of the way in which you have been deceived by
Amasis; he took me, and having dressed me up as his own daughter, sent
me to you. In reality I am the daughter of Apries, who was his lord and
master until the day that he revolted, and, in concert with the rest of
the Egyptians, put his sovereign to death." The deceit which Cambyses
thus discovered had been put upon him irritated him so greatly as to
induce him to turn his arms against Egypt. So ran the Persian account of
the tale, but on the banks of the Nile matters were explained otherwise.
Here it was said that it was to Cyrus himself that Nitetis had been
married, and that she had bo