the Said who had hesitated up to
then, hastened to make their submission, and the whole of Egypt as far
as Philae became at one stroke a Persian province. The Libyans did not
wait to be summoned to bring their tribute; Cyrene and Barca followed
their example, but their offerings were so small that the conqueror's
irritation was aroused, and deeming himself mocked, he gave way to his
anger, and instead of accepting them, he threw them to his soldiers with
his own hand (B.C. 525).*

* The question as to the year in which Egypt was subdued by
Cambyses has long divided historians: I still agree with
those who place the conquest in the spring of 525.

This sudden collapse of a power whose exalted position had defied all
attacks for centuries, and the tragic fate of the king who had received
his crown merely to lose it, filled contemporary beholders with
astonishment and pity. It was said that, ten days after the capitulation
of Memphis, the victorious king desired out of sport to test the
endurance of his prisoner. Psammetichus beheld his daughter and the
daughters of his nobles pass before him, half naked, with jars on their
shoulders, and go down to the Nile to fetch water from the river like
common slaves; his son and two thousand young men of the same age, in
chains and with ropes round their necks, also defiled before him on
their way to die as a revenge for the murder of the Mitylenians; yet he
never for a moment lost his royal imperturbability. But when one of
his former companions in pleasure chanced to pass, begging for alms
and clothed in rags, Psammetichus suddenly broke out into weeping, and
lacerated his face in despair. Cambyses, surprised at this excessive
grief in a man who up till then had exhibited such fortitude, demanded
the reason of his conduct. "Son of Cyrus," he replied, "the misfortunes
of my house are too unparalleled to weep over, but not the affliction of
my friend. When a man, on the verge of old age, falls from luxury and
abundance into extreme poverty, one may well lament his fate." When the
speech was reported to Cambyses, he fully recognised the truth of it.
Croesus, who was also present, shed tears, and the Persians round him
were moved with pity. Cambyses, likewise touched, commanded that the
son of the Pharaoh should be saved, but the remission of the sentence
arrived too late. He at all events treated Pharaoh himself with
consideration, and it is possible that he might hav