e replaced him on
the throne, under an oath of vassalage, had he not surprised him in
a conspiracy against his own life. He thereupon obliged him to poison
himself by drinking bulls' blood, and he confided the government of the
Nile valley to a Persian named Aryandes.

No part of the ancient world now remained unconquered except the
semi-fabulous kingdom of Ethiopia in the far-off south. Cities and
monarchies, all the great actors of early times, had been laid in
the dust one after another--Tyre, Damascus, Carchemish, Urartu, Elam,
Assyria, Jerusalem, Media, the Lydians, Babylon, and finally Egypt; and
the prey they had fought over so fiercely and for so many centuries,
now belonged in its entirety to one master for the first time as far
as memory could reach back into the past. Cambyses, following in the
footsteps of Cyrus, had pursued his victorious way successfully, but
it was another matter to consolidate his conquests and to succeed
in governing within the limits of one empire so many incongruous
elements--the people of the Caucasus and those of the Nile valley, the
Greeks of the AEgean and the Iranians, the Scythians from beyond the Oxus
and the Semites of the banks of the Euphrates or of the Mediterranean
coast; and time alone would show whether this heritage would not fall to
pieces as quickly as it had been built up. The Asiatic elements of the
empire appeared, at all events for the moment, content with their lot,
and Babylon showed herself more than usually resigned; but Egypt
had never accepted the yoke of the stranger willingly, and the most
fortunate of her Assyrian conquerors had never exercised more than a
passing supremacy over her. Cambyses realised that he would never master
her except by governing her himself for a period of several years, and
by making himself as Egyptian as a Persian could be without offending
his own subjects at home. He adopted the titles of the Pharaohs, their
double cartouche, their royal costume, and their solar filiation; as
much to satisfy his own personal animosity as to conciliate the Egyptian
priests, he repaired to Sais, violated the tomb of Amasis, and burnt the
mummy after offering it every insult.*

* Herodotus gives also a second account, which declares that
Cambyses thus treated the body, not of Amasis, but of some
unknown person whom he took for Amasis. The truth of the
story is generally contested, for the deed would have been,
as Herodot