though he perceived that his son was going to be executed, and whilst all the Egyptians around him wept and lamented aloud, he continued unmoved as before. When this scene also disappeared, he beheld a venerable personage, who had formerly partaken of the royal table, deprived of all he had possessed, and in the dress of a mendicant asking charity through the different ranks of the army. This man stopped to beg alms of Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, and the other noble Egyptians who were sitting with him; which, when Psammenitus beheld, he could no longer suppress his emotions, but calling on his friend by name, wept aloud,' and beat his head. This the spies, who were placed near him to observe his conduct on each incident, reported to Cambyses; who, in astonishment at such behavior, sent a messenger, who was thus directed to address him: 'Your lord and master, Cambyses, is desirous to know why, after beholding with so much indifference your daughter treated as a slave, and your son conducted to death, you expressed so lively a concern for that mendicant, who, as he has been informed, is not at all related to you.' Psammenitus made this reply: 'Son of Cyrus, my domestic misfortunes were too great to suffer me to shed tears:2 but it was consistent that I should weep for my 1 A very strange effect of grief is related by Mr. Gibbon, in the story of Gelimer, king of the Vandals, when after an obstinate resistance he was obliged to surrender himself to Belisarius. The first public interview,' says our historian, 'was in one of the suburbs of Carthage; and when the royal captive accosted his conqueror, he burst into a fit of laughter. The crowd might naturally believe that extreme grief had deprived Gelimer of his senses; but in this mournful state unseasonable mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers that the vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.' 2 This idea of extreme affliction or anger tending to check friend, who, from a station of honor and of wealth, is in the last stage of life reduced to penury.' Cambyses heard and was satisfied with his answer. The Egyptians say that Croesus, who attended Cambyses in this Egyptian expedition, wept at the incident. The Persians also who were present were exceedingly moved, and Cambyses himself yielded so far to compassion, that he ordered the son of Psammenitus to be preserved out of those who had been condemned to die, and Psammenitus himself to be conducted from the place where he was to his presence. XV. The emissaries employed for the purpose found < the young prince had suffered first, and was already dead; the father they led to Cambyses, with whom he lived, and received no farther ill treatment; and could he have refrained from ambitious attempts, would probably have been intrusted with the government of Egypt. The Persians hold the sons of sovereigns in the greatest reverence, and even if the fathers revolt, they will permit the sons to succeed to their authority: that such is really their conduct may be proved by the act of weeping, is expressed by Shakspeare with wonderful sublimity and pathos. It is part of a speech of Lear : You see me here, ye gods, a poor old man, That all the world shall--I will do such things,- I have full cause of weeping; but this heart various examples. Thannyras, the son of Inarus, received the kingdom which his father governed; Pausiris also, the son of Amyrtæus, was permitted to reign after his father, although the Persians had never met with more obstinate enemies than both Inarus and Amyrtæus. Psammenitus revolted, and suffered for his offence: he was detected in stirring up the Egyptians to rebel; and being convicted by Cambyses, was made to drink a quantity of bullock's blood,' which immediately occasioned his death.-Such was the end of Psammenitus. XVI. From Sais Cambyses proceeded to Memphis to execute a purpose he had in view. As soon as he entered the palace of Amasis he ordered the body of that prince to be removed from his tomb. When this was done he commanded it to be beaten with rods, the hair to be plucked out, and the flesh to be goaded with sharp instruments, to which he added other marks of ignominy. As the body was embalmed, their efforts made but little impression; when therefore they were fatigued with these outrages, he ordered it to be burned. In this last act Cambyses paid no regard to the religion of his country; for the Persians venerate fire as a divinity. The custom of burning the dead 2 1 Bull's blood taken fresh from the animal was considered by the ancients as a powerful poison, and supposed to act by coagulating in the stomach. Themistocles, and several other personages of antiquity, were said to have died by taking it. -See Plut. in Themist. and Pliny, b. xxviii. c. ix. Aristophanes also alludes to this account of the death of Themistocles. 2 This expression must not be understood in too rigorous a sense. Fire was certainly regarded by the Persians as something sacred, and perhaps they might render it some kind of religious worship, which in its origin referred only to the deity of which this element was an emblem. But it is certain that this nation did not believe fire to be a deity, otherwise how would they have dared to have extinguished it throughout Persia, on the death of the sovereign, as we learn does not prevail in either of the two nations; for the reason above mentioned the Persians do not use it, thinking it profane to feed a divinity with human carcasses; and the Egyptians abhor it, being fully persuaded that fire is a voracious animal, which devours whatever it can seize, and when saturated finally expires with what it has consumed. They hold it unlawful to expose the bodies of the dead' to any animals ; for which reason they embalm them, fearing lest, after interment, they might become the prey of worms. The Egyptians assert that the above indignities were not inflicted on the body of Amasis; but that the Persians were deceived, and perpetrated these insults on some other Egyptian of the same age with that prince. Amasis, they say, was informed by an oracle of the injuries intended against his body; to prevent which he ordered the person who really sustained them to be buried at the entrance of his tomb, whilst he himself, by his own directions given to his son, was placed from Diodorus Siculus ?-See an epigram of Dioscorides, Brunck's Analecta, vol. i. 503.-Larcher. 1 We learn from Xenophon, that the interment of bodies was common in Greece; and Homer tells us that the custom of burning the dead was in use before the Trojan war. It is therefore probable that both customs were practised at the same time: this was also the case at Rome, as appears from many ancient monuments: the custom however of interment seems to have preceded that of burning. That seems to me to have been the most ancient kind of burial which, according to Xenophon, was used by Cyrus. For the body is returned to the earth, and so placed as to be covered with the veil of its mother.' The custom of burning at Rome, according to Montfaucon, ceased about the time of Theodosius the younger. Sylla was the first of the Cornelian family whose body was burnt, whence some have erroneously advanced that he was the first Roman; but both methods were mentioned in the laws of the twelve tables, and appear to have been equally prevalent. After Sylla, burning became general.-T. in some secret and interior recess of the sepulchre. These assertions I cannot altogether believe, and am rather inclined to impute them to the vanity of the Egyptians. XVII. Cambyses afterwards determined to commence hostilities against three nations at once; the Carthaginians, the Ammonians, and the Macrobian' Ethiopians, who inhabit that part of Libya which lies towards the southern ocean. He accordingly resolved to send against the Carthaginians a naval armament; a detachment of his troops was to attack the Ammonians by land; and he sent spies into Ethiopia, who, under pretence of carrying presents to the prince, were to ascertain the reality of the celebrated table of the sun," and to examine the condition of the country. XVIII. What they called the table of the sun was this:-A plain in the vicinity of the city was filled to the height of four feet with the roasted flesh of all kinds of animals, which was carried there in the night, under the inspection of the magistrates; during the day, whoever pleased was at liberty to go and satisfy his hunger. The natives of the place affirm that the earth spontaneously produces all these viands; this however is what they term the table of the sun, XIX. As soon as Cambyses had resolved on the measures he meant to pursue with respect to the Ethiopians, he sent to the city of Elephantine for 1 I. e. long-lived. 2 Solinus speaks of this table of the sun as something marvellous, and Pomponius Mela seems to have had the same idea. Pausanias considers what was reported of it as fabulous. 'If,' says he, we credit all these marvels on the faith of the Greeks, we ought also to receive as true what the Ethiopians above Syene relate of the table of the sun.' In adhering to the recital of Herodotus, a considerable portion of the marvellous disappears.-Larcher, |