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“When I am grown up, I will turn all Egypt upside down.”
HERODOTUS, HISTORIES, BOOK 3.3; A. D. GODLEY TRANSLATION
Introduction
Book Three of the Histories picks up where Book One left off—with Cyrus the Great killed in battle and his son Cambyses (Cam-bye-sees) becoming the next king of the Persian empire. Before Cyrus died, he sent his son to launch a military campaign against Egypt. The first part of Book Three is about that military campaign. Amasis, the commoner who became king, was ruler of Egypt when Cambyses invaded.
After this military campaign, there will be an interesting twist in Cambyses’ rule (which was alluded to by Herodotus in 3.25), some more tangents as usual, and the beginning of the reign of the next king of Persia—Darius.
Oh, and Croesus makes a return—the prideful king of Lydia turned humbled advisor to the Persian royal family.
All quotations are taken from the A. D. Godley translation of the Histories, which is in the public domain.
Summary
Cyrus, when he was alive, had requested of Amasis, the king of Egypt, to send him his best eye physician for reasons Herodotus does not provide. Amasis agrees to Cyrus’ request and sends him a physician without his consent. Resentful that he was forcefully separated from his wife and children, the physician waited for an opportunity to get revenge.
That opportunity came when Cambyses became king. The physician advised him to ask Amasis for one of his daughters. The physician knew that if Amasis agreed he would be humiliated (because his daughter would probably be made a concubine and not a wife); but, if Amasis refused, it would anger Cambyses and he would bring the wrath of the Persian empire down upon Egypt.
Cambyses followed the advice and made the request to Amasis. Amasis, knowing the situation he was in, deceived Cambyses by sending him the daughter and last remaining family member of Apries, the king he had overthrown. After a time, Cambyses went to this daughter, but when he addressed her as the daughter of Amasis, she told him the truth. Angered at the deception, Cambyses turned against Egypt.
There was one problem though. Cambyses didn’t know the best way to cross the desert. The answer came when a man named Phanes approached him. He was a deserter and a descendant of the Greek mercenaries the Egyptian king Psammetichus had taken in. More importantly, though, he had a grudge against Amasis. He advised Cambyses the best way to get through the desert: by petitioning the king of the Arabians for safe passage. Cambyses followed the advice and the Arabian king pledged to help Cambyses out. He stationed camels carrying large skins of water along the desert for Cambyses’ army to use, and in this way Cambyses’ army crossed the desert and attacked Egypt.
In the meantime, Amasis had died after a 44 year reign and his son Psammenitus took over. He had only been king for six months when the Persians attacked. The two armies met at one of the mouths of the Nile. While the fighting was intense, eventually the Egyptians were routed. Next, Cambyses laid siege on Memphis and it fell in ten days. After that, Cambyses conquered the rest of Egypt.
After Egypt fell, Cambyses launched campaigns against the Carthaginians, Ammonians, and Ethiopians. However, none of these campaigns were successful. The Phoenicians, who were the best in the Persians’ navy, refused to attack their own people due to an oath and Cambyses honored this. The detachment sent against the Ammonians simply disappeared and it was believed they were buried in a sandstorm. Lastly, Cambyses sent spies, disguised as ambassadors with gifts and words of friendship, to the Ethiopians to gauge their strength. The Ethiopians saw through the ruse and told the spies that Cambyses should come back when the Persians are stronger. Angered by this, Cambyses launched a hasty campaign against Ethiopia. However, he was ill prepared and his army ran out of food very quickly. They first ate the beasts of burden, and then grass on the ground. However, when the army reached the desert and there was no more grass, they began cannibalizing each other. Alarmed by what his army was doing, Cambyses ended the campaign and returned to Egypt.
The Weight of Nobility
This was an impression I got when I read through the Histories back in 2018 or 2019 (whenever it was I read it in full for the first time and not just excerpts). This thought occurred to me after reading what Cambyses did to Psammenitus’ and Memphis’ ruling elite’s daughters and sons.
Cambyses, wanting to see how Psammenitus would react, dressed his daughter, as well as the daughters of the prominent men in Memphis, as slaves. In a public spectacle, Cambyses had those daughters march in front of their fathers, draw water in jars, and come back to Cambyses. The prominent men all wept for their daughters—except for Psammenitus. He simply bowed to the ground.
Next, Cambyses took the son of Psammenitus, as well as 2000 other sons of the prominent men of Egypt, and tied ropes around their necks and put bridle-bits in their mouths. He marched them in front of their fathers to the place where they would be executed. This was a punishment for something the people of Memphis had done earlier. Again, all the fathers wept for their sons except for Psammenitus: he simply bowed to the ground again.
However, when Psammenitus saw an elderly man, who used to be wealthy but was now begging for food among the people, he wept loudly for him. When Cambyses heard about everything Psammenitus did, he asked him why he didn’t weep for his daughter and son, but did for the elderly man. Psammenitus replied:
“Son of Cyrus, my private grief was too great for weeping; but the unhappiness of my companion deserves tears—a man fallen from abundance and prosperity to beggary come to the threshold of old age.”
Herodotus, Histories, Book 3.14; A. D. Godley translation
This answered moved Cambyses, as well as his court, and he immediately ordered that Psammenitus’ son not be executed. However, it was already too late because Psammenitus’ son was the first one the Persians had executed. Cambyses then took Psammenitus into his protection and would have made him governor of Egypt, but Psammenitus had tried to get Egypt to revolt, and when it failed, he drank bull’s blood and killed himself.
The thought I had was something like this. In our popular imagination, we see rulers and elites (kings, aristocrats, nobles, statesmen) as these high and mighty people who lord their power and authority over the “little people.” They get portrayed as spoiled, soft, effeminate, out of touch with reality, and petulant when they don’t get their way.
In some regard, I don’t blame people for having this mentality. Most of our elites and rulers today are so ineffective, self-important, corrupt, and degenerate, that it’s difficult to imagine them deserving our respect, let alone reverence.
However, there was a time when there was more at stake for the rulers and elites. This story that Herodotus tells about Psammenitus and the prominent men of Memphis is one such example. Yes, they had power to make decisions for others. Yes, they had comforts everyone else in Memphis didn’t have. They had privileges unique to themselves. However, when the invading foreigner came and conquered, it was their daughters that were humiliated and their sons that were publicly shamed and executed. Not a single commoner’s, or slave’s, son or daughter went through that.
There used to be a price for being a ruler or a prominent man of the community. Sure, they got comfort and privileges no one else had access to. In exchange though, they were the ones who would suffer greatly if their society collapsed or was conquered by a foreign power. It would be them that would be on the chopping block. It would be their wives and sons and daughters who would be made into slaves, or concubines, or executed simply because they were family.
Does that really exist today?
From my perspective, the rulers and elites today are all privilege, no stakes.
The Ethiopians
“These Ethiopians, to whom Cambyses sent them, are said to be the tallest and most handsome of all men. Their way of choosing kings is different from that of all others, as (it is said) are all their laws; they consider that man worthy to be their king whom they judge to be tallest and to have strength proportional to his stature.”
Herodotus, Histories, Book 3.20; A. D. Godley translation
The whole exchange between the spies Cambyses sent and the Ethiopians show that the Ethiopians run their society differently and have some unique connection with the divine. They have a different way of choosing rulers. They’re attitude toward gold is different because of how much they have it in abundance. They call bread “dung” because they don’t understand how growing wheat works (or, they do, but they are simply condescending toward wheat in favor of their own diet). They have a forest that produces boiled meat they call the “Table of the Sun.”
However, the Ethiopians seemed to have also captured the imagination of the ancient Greeks as well. Take a look at what Homer wrote in the Iliad and the Odyssey:
“For Jove went yesterday to Oceanus, to a feast among the Ethiopians, and the other gods went with him.”
Iliad, Book 1; Samuel Butler translation
"I cannot stay," [Iris] said, "I must go back to the streams of Oceanus and the land of the Ethiopians who are offering hecatombs to the immortals, and I would have my share…”
Iliad, Book 23; Samuel Butler translation
Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end, and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival…
Odyssey, Book 1; Samuel Butler translation
The Ethiopians are frequently visited by the gods who hold feasts in their honor. To put it another way, the gods are willing to leave their paradisical abode in Olympus, cease their duties even, to go visit this foreign people whenever they sacrifice and hold feasts in their honor. Plus, the Ethiopians are somewhere in Oceanus where lots of mysterious peoples and creatures reside. Oceanus, the Ocean, to the ancient Greeks was considered to be a large river that circled the world, and from which all other bodies of water came from.
Here’s another example of the mysterious in Oceanus:
“All day long her sails were full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went down and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night.”
Odyssey, Book 11; Samuel Butler translation
Odysseus had to sail into Oceanus to get to the land of the dead. Homer also takes the opportunity to talk about the Cimmerians who lived in perpetual night. If the Cimmerians sound familiar to you, that means you’re a Conan the Barbarian fan because he was a Cimmerian. Robert E. Howard drew a lot from ancient legends and mythologies for his own world building. In fact, if I remember and understand correctly, the world of characters like Conan, or Krull of Atlantis, was basically the far distant past of our world. Howard was doing what Tolkien did decades later: building up a mythology for our modern world.
A Legend Begins
When the spies of Cambyses were given a tour of Ethiopia, the Ethiopians told them they live to be around 120 years old. After this, they were shown something amazing:
“The spies showed wonder at the tale of years; whereupon he led them, it is said, to a spring, by washing in which they grew sleeker, as though it were of oil; and it smelled of violets. So light, the spies said, was this water, that nothing would float on it, neither wood nor anything lighter than wood, but all sank to the bottom. If this water is truly such as they say, it is likely that their constant use of it makes the people long-lived.”
Herodotus, Histories, Book 3.23; A. D. Godley translation
The Fountain of Youth was in Africa this whole time! Why was everyone looking for it in India or the New World?
Jokes aside, this is pretty interesting. I wonder what Herodotus would think if he found out this little passage here about some spring in Ethiopia would capture the imaginations of generations of people, launch expeditions to every corner of the earth, be incorporated into modern storytelling as evil villains seek immortality, and become the symbol of modern man’s vain attempt to maintain or reacquire their youthful looks and strength.
That's all for the Histories, Book 3.1-26.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos Anodos
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Thumbnail: Meeting Between Cambyses II and Psammetichus III after the Battle of Pelusium by Jean-Adrien Guignet. Before 1854. Public domain.