The histories of Herodotus;

166 HERODOTUS—BOOK III, THALIA [32-35
enraged, kicked her when she was with child ; and she miscarried
and died.
Thus madly did Cambyses behave toward his own family
whether on account of Apis, or from some other cause, from
which, in many ways, misfortunes are wont to befall mankind.
For Cambyses is said, even from infancy, to have been
afflicted with a certain severe malady, which some called the
sacred disease. 1 In that case, it was not at all surprising that
when his body was so diseased his mind should not be sound.
And toward the other Persians he behaved madly in the following
instances : for it is reported that he said to Prexaspes,
whom he highly honoured, and whose office it was to bring
messages to him, and whose son was cup-bearer to Cambyses,
and this is no trifling honour, he is reported to have
spoken as follows : " Prexaspes, what sort of man do the
Persians think me? and what remarks do they make about
me?" He answered, "Sir, you are highly extolled in every
other respect, but they say you are too much addicted to
wine." Prexaspes said this of the Persians, but the king,
enraged, answered as follows : " Do the Persians indeed say
that, by being addicted to wine, I am beside myself, and am
not in my senses? Then their former words were not true."
For, on a former occasion, when the Persians and Crcesus
were sitting with him, Cambyses asked what sort of man
he appeared to be in comparison with his father Cyrus ; they
answered that he was superior to his father, for that he held
all that Cyrus possessed, and had acquired besides Egypt and
the empire of the sea. Crcesus, being present, not being
pleased with this decision, spoke thus to Cambyses : " To me
now, O son of Cyrus, you do not appear comparable to your
father, for you have not yet such a son as he left behind him."
Cambyses was delighted at hearing this, and commended the
judgment of Crcesus. Therefore, remembering this, he said
in anger to Prexaspes : " Observe now yourself, whether the
Persians have spoken the truth, or whether they who say such
things are not out of their senses ; for if I shoot that son of
yours who stands under the portico, and hit him in the heart,
the Persians will appear to have said nothing to the purpose
but if I miss, then say that the Persians have spoken truth,
and that I am not of sound mind." Having said this, and
bent his bow, he hit the boy; and when the boy had fallen,
he ordered them to open him and examine the wound ;
when the arrow was found in the heart, he said to the boy's
father, laughing : " Prexaspes, it has been clearly shown to
1 Epilepsy.
;
and