Egypt under the Sates, Persians, and Ptolemies

B.C. 527] FITS AND INSANITY OF CAMBYSES 53
tomb of Osymandyas a large disk of gold, 350
cubits in circumference, on which were tabulated
the days of the year, together with data concerning
the rising and setting of stars. It is difficult to
understand why Cambyses behaved with such rever-
ence to the goddess Neith at Sais, and with such
hostility to the other gods of Egypt in other places.
Herodotus tells us (iii. 30) that he sent his brother
Bardiya (in Persian cuneiform ^J ^J ^^U tT K*^)^
i.e., Bardes, the Smerdis of Herodotus, off to Persia
from Egypt through envy because he alone was able
to draw the bow which the Ichthyophagi had brought
back from the Nubians ; and because he dreamed that
this Bardiya was sitting on the throne of Persia, he
sent his trusted friend Prexaspes after him to Persia
to kill him. This Prexaspes did, but whether he slew
him at Susa or drowned him in the Ked Sea, is not
known. Cambyses married two of his sisters, which
was against the laws of Persia, and the youngest, who
went with him to Egypt, is said to have died there as
the result of a kick which he gave her because she
made some remark which displeased him. Cambyses
had suffered from his youth up from epilepsy (Hero-
dotus iii. 33), and he was seized from time to time with
fits of insanity during which he perpetrated many cruel
acts ; thus he shot to the heart with an arrow his
cup-bearer, the son of Prexaspes, his closest friend,
and rejoiced at the trueness of his aim ; he had twelve
Persian nobles buried in the ground up to the neck