herodotus

known how to keep himself from meddling with mischief, he would havereceived Egypt so as to be ruler of it, since the Persians are wont tohonour the sons of kings, and even if the kings have revolted fromthem, they give back the power into the hands of their sons. Of this,namely that it is their established rule to act so, one may judge bymany instances besides and especially[20] by the case of Thannyras theson of Inaros, who received back the power which his father had, andby that of Pausiris the son of Amyrtaios, for he too received back thepower of his father: yet it is certain that no men ever up to thistime did more evil to the Persians than Inaros and Amyrtaios. As itwas, however, Psammenitos devised evil and received the due reward:for he was found to be inciting the Egyptians to revolt; and when thisbecame known to Cambyses, Psammenitos drank bull's blood and diedforthwith. Thus he came to his end.16. From Memphis Cambyses came to the city of Saïs with the purpose ofdoing that which in fact he did: for when he had entered into thepalace of Amasis, he forthwith gave command to bring the corpse ofAmasis forth out of his burial-place; and when this had beenaccomplished, he gave command to scourge it and pluck out the hair andstab it, and to do to it dishonour in every possible way besides: andwhen they had done this too until they were wearied out, for thecorpse being embalmed held out against the violence and did not fallto pieces in any part, Cambyses gave command to consume it with fire,enjoining thereby a thing which was not permitted by religion: for thePersians hold fire to be a god. To consume corpses with fire then isby no means according to the custom of either people, of the Persiansfor the reason which has been mentioned, since they say that it is notright to give the dead body of a man to a god; while the Egyptianshave the belief established that fire is a living wild beast, and thatit devours everything which it catches, and when it is satiated withthe food it dies itself together with that which it devours: but it isby no means their custom to give the corpse of a man to wild beasts,for which reason they embalm it, that it may not be eaten by worms asit lies in the tomb. Thus then Cambyses was enjoining them to do thatwhich is not permitted by the customs of either people. However, theEgyptians say that it was not Amasis who suffered this outrage, butanother of the Egyptians who was of the same stature of body asAmasis; and that to him the Persians did outrage, thinking that theywere doing it to Amasis: for they say that Amasis learnt from anOracle that which was about to happen with regard to himself after hisdeath; and accordingly, to avert the evil which threatened to comeupon him, he buried the dead body of this man who was scourged withinhis own sepulchral chamber near the doors, and enjoined his son to layhis own body as much as possible in the inner recess of the chamber.These injunctions, said to have been given by Amasis with regard to