BABYLON AND PERSIA

KAMBYSES, i,2(^-i,22 B.C. -347mote and unknown land, and to the tender merciesof one whose violent temper may have been reportedto him, bethought him of a stratagemfor to refusepoint-blank would have been dangerous,and sent toKambyses as his own daughter, a princess of thename of Nitetis, a surviving daughter of his prede¬cessor Hophra (or Apries), whom he had overthrownand supplanted. She went willingly, seeing an open¬ing for avenging her father and family, by simplytelling Kambyses of the deception practised uponhim, which so enraged him, that he vowed theruin of Egypt on the spot. The whole storyis palpably improbable, if only from the fact thatNitetis must have been over forty at the time.But the Egyptians had a much neater and moreplausible story of their own : they told Herodotus(who, however, was too well-informed to believethem), that Nitetis had been one of Kyros' wives,andthe mother of Kambyses. By this perversionof facts, they connected Kambyses with their ownroyal family, and converted the conquest into merelyan armed change of dynasty, such as had occurredmore than once in their history, besides making ofthe conqueror the avenger of his own grandfather.4. The Egyptian campaign, although probablyplanned from the beginning of the new reign,could not have effect until the fourth year. Itpresented great difficulties, which Kambyses waswise enough not to underrate, but to meet withadequate preparations. Amasis was not a contemp¬tible foe and had quietly done many things which.made a foreign invasion a more difficult task than it