BABYLON AND PERSIA

352 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.was not the first ;and usurpers, when they flatterthe national tastes and prejudices, seldom find thepeople's hearts obdurate against them.But Amasishad been a friend of the Greeks, had admitted themto settle in the country, and even enlisted a body¬guard of the hated and despised foreigners allgrievous sins in the eyes of the proud and bigotedEgyptians.7. On finding himself thus almost unexpectedlymaster of so great a country, where every thing musthave been bewilderingly strange to him and to hiscompanions, Kambyses acted as became a son andpupil of the great Kyros, whose golden rule was :mild treatment to the vanquished, respect and tolera¬tion to their customs and religion.He treated thecaptive Psammetik kindly and honorably, and therewas no question of sacking cities, plundering or dese¬crating temples, wasting plantations, and the likeatrocities. The only act of severity which he enforced,was the execution of two thousand Egyptian youths,whose lives the Persians demanded, in reprisal forthe massacre of the entire crew of the first ship thatreached Memphis in advance of the fleet and founditself cut off from all assistance.The ordinary crewof a war-ship in those days consisted of about twohundred men, and there was nothing excessive,according to Oriental ideas,in inflicting a tenfoldpenalty ; it was simply the fate of war. Otherwisenothing was changed or disturbed in laws, institu¬tions, or the national life generally. The principalfortresses were garrisoned, and a Satrap appointedto maintain the peace and collect the tribute, that