The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [119]
23. Immediately he set out on his march against the Ethiopians without making any provision for the sustenance of his army,
24. Or reflecting that he was about to wage war in the uttermost parts of the earth.
25. Like a senseless madman, no sooner did he receive the report of the ambassadors than he began his march,
26. Instructing the Greeks who were with his army to remain where they were, and taking only his land force with him.
27. At Thebes, which he passed on his way, he detached from his main body some fifty thousand men, and sent them against the Ammonians with orders to carry the people into captivity, and burn their civic places.
28. Meanwhile he went on with the rest of his forces against the Ethiopians.
29. Before he had accomplished one-fifth of the distance, all the army’s provisions failed; whereupon the men began to eat the sumpter beasts, which were all soon consumed.
30. If, at this time, Cambyses, seeing what was happening, had confessed his mistake, and led his army back, he would have done the wisest thing;
31. But as it was, he took no heed, and continued the march.
32. So long as the earth gave them anything, the soldiers sustained life by eating the grass and herbs;
33. But when they came to the bare sand, some of them committed a horrid deed: by tens they cast lots for a man, who was slain to be the food of the others.
34. When Cambyses heard of this, alarmed at such cannibalism, he gave up his attack on Ethiopia, and retreating by the way he had come, reached Thebes, after he had lost vast numbers of his soldiers.
Chapter 24
1. The men sent to attack the Ammonians started from Thebes, having guides with them,
2. And reached as far as the city Oasis, which is inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe Aeschrionia.
3. The place is seven days’ journey from Thebes across the desert. Thus far the army is known to have made its way;
4. But thenceforth nothing is known of them, except what the Ammonians report.
5. It is certain they neither reached the territory of Ammonians, nor ever came back to Egypt.
6. The Ammonians say that the Persians set out from Oasis, and had reached about halfway across the desert when, while they were at their midday meal, a strong and deadly wind rose from the south,
7. Bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which buried the troops entirely.
8. About the time when Cambyses arrived at Memphis the Egyptians were making festival, arraying themselves in their gayest garments and giving themselves to feasting and jollity:
9. Which, when Cambyses saw, believing that these rejoicings were on account of his failure, he summoned the officers in charge of Memphis, and asked,
10. Why, when he was in Memphis before, the Egyptians had no festival, but waited until now, when he had returned with the loss of so many troops?
11. When the officers answered that this was one of the regular holiday observances of the Egyptians, he would not believe them, and told them that they lied, and condemned them all to death.
12. Then he instructed his troops that any Egyptians found keeping festival were to be put to death. Thus was the feast stopped throughout the land of Egypt.
13. And now Cambyses, who even before had not been quite in his right mind, was forthwith, as the Egyptians say, smitten with madness, and gave himself over to worse crimes.
14. The first of his outrages was the slaying of Smerdis, his brother, whom he had sent back to Persia from Egypt out of envy,
15. Because he drew the bow brought from the Ethiopians by the ambassadors, which none of the other Persians were able to bend.
16. When Smerdis had departed, Cambyses began to fear that he would plot against him, purposing to kill him and rule in his stead.
17. So Cambyses sent his trusted servant Prexaspes into Persia, with instructions to assassinate Smerdis.
18. Prexaspes accordingly went to Susa and slew Smerdis. Some say he killed him as they hunted together, others, that he took him to the Erythraean Sea and there drowned him.
19. This was the first of the outrages that