The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [125]
30. ‘For it is two of the Magi tribe who have rebelled against me and taken the royal power: Patizeithes, whom I left at Susa to overlook my household, and Smerdis his brother.
31. ‘I charge you all, and specially such of you as are Achaemenids, that you do not lamely allow the kingdom to go back to the Medes.
32. ‘Recover it one way or another, by force or fraud; by fraud, if it is by fraud that they have seized on it; by force, if force has helped them in their enterprise.
33. ‘Do this, and then may your land bring you forth fruit abundantly, and your wives bear children, and your herds increase, and freedom be your portion for ever.’
Chapter 30
1. But the Persians who heard his words put no faith in anything that he said concerning the Magi having the royal power;
2. Instead they believed that he spoke out of hatred towards his brother Smerdis, and had invented the tale of his death to cause the whole Persian race to rise up in arms against him.
3. Thus they were convinced that it was Smerdis the son of Cyrus who had rebelled and now sat on the throne.
4. For Prexaspes stoutly denied that he had murdered Smerdis, since it was not safe for him to allow that a son of Cyrus had met with death at his hands.
5. Thus Cambyses died, and the Magus now reigned in security, and passed himself off as Smerdis son of Cyrus.
6. And so went by the seven months which were wanting to complete the eighth year of Cambyses.
7. In the eighth month, however, it was discovered who Smerdis the Magian really was, in the following manner.
8. There was a man called Otanes, the son of Pharnaspes, who for rank and wealth was equal to the greatest of the Persians;
9. And he was the first to suspect that the Magus was not Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and to surmise who he really was.
10. He was led to guess the truth by the king never leaving the citadel, and never calling before him any of the Persian noblemen.
11. As soon, therefore, as his suspicions were aroused, he adopted the following measures.
12. One of his daughters, who was called Phaedima, had been married to Cambyses, and was taken to wife, together with the rest of Cambyses’ wives, by Smerdis the usurper.
13. Otanes sent her a message, asking her ‘Who it was whose bed she shared; was it Smerdis the son of Cyrus, or was it some other man?’
14. Phaedima in reply declared she did not know; Smerdis the son of Cyrus she had never seen, and so she could not tell whose bed she shared.
15. Upon this Otanes sent a second time, and said, ‘If you do not know Smerdis son of Cyrus yourself, ask queen Atossa about the man whose bed you share; she cannot fail to know her own brother.’
16. To this the daughter answered, ‘I can neither get speech with Atossa, nor with any of the women who lodge in the palace.
17. ‘For no sooner did this man obtain the kingdom, than he parted us from one another, and gave us all separate chambers.’
18. This made the matter seem still more plain to Otanes. Nevertheless he sent a third message to his daughter, saying,
19. ‘Daughter, you are of noble blood; you will not shrink from the risk which I now ask you to take, even though it could mean your death if discovered.
20. ‘When next he passes the night with you, wait till he is fast asleep, then feel his ears. For if you find that he has none, you will know that he is not Smerdis son of Cyrus but Smerdis the Magian.’
21. Now Smerdis the Magian had had his ears cut off in the lifetime of Cyrus, as a punishment for a crime of no slight heinousness.
22. Otanes’ daughter, therefore, when her turn came, and she was taken to the bed of the Magus (in Persia a man’s wives sleep with him in their turns), waited till he was sound asleep, and then felt for his ears.
23. She quickly perceived that he had none; and of this, as soon as day dawned, she sent word to her father.
24. Then Otanes went to two of the chief Persians, Aspathines and Gobryas, men it was safe to trust in such a matter, and told them everything.
25. Now they had already