CHAP. 66, 67. DEATH OF CAMBYSES. 461 may your land bring you forth fruit abundantly, and your wives bear children, and your herds increase, and freedom be your portion for ever: but do it not-make no brave struggle to regain the kingdom-and then my curse be on you, and may the opposite of all these things happen to you-and not only so, but may you, one and all, perish at the last by such a fate as mine!" Then Cambyses, when he left speaking, bewailed his whole misfortune from beginning to end. 66. Whereupon the Persians, seeing their king weep, rent the garments that they had on, and uttered lamentable cries;" after which, as the bone presently grew carious, and the limb gangrened, Cambyses, son of Cyrus, died. He had reigned in all seven years and five months,' and left no issue behind him, male or female. The Persians who had heard his words, put no faith in anything that he said concerning the Magi having the royal power; but believed that he spoke out of hatred towards Smerdis, and had invented the tale of his death to cause the whole Persian race to rise up in arms against him. Thus they were convinced that it was Smerdis the son of Cyrus who had rebelled and now sate on the throne. For Prexaspes stoutly denied that he had slain Smerdis, since it was not safe for him, after Cambyses was dead, to allow that a son of Cyrus had met death at his hands. 67. Thus then Cambyses died, and the Magus now reigned in security, and passed himself off for Smerdis Mr. Blakesley (not. ad loc.) well compares the picture in the Persæ of Eschylus, lines 1017-1055. 1 Vide infra, ch. 67. That the reigns of Cambyses and the Pseudo-Smerdis occupied eight years, more than seven of which belonged to Cambyses, is certain from the Canon of Ptolemy, which gives exactly eight years between the death of Cyrus and the accession of Darius. The reign of the Pseudo-Smerdis is omitted from the Canon, because no reign is given which occupied only a fraction of a year. Nineteen years are assigned to Cambyses by Clemens Alex.(Strom. i. p. 395); and 18 by Ctesias (Excerpt. Persic. § 12), unless this is a wrong reading (IH for H). Manetho probably gave the true time, eight years. (Compare Euseb. Chron. Can. I. XX., and Euseb. ap. Sync. p. 76, with Africanus ap. Syncell. p. 75.) 462 SUSIAN ACROPOLIS. BOOK III. the son of Cyrus. And so went by the seven months which were wanting to complete the eighth year of Cambyses. His subjects, while his reign lasted, received great benefits from him, insomuch that, when he died, all the dwellers in Asia mourned his loss exceedingly, except only the Persians. For no sooner did he come to the throne than forthwith he sent round to every nation under his rule, and granted them freedom from war-service and from taxes for the space of three years. 68. In the eighth month, however, it was discovered who he was in the mode following. There was a man called Otanes, the son of Pharnaspes,3 who for rank and wealth was equal to the greatest of the Persians." This Otanes was the first to suspect that the Magus was not Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and to surmise moreover who he really was. He was led to guess the truth by the king never quitting the citadel, and never Anaphas (i. e. Otanes), one of the seven conspirators. There is no doubt that the Anaphas of Diodorus is the Otanes of Herodotus. He is plainly identical with the Onaphas of Ctesias, placed by him at the head of his list. And Anaphas or Onophas was a family-name in the house of Otanes, as appears from Book vii. ch. 62. The two names are indeed perpetually confounded. See Col. Rawlinson's note on the Persian inscription at Behistun (Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. xii. part ii. p. xiii.). 5 By the citadel (åkpóroλts) it is uncertain whether Herodotus means the citadel proper, or only the royal palace at Susa (v. infr. ch. 70), called by the Greeks "the Memnonium," which he speaks of below (v. 54) as rà Baσiλýïa rà Meμvóvia (cf. Strab. xv. p. 1031, ἡ δὲ ἀκρόπολις ἐκαλεῖτο Μεμνόνειον), and which was no doubt strongly fortified. As this occupied a portion of the modern mound of Sus (see note on Book v. ch. 49), it might be con CHAP. 68. PHÆDIMA AND HER FATHER. 463 As calling before him any of the Persian noblemen. soon therefore as his suspicions were aroused, he adopted the following measures:-One of his daughters, who was called Phædima, had been married to Cambyses, and was taken to wife, together with the rest of Cambyses' wives, by the Magus. To this daughter Otanes sent a message, and inquired of her, "who it was whose bed she shared,-was it Smerdis the son of Cyrus, or was it some other man?" Phædima 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." Upon this Otanes sent a second time, and said, "If thou dost not know Smerdis sidered as included in the acropolis. Col. Rawlinson thus describes the great mound:-"As I approached the ruins I was particularly struck with the extraordinary height of this mound, which appears to have constituted the fort of the city. By a rough calculation with the sextant, I found the height of the lower platform to be between 80 and 90 feet, and that of the great mound to be about 165 feet. The platform, which is square, I estimated to measure two miles and a half; the mound, which I paced, measured 1100 yards round the base, and 850 round the summit. The slope is very steep-so steep, indeed, 464 DETECTION OF THE MAGUS. BOOK III. son of Cyrus thyself, ask queen Atossa who it is with whom ye both live-she cannot fail to know her own brother." To this the daughter made answer, “I can neither get speech with Atossa, nor with any of the women who lodge in the palace. For no sooner did this man, be he who he may, obtain the kingdom, than he parted us from one another, and gave us all separate chambers." 69. This made the matter seem still more plain to Otanes. Nevertheless he sent a third message to his daughter in these words following ::-"Daughter, thou art of noble blood-thou wilt not shrink from a risk which thy father bids thee encounter. If this fellow be not Smerdis the son of Cyrus, but the man whom I think him to be, his boldness in taking thee to be his wife, and lording it over the Persians, must not be allowed to pass unpunished. Now therefore do as I command--when next he passes the night with thee, wait till thou art sure he is fast asleep, and then feel for his ears. If thou findest him to have ears, then believe him to be Smerdis the son of Cyrus, but if he has none, know him for Smerdis the Magian." Phædima returned for answer, "It would be a great risk. If he was without ears, and caught her feeling for them, she well knew he would make away with her— nevertheless she would venture." So Otanes got his daughter's promise that she would do as he desired. Now Smerdis the Magian had had his ears cut off in the lifetime of Cyrus son of Cambyses, as a punishment for a crime of no slight heinousness. Phædima therefore, Otanes' daughter, bent on accomplishing what she See, below, the story of Zopyrus, which implies that such mutilation was an ordinary punishment (infra, ch. 154-158). Brisson (de Regn. Pers. ii. pp. 334-5) has collected a number of instances, extending from the age of Cyrus to that of Julian, which sufficiently prove this. A more im portant testimony than any of his is that of the Behistun Inscription (Col. ii. par. 13, § 4), which shows us that this punishment was inflicted by Darius on the great Median rebel Phraortes. It is still practised at the present day both in Turkey and Persia. CHAP. 69, 70. THE SIX CONSPIRATORS. 465 had promised her father, 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. She quickly perceived that he had no ears; and of this, as soon as day dawned, she sent word to her father. 8 70. Then Otanes took to him two of the chief Persians, Aspathines and Gobryas, men whom it was most advisable to trust in such a matter, and told them everything. Now they had already of themselves suspected how the matter stood. When Otanes therefore laid his reasons before them they at once came into his views; and it was agreed that each of the three should take as companion in the work the Persian in whom he placed the greatest confidence. Then Otanes chose Intaphernes,' Gobryas Megabyzus, and Aspathines Hydarnes. After the 7 2 Compare Esther ii. 12. "Now when every maid's turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women," &c. 8 Aspathines seems to represent the Aspachaná of the Nakhsh-i-Rustam inscription, who was not one of the seven conspirators, but was the quiverbearer of Darius. The name given by the inscription in the place of Aspathines is Ardomanes (Ardumanish). This is the only name out of the seven in which Herodotus was wrong. Ctesias was wrong in every name but two (Hydarnes and Darius). Gobryas, the Gaubaruwa of the monuments, appears to have been the bow-bearer of Darius. At least a person of the name is represented in that capacity at Nakhsh-i-Rustam. Such an office might, I think, have been held by a Persian of very exalted rank. He is joined on the monument, as here, with Aspathines (Aspachaná) the quiver-bearer. His father's name (like his son's) was Mardonius (Marduniya). 1 Herodotus is here more exact than either Ctesias or Eschylus. Ctesias τὸν δὲ σὺν δόλῳ 'Αρταφρένης ἔκτεινεν ἐσθλὸς εν δόμοις, We may also suspect a deeper mean- 2 In the Persian, Bagabuksha. 3 Vidarna in the inscription; in Ctesias, Idernes; Indarnes in Plutarch. He was employed by Darius on occasion of the Median revolt, and gained |