41

"but it was confiftent that I fhould weep for my
friend, who, from a station of honour and of wealth,
« is in the last stage of life reduced to penury." Cam-
byfes heard and was fatisfied with his anfwer. The
Ægyptians fay that Crofus, who attended Camby-
fes in this Ægyptian expedition, wept at the inci-
dent. The Perfians alfo who were prefent were
exceedingly moved, and Cambyfes himself yielded
fo far to compaffion, that he ordered the fon of
Pfammenitus to be preserved out of those who had
been condemned to die, and Pfammenitus himself
to be conducted from the place where he was, to his
prefence.

1.6

XV. The emiffariés employed for the purpose
found the young prince had suffered first, and was
already dead; the father they led to Cambyfes, with
whom he lived, and received no farther ill treat-
ment; and, could he have refrained from ambitious
attempts, would probably have been intrusted with
the government of Egypt. The Perfians hold the
fons of fovereigns in the greatest reverence, and
even if the fathers revolt they will permit the fons!
to fucceed to their authority; that fuch is really
their conduct may be proved by various examples,

What they are yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.-

You think I'll weep

No, I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping;
But this heart fhall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or e'er I weep.

VOL. II.

C

T.

Thannyras

Thannyras the for of Inarus", received the kingdom which his father governed; Paufiris also, the fon of Amyrtæus, was permitted to reign after his father, although the Perfians had never met with more obftinate enemies than both Inarus and Amyrtæus. Plammenitus revolted, and fuffered for his offence: he was detected in ftirring up the Ægyptians to rebel; and being convicted by Cambyfes, was made to drink a quantity of bullock's blood 20, which immediately occafioned his death.-Such was the end of Pfammenitus.

XVI. From Sais, Cambyfes proceeded to Mem- 33 phis, to execute a purpofe he had in view. As foon as he entered the palace of Amafis, he ordered the body of that prince to be removed from his

19 Inarus.]-The revolt of Inarus happened in the first year' of the Both Olympiad, 460 before the Chriftian æra. He rebelled against Artaxerxes Longimanus, and with the affistance of the Athenians defied the power of Persia for nearly five years. After he was reduced, Amyrtæus held out for fome time longer in the marthy country.-The particulars may be found in the firft book of Thucydides, chap. civ. &c.

20 Bullock's blood.]-Bull's blood, taken fresh from the animal, was confidered by the ancients as a powerful poison, and fupposed to act by coagulating in the ftomach. Themistocles, and feveral other perfonages of antiquity, were said to have died by taking it. See Plut. in Themift. and Pliny, book xxviii. ch. ix Ariftophanes, in the Tz, alludes to this account of the death of Themistocles.

Βέλτισον ἡμῖν αἷμα ταύρειον πιεῖν
Ο Θεμισοκλέας γὰρ θάνατος αἱρεώτερος.

tomb.

tomb. When this was done, he commanded it to be beaten with rods, the hair to be plucked out, and the flesh to be goaded with fharp inftruments, to which he added other marks of ignominy. As the body was embalmed, their efforts made but little impreffion; when therefore they were fatigued with these outrages, he ordered it to be burned. In this last act Cambyfes paid no regard to the religion of his country, for the Perfians venerate fire as a divinity". The custom of burning the dead does not prevail in either of the two nations; for the reafon above mentioned, the Perfians do not use it, thinking it profane to feed a divinity with human carcases; and the Ægyptians abhor it, being fully perfuaded that fire is a voracious animal, which devours whatever it can feize, and when faturated. finally expires with what it has confumed. They hold it unlawful to expofe the bodies of the dead **

to

2 Venerate fire as a divinity.]-This expreffion must not be understood in too rigorous a fenfe. Fire was certainly regarded by the Perfians as fomething facred, and perhaps they might render it some kind of religious worship, which in its origin referred only to the deity of which this element was an emblem. But it is certain that this nation did not believe fire to be a deity, otherwise how would they have dared to have extinguished it throughout Perfia, on the death of the fovereign, as we learn from Diodorus Siculus ?-See an epigram of Diofcorides, Brunk's Analecta, vol. i. 503.-Larcher.

22 Bodies of the dead.]-We learn from Xenophon, that the interment of bodies was common in Greece; and Homer tells us that the custom of burning the dead was in ufe before the Trojan war. It is therefore probable that both customs were practifed at the fame time; this was also the cafe at Rome, as appears

to any animals, for which reason they embalm them, fearing left, after interment, they might become the prey of worms. The Ægyptians affert, that the above indignities were not inflicted upon the body of Amafis, but that the Perfians were deceived, and perpetrated these infults on fome other Ægyptian of the fame age with that prince. Amafis, they fay, was informed by an oracle of the injuries intended against his body, to prevent which he ordered the perfon who really fuftained them, to be buried at the entrance of his tomb, whilft he himself, by his own directions given to his son, was placed in fome fecret and interior recefs of the fepulchre. These affertions I cannot altogether believe, and am rather inclined to impute them to the vanity of the Ægyptians.

from many ancient monuments: the cuftom, however, of interment, seems to have preceded that of burning. "At mihi quidem antiquiffimum fepulturæ genus id fuiffe videtur quo apud Xenophontem Cyrus utitur. Redditur enim terræ corpus et ita locatum et fitum quafi operimento matris obducitur."-Cicero de legibus, lib. ii. 22.

"That feems to me to have been the moft ancient kind of burial, which, according to Xenophon, was used by Cyrus. For the body is returned to the earth, and fo placed as to be covered with the veil of its mother." The cuftom of burning at Rome, according to Montfaucon, ceafed about the time of Theodofius the younger.

Sylla was the first of the Cornelian family whofe body was burnt, whence fome have erroneously advanced that he was the firft Roman; but both methods were mentioned in the laws of the twelve tables, and appear to have been equally prevalent. After Sylla, burning became general.-T.

24 22

XVII. Cambyfes afterwards determined to commence hoftilities against three nations at once, the Carthaginians, the Ammonians, and the Macrobian* Ethiopians, who inhabit that part of Lybia which lies towards the (fouthern ocean. He accordingly refolved to fend against the Car134 thaginians a naval armament; a detachment of his troops was to attack the Ammonians by land; and he sent spies into Æthiopia, who, under pretence of carrying presents to the prince, were to ascertain the reality of the celebrated table of the fun 23, and to examine the condition of the country,

XVIII. What they called the table of the fun was this:-A plain in the vicinity of the city was filled to the height of four feet with the roafted flesh of all kinds of animals, which was carried there in the night, under the inspection of the magiftrates; during the day whoever pleased was at liberty to go and fatisfy his hunger. The natives of the place affirm, that the earth fpontaneously produces all these viands: this, however, is what they term the table of the fun,

* i. e. long-lived,

23 Table of the fun.]-Solinus fpeaks of this table of the fun as fomething marvellous, and Pomponius Mela feems to have had the fame idea. Paufanias confiders what was reported of it as fabulous. "If," fays he, "we credit all these marvels on the faith of the Greeks, we ought also to receive as true what the Ethiopians above Syene relate of the table of the fun." In adhering to the recital of Herodotus, a confiderable portion of the marvellous disappears.-Larcher.