He was pursued and taken within sight of the Lycian coast, but he treated his captors to wine and escaped from them while they were intoxicated.  He placed Cambyses in communication with the shekh of the scattered tribes between Syria and the Delta.  The Arab undertook to furnish the Persian king with guides, as one of his predecessors had done in years gone by for Esar-haddon, and to station relays of camels laden with water along the route that the invading army was to follow.  Having taken these precautions, Cambyses entrusted the cares of government and the regulation of his household to Oropastes,* one of the Persian magi, and gave the order to march forward.

* Herodotus calls this individual Patizeithes, and Dionysius of Miletus, who lived a little before Herodotus, gives Panzythes as a variant of this name:  the variant passed into the Syncellus as Pauzythes, but the original form Patikhshayathiya is a title signifying viceroy, regent, or minister, answering to the modern Persian Padishah:  Herodotus, or the author he quotes, has taken the name of the office for that of the individual.  On the other hand, Pompeius Trogus, who drew his information from good sources, mentions, side by side with Cometes or Gaumata, his brother Oropastes, whose name Ahura-upashta is quite correct, and may mean, Him whom Ahura helps.  It is generally admitted that Pompeius Trogus, or rather Justin, has inverted the parts they played, and that his Cometes is the Pseudo- Smerdis, and not, as he says, Oropastes; it was, then, the latter who was the usurper’s brother, and it is his name of Oropastes which should be substituted for that of the Patizeithes of Herodotus.

[Illustration:  138.jpg Psammetichus III. ]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
     Louvre.

On arriving at Pelusium, he learned that his adversary no longer existed.  Amasis had died after a short illness, and was succeeded by his son Psammetichus III.

This change of command, at the most critical moment, was almost in itself, a disaster.  Amasis, with his consummate experience of men and things, his intimate knowledge of the resources of Egypt, his talents as a soldier and a general, his personal prestige, his Hellenic leanings, commanded the confidence of his own men and the respect of foreigners; but what could be expected of his unknown successor, and who could say whether he were equal to the heavy task which fate had assigned to him?  The whole of the Nile valley was a prey to gloomy presentiment.*

* Psammetichus III. has left us very few monuments, which is accounted for by the extreme shortness of his reign.  For the same reason doubtless several writers of classical times have ignored his existence, and have made the conquest of Egypt take place under Amasis.  Ctesias calls the Pharaoh Amyrtseus, and gives the same name to those who rebelled against the