himself says that the Ethiopians dwelt in the country above Elephantine, and that half of what he calls the island of Takhompso was inhabited by Ethiopians:  the subjugated Ethiopians and their country plainly correspond with the Dodekaschenos of the Graeco-Roman era.

Cambyses had to rest content with the acquisition of those portions of Nubia adjoining the first cataract—­the same, in fact, that had been annexed to Egypt by Psammetichus I. and II. (523).  The failure of this expedition to the south, following so closely on the disaster which befell that of the west, had a deplorable effect on the mind of Cambyses.  He had been subject, from childhood, to attacks of epilepsy, during which he became a maniac and had no control over his actions.  These reverses of fortune aggravated the disease, and increased the frequency and length of the attacks.*

* Recent historians admit neither the reality of the illness of Cambyses nor the madness resulting from it, but consider them Egyptian fables, invented out of spite towards the king who had conquered and persecuted them.

The bull Apis had died shortly before the close of the Ethiopian campaign, and the Egyptians, after mourning for him during the prescribed number of weeks, were bringing his successor with rejoicings into the temple of Phtah, when the remains of the army re-entered Memphis.  Cambyses, finding the city holiday-making, imagined that it was rejoicing over his misfortunes.  He summoned the magistrates before him, and gave them over to the executioner without deigning to listen to their explanations.  He next caused the priests to be brought to him, and when they had paraded the Apis before him, he plunged his dagger into its flank with derisive laughter:  “Ah, evil people!  So you make for yourselves divinities of flesh and blood which fear the sword!  It is indeed a fine god that you Egyptians have here; I will have you to know, however, that you shall not rejoice overmuch at having deceived me!” The priests were beaten as impostors, and the bull languished from its wound and died in a few days*1 its priests buried it, and chose another in its place without the usual ceremonies, so as not to exasperate the anger of the tyrant,** but the horror evoked by this double sacrilege raised passions against Cambyses which the ruin of the country had failed to excite.

* Later historians improved upon the account of Herodotus, and it is said in the De Iside, that Cambyses killed the Apis and threw him to the dogs.  Here there is probably a confusion between the conduct of Cambyses and that attributed to the eunuch Bagoas nearly two centuries later, at the time of the second conquest of Egypt by Ochus.

** Mariette discovered in the Serapseum and sent to the Louvre fragments of the epitaph of an Apis buried in Epiphi in the sixth year of Cambyses, which had therefore died a few months previously.  This fact contradicts the inference