CHICAGO 
 
 GEO. M. HILL CO 
 
 1898 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 C. WITTER, BOOKSELLER & STATIONER, 
 
 It SOUTH BROADWAY. ~ TEMPLE BUILDING.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION. 
 
 "Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae, 
 Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae." 
 Horat. "De Arte Poetica," v, 333. 
 
 It is now four years since this book first appeared before 
 the public, and I feel it my duty not to let a second edition 
 go forth into the world without a few words of accompani- 
 ment. It hardly seems necessary to assure my readers that 
 I have endeavored to earn for the- following pages the title 
 of a "corrected edition." An author is the father of his book, 
 and what father could see his child preparing to set out on 
 a new and dangerous road, even if it were not for the first 
 time, without endeavoring to supply him with every good 
 that lay in his power to bestow and to free him from every 
 fault or infirmity on which the world could look unfavorably? 
 The assurance, therefore, that I have repeatedly bestowed the 
 greatest possible care on the correction of my "Egyptian 
 Princess" seems to me superfluous, but at the same time I 
 think it advisable to mention briefly where and in what man- 
 ner I have found it necessary to make these emendations. The 
 notes have been revised, altered and enriched with all those 
 results of antiquarian res-earcb (more especially in reference 
 to the language and monuments of ancient Egypt) which 
 have come to our knowledge since the year 1864 and which 
 my limited space allowed me to lay before a general public. 
 On the alteration of the text itself I entered with caution, 
 
 2234667
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 almost with timidity; for during four years of constant effort 
 as academical tutor, investigator and writer in those severe 
 regions of study which exclude the free exercise of imagina- 
 tion, the poetical side of a man's nature may forfeit much 
 to the critical; and thus, 'by attempting to remodel my tale 
 entirely, I might have incurred the danger of removing it 
 from the more genial sphere of literary work to which it 
 properly belongs. I have, therefore, contented myself with 
 a careful revision of the style, the omission of lengthy passages 
 which might have diminished the interest of the story to gen- 
 eral readers, the insertion of a few characteristic or explana- 
 tory additions and the alteration of the proper names. These 
 last I have written not in their Greek but in their Latin forms-, 
 having been assured by more than one fair reader that the 
 names Ibykus and Cyrus would have been greeted by them 
 as old acquaintances, whereas the "Ibykos" and "Kyros'' of 
 the first edition looked so strange and learned as to be quite 
 discouraging. Where, however, the German "k" has the same 
 worth as the Roman "c" I have adopted it in preference. With 
 respect to the Egyptian names and those with which we have 
 become acquainted through the cuneiform inscriptions I have 
 chosen the forms most adapted to our German modes of 
 speech, and in the present edition have placed those few 
 explanations which seemed to me indispensable to the right 
 understanding of the text at the foot of the page. 
 
 The fact that displeasure has been excited among men of 
 letters by this attempt to clothe the hardly earned results of 
 severer studies in an imaginative form is even clearer to me 
 now than when I first sent this book before the public. In 
 some points I agree with this judgment, but that the act is 
 kindly received, when a scholar does not scorn to render the 
 results of his investigations accessible to .the largest number 
 of the educated class, in the form most generally interesting 
 to them, is proved by the rapid sale of the first large edition 
 of this work. I know at least of no better means than those 
 I have chosen by which to instruct and suggest thought to 
 an extended circle of readers. % Those who read learned books 
 evince in so doing a taste of such studies; but it may easily 
 chance that the following pages, though taken up only for 
 amusement, may excite a desire for more information, and 
 even gain a disciple for the study of ancient history.
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 Considering our scanty knowledge of the domestic life of 
 the Greeks and Persians- before the Persian war of Egyp- 
 tian manners we know more even the most severe scholar 
 could scarcely dispense with the assistance of his imagination, 
 when attempting to describe private life among the civilized 
 nations of the sixth century before Christ. He would, how- 
 ever, escape all danger of those anachronisms to which the 
 author of such a work as I have undertaken must be hope- 
 lessly liable. With attention and industry, errors of an exter- 
 nal character may be avoided, but if I had chosen to hold 
 myself free from all consideration of the times in which I and 
 my readers have come into the world, and the modes of 
 thought at present existing among us, and had attempted to 
 depict nothing but the purely ancient characteristics 1 of the 
 men and their times, I should have become unintelligible to 
 many of my readers, uninteresting to all, and have entirely 
 failed in my original object. My characters will, therefore, 
 look like Persians, Egyptians, etc., but in their language, even 
 more than in their actions, the German narrator will be per- 
 ceptible, not always superior to the sentimentality of his day, 
 but a native of the world in the nineteenth centviry after the i 
 appearance of that heavenly Master, whose teaching left so/ 
 deep an impression on human thought and feeling. / 
 
 The Persians and Greeks, being by descent related to our* 
 selves, present fewer difficulties in this respect than the Egyp- 
 tians, whose dwelling-place on the fruitful islands won by the 
 Nile from the desert completely isolated them from the rest 
 of the world. 
 
 To Prof. Lepsius, who suggested to me that a tale confined 
 entirely to Egypt and the Egyptians might become weari- 
 some, I owe many thanks; and following his- hint, have so 
 arranged the materials supplied by Herodotus as to introduce 
 my reader first into a Greek circle. Here he will feel in a 
 measure at home, and, indeed, will entirely sympathize with 
 them on one important point, viz.: in their ideas on the beau- 
 tiful and on art. Through this Hellenic portico he reaches 
 Egypt, from thence passes on to Persia and returns finally 
 to the Nile. It has been my desire that the three nations* 
 should attract him equally, and I have, therefore, not centered 
 the entire interest of the plot in one hero, but have endeav- 
 ored to exhibit each nation in its individual character by means
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 of a fitting representative. The Egyptian princess has given 
 her name to the book, only because the weal and woe of all 
 my other characters were decided by her fate, and she must, 
 therefore, be regarded as the central point of the whole. 
 
 In describing Amasis I have fcllowed the excellent descrip- 
 tion of Herodotus', which has been confirmed by a picture 
 discovered on an ancient monument. Herodotus has been 
 my guide, too, in the leading features of Cambyses' character; 
 indeed, as he was born only forty or fifty years after the events 
 related, his history forms the basis of my romance. 
 
 "Father of history" though he be, I have not followed him 
 blindly, but especially in the development of my characters, 
 have chosen those paths which the principles of psychology 
 have enabled me to lay down for myself, and have never 
 omitted consulting those hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions which have already been deciphered. In most cases 
 these confirm the statements of Herodotus. 
 
 I have caused Bartja's murder to take place after the con- 
 quest of Egypt, because I cannot agree with the ustially 
 received translation of the Behistun inscription. This reads 
 as follows: "One named Cambujiya, son of Curu, of our 
 family, was king here formerly and had a brother named Bar- 
 tiya, of the same father and the same mother as Cambujiya. 
 Thereupon Cambujiya killed that Bartiya." In a book intend'ed 
 for general readers it would not be well to enter into a dis- 
 cussion as to niceties of language, but even the uninitiated 
 will see that the word "thereupon" has no sense in this con- 
 nection. In every other point the inscription agrees with 
 Herodotus' narrative, and I believe it possible to bring it into 
 agreement with that of Darius on this last as well; but reserve 
 my proofs for another time and place. 
 
 It has* not been ascertained from whence Herodotus has 
 taken the name Smerdis, which he gives to Bartja and Gau- 
 mata. The latter occurs again, though in a mutilated form, 
 in Justin. 
 
 My reason for making Phanes an Athenian will be found 
 in note p. 52. This coercion of an authenticated fact might 
 have been avoided in the first edition, but could not now be 
 altered without important changes in the entire text. The 
 means I have adopted in my endeavor to make Nitetis as 
 young as possible needs a more serious apology; as, notwith-
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 standing Herodotus' account of the mildness of Amasis' rule, 
 it is improbable that king Hophra should have been alive 
 twenty years after his fall. Even this 1 , however, is not impo^- 
 sible, for it can be proved that his descendants were not per- 
 secuted by Amasis. 
 
 On a stela in the Leyden museum I have discovered that 
 a certain Psamtik, a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till 
 the seventeenth year of Amasis' reign, and died at the age 
 of seventy-five. 
 
 Lastly, let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference 
 to Rhodopis. That she must have been a remarkable woman 
 is evident from the passage in Herodotus quoted in notes 
 pp. 7 and 9, and from the accounts given by many other 
 writers. Her name, "the rosy-cheeked one," tells 1 us that she 
 was beautiful, and her amiability and charm of manner are 
 expressly praised by Herodotus. How richly she was endowed 
 with gifts and graces may be gathered, too, from the manner 
 in which tradition and fairy lore have endeavored to render 
 her name immortal. By many she is said to have built the 
 most beautiful of the pyramids- the pyramid of Mycerinus 
 or Menkera. One tale related of her and reported by Strabo 
 and Aelian probably gave rise to our oldest and most beau- 
 tiful fairy-tale, "Cinderella"; another is near akin to the Lore- 
 ley legend. An eagle, according to Strabo the wind in 
 Aelian's tale bore away Rhodopis' slippers while she was 
 bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet of the king, when 
 seated on the throne of justice in the open market. The 
 little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until 
 he had discovered their owner and made her his queen. 
 
 The second legend tells us how ~a wonderfully beautiful 
 naked woman could be seen sitting on the summit of one of 
 the pyramids (ut in una ex pyramidibus); and how she drove 
 the wanderers in the desert mad through her exceeding love- 
 liness. 
 
 Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the fol- 
 lowing verse: 
 
 "Fair Rhodope, as story tells 
 The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells 
 'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid, 
 The lady of the pyramid."
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rho- 
 dopis must have been no ordinary woman. Some scholars 
 woaild place her on a level with the beautiful and heroic Queen 
 Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus, Eusebius and others, 
 and whose name (signifying the victorious Keith) has been 
 found on the monuments, applied to a queen of the sixth 
 dynasty. This is- a bold conjecture; it adds, however, to the 
 importance of our heroine; and, without doubt, many tradi- 
 tions referring to the one have been transferred to the other, 
 and vice versa. Herodotus lived so short a time after Rho- 
 dopis and tells so many exact particulars of her private life 
 that it is impossible she should have been a mere creation of 
 fiction. The letter of Darius, given at the end of the volume, 
 is intended to identify the Greek Rhodopis 1 with the mythical 
 builder of the pyramid. I would also mention here that she 
 is called Doricha by Sappho. This may have been her name 
 before she received the title of the "rosy-cheeked one." 
 
 With regard to the love scenes between Sappho and Bartja 
 I will not suppress the fact that the question has been asked 
 me by some whose opinion is of great weight: "Did the 
 ancients know anything of love, in our sense of the word? 
 Is not romantic love, as we know it, a result of Christianity?" 
 The following sentence, which stands at the head of the pref- 
 ace to my first edition will prove that I had not ignored this 
 question when I began my task: 
 
 "It has often been remarked that in Cicero's letters and those of 
 Pliny the younger there are unmistakable indications of sympathy 
 with the more sentimental feeling of modern days. I find in them 
 tones of deep tenderness only, such as have arisen and will arise from 
 sad and aching hearts in every land and every age." A. V. Hum- 
 boldt. Cosmos II. p. 19. 
 
 This opinion of our great scholar is one with which I cheer- 
 fully coincide and would refer my readers to the fact that 
 love stories were written before' the Christian era; the "Amor 
 and Psyche of Apuleius" for instance. Indeed, love in all 
 its forms was familiar to the ancients. Where can we find 
 a more beautiful expression of ardent passion than glows 
 in Sappho's songs? or of patient, faithful constancy than in
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 Homer's "Penelope"? Could there be a more beautiful pic- 
 ture of the union of two loving hearts, even beyond the 
 grave, than Xenophon has preserved for us in his account 
 of Panthae and Abradatasr? or the story of Sabinus the Gaul 
 and his wife, told in the "History of Vespasian''? Is there 
 anywhere a sweeter legend than that of the Halcyons, the 
 ice-birds, who love one another so tenderly that when the 
 male becomes enfeebled by age his mate carries him on her 
 outspread wings whithersoever he will; and the gods, desir- 
 ing to reward such faithful love, cause the stin to shine more 
 kindly, and still the winds and waves on the "halcyon days" 
 during which these birds are building their nest and brood- 
 ing over their young? There can surely have been no lack 
 of romantic love in days when a used-tip man of the world, 
 like Antony, could desire in his will that wherever he died 
 his body might be laid by the side of his beloved Cleopatra; 
 nor of the chivalry of love when Berenice's beautiful hair 
 was placed as a constellation in the heavens. Neither can 
 we believe that devotion in the cause of love could be want- 
 ing when a whole nation was ready to wage a fierce and 
 obstinate war for the sake of one beautiful woman. The 
 Greeks had an insult to revenge, but the Trojans fought for 
 the possession of Helen. Even the old men of Ilium were 
 ready "to suffer long for such a woman." And finally is not 
 the whole question answered in Theocritus' unparalleled poem, 
 "The Sorceress"? We see the poor love-lorn girl and her 
 old woman-servant, Thestylis 1 , cowering over the fire above 
 which the bird supposed to possess the power of bringing 
 back the faithless Delphis is sitting in his wheel. Simoetha 
 has learned many spells and charms from an Assyrian, and 
 she tries them all. The distant roar of the waves, the smoke 
 rising from the fire, the dogs howling in the street, the tor- 
 tured, fluttering bird, the old woman, the broken-hearted girl 
 and her awful spells, all join in forming a night scene the 
 effect of which is heightened by the calm, cold moonshine. 
 The old woman leaves the girl, who at once ceases to weave 
 her spells, allows her pent-up tears to have their way, and 
 looking up to Selene, the moon, the lovers' silent confidante, 
 pours out her own whole story; how when she first saw the 
 
 roiijff a[i
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 beautiful Delphis her heart had glowed with love, she had 
 seen nothing more of the train of youths who followed him, 
 "and"(thus sadly the poet makes- her speak) 
 
 "How I gained my home 
 I know not; some strange fever wasted me, 
 Ten days and nights I lay upon my bed. 
 Oh, tell me, mistress moon, whence came my love!" 
 
 Translation by C. S. Calverley. 
 
 Then (she continues) when Delphis at last crossed her 
 threshold : 
 
 "I 
 
 Became all cold like snow, and from my brow 
 Brake the damp dewdrops; utterance I had none, 
 Not e'en such utterance as a babe may make 
 That babbles to its mother in its dreams; 
 But all my fair frame stiffened into wax 
 Oh, tell me, mistress moon, whence came my love!" 
 
 Translation by C. S. Calverley. 
 
 Whence came her love? thence, whence it comes to us 
 now. The love of the creature to its creator, of man to God, 
 is the grand and yet gracious gift of Christianity. Christ's 
 command to love our neighbor called into existence not only 
 the conception of philanthropy, but of humanity its-elf, an 
 idea unknown to the heathen world, where love had been 
 at widest limited to their native town and country. The love 
 of man and wife has without doubt been purified and trans- 
 figured by Christianity; still it is possible that a Greek may 
 have loved as tenderly and longingly as a Christian. The 
 more ardent glow of passion at least cannot be denied to the 
 ancients. And did not their love find vent in the same 
 expressions- as our own? Who does not know the charming 
 roundelay: 
 
 "Drink the glad wine with me, 
 With me spend youth's gay hours; 
 Or a sighing lover be, 
 Or crown thy brow with flowers. 
 When I am merry and mad, 
 Merry and mad be you; 
 When I am sober and sad, 
 Be sad and sober, too!" 
 
 Translated by Dean Milman.
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 It was written, however, by no poet of modern days, but by 
 Praxilla, in the fifth century before Christ. Who would guess 
 either that Moore's little song was modeled on one written 
 even earlier than the date of our story? 
 
 "As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid 
 In love-sick languor hung her head, 
 Unknowing where her fingers^stray'd, 
 She weeping turn'd away and* said: 
 
 'Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain, 
 I cannot weave as once I wove; 
 So wilder'd is my heart and brain 
 With thinking of that youth I love.' " 
 
 If my space allowed I could add much more on this sub- 
 ject, but will permit myself only one remark in conclusion. 
 Lovers delighted in nature then as now; the moon was 1 their 
 chosen confidante and I know of no modern poem in which 
 the mysterious charm of a summer night and magic beauty 
 which lies on flowers, trees and fountains in those silent 
 hours. when the world is asleep, is more exquisitely described 
 than in the following vers-es, also by Sappho, at the reading 
 of which we seem forced to breathe more slowly, "kiihl bis 
 ans Herz hinan." 
 
 "Planets, that around the beauteous moon 
 Attendant wait, cast into shade 
 Their ineffectual lusters, soon 
 As she, in full-orbed majesty array'd, 
 Her silver radiance pours 
 Upon this world of ours." 
 
 Translated by J. H. Merivale, 
 
 And: 
 
 "Thro" orchard plots with fragrance crown'd, 
 The clear, cold fountain murm'ring flows; 
 And forest leaves, with rustling sound, 
 Invite to soft repose." 
 
 Translated by J. H. Merivale, 
 
 The foregoing remarks seemed to me due to those who 
 consider a love such as that of Sappho and Bartja to have 
 been impossible among the ancients. Unquestionably it was
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 much rarer then than in these days ; indeed, I confess to hav- 
 ing sketched my pair of lovers in somewhat bright colors. 
 But may I not be allowed, at least once, to claim the poet's 
 freedom? 
 
 How seldom I have availed myself of this freedom will be 
 evident from the notes. They seemed to me necessary, partly 
 in order to explain the names and illustrate the circumstances 
 mentioned in the text, and partly to vindicate the writer in 
 the eyes of the learned. I trust they may not prove discour- 
 aging to any, as the text will be found easily readable without 
 reference to the explanations. 
 
 GEORGE EBERS. 
 Jena, November 28, 1868.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Nile had overflowed its bed. The luxuriant cornfields 
 and blooming gardens on its shores were lost beneath a 
 boundless waste of waters; and only the gigantic temples and 
 palaces of its cities (protected from the force of the water by 
 dikes) and the tops of the tall palm-trees and acacias could 
 be seen above its surface. The branches of the sycamores 
 and plane-trees drooped and floated on the waves, but the 
 boughs of the tall silver poplars strained upward, as if anxious 
 to avoid the watery world beneath. The full moon had risen; 
 her soft light- fell on the Libyan range of mountains vanishing 
 on the western horizon, and in the north the shimmer of the 
 Mediterranean could faintly be discerned.^ Blue and white 
 lotus flowers floated on the clear water, bats of all kinds 
 darted softly through the still air, heavy with the scent of 
 acacia-blossom and jasmine; the wild pigeons and other birds-, 
 were at roost in the tops of the trees, while the pelicans, storks 
 and cranes squatted in groups on the shore under the shelter 
 of the papyrus-reeds and Nile-beans. The pelicans and storks 
 remained motionless, their long bills hidden beneath their 
 wings, but the cranes were startled by the mere beat of an 
 oar, stretching their necks, and peering anxiously into the 
 distance, if they heard but the song of the boatmen. The air 
 was perfectly motionless, and the unbroken reflection of the 
 moon, lying like a silver shield on the surface of the water, 
 proved that, wildly as the Nile leaps over the cataracts, and 
 rushes past the gigantic temples of upper Egypt, yet on
 
 2 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 approaching the sea by different arms, he can abandon his/ 
 impetuous course, and flow along in sober tranquillity. /llj 
 
 On this moonlight night in the year 528 B. C. a bark ws 
 crossing the almost currentles-s canopic mouth of the Nile. 
 On the rais-ed deck at the stern of this boat an Egyptian 
 was sitting to guide the long polerudder,* and the half-naked 
 boatmen within were singing as they rowed. In the open 
 cabin, which was something like a wooden summer-house, sat 
 two men, reclining on low cushions. They were evidently 
 not Egyptians; their Greek descent could be perceived even 
 by the moonlight. The elder was 1 an unusually tall and power- 
 ful man of more than sixty; thick gray curls, showing very 
 little attempt at arrangement, hung down over his short, firm 
 throat; he wore a simple, homely cloak, and kept his eyes 
 gloomily fixed on the water. His companion, on the contrary, 
 a man perhaps twenty years younger, of a slender and deli- 
 cate build, was seldom still. Sometimes he gazed into the 
 heavens, sometimes made a remark to the steersman, dis- 
 posed his beautiful purple Chlanisf in fresh folds, or busied 
 himself in the arrangement of his scented brown curls, or his 
 carefully curled beard. 
 
 The boat had left Naukratis,$ at that time the only Hellenic 
 
 *Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," iii, 
 196, and iii pi. xiv. A good representation of the different vessels 
 employed by the ancient Egyptians is to be found in Diimichen's 
 "Flotte einer Agyptischen Konigin, T. I." V. T. xxv xxxi. Here, 
 too, we have the ships of Solomon returning from Ophir, and bringing 
 (with the exception of the peacocks) all the treasures with which he 
 became enriched by the help of his friend Hiram's shipmeii; of 
 which we read in I Kings, ix, 28; x, 2. The monuments of Egypt 
 even supply information on the progress of nautical art. The move- 
 able rudder did not come into use until late. Shipbuilders' yards 
 are to be found as early as the time of the pyramids. 
 
 fThe Chlanis was a light summer-mantle, worn especially by the 
 more elegant Athenians, and generally made of expensive materials. 
 The simpler cloak, the Himation, was worn by the Doric Greeks, and 
 principally by the Spartans. 
 
 JThis town, which will form the scene of a part of our tale, lies in 
 the northwest of the Nile delta, in the Saitic Nomos or district, on 
 the left bank of the Canoptic mouth of the river. According to 
 Strabo and Eusebius it was founded by Milesians, and Bunsen reckons 
 749 B. C. It seems that in the earliest times Greek ships were only 
 allowed to enter the mouth of the Nile in case of necessity. The 
 entire intercourse of the Egyptians with the hated strangers was, at
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 3 
 
 port in Egypt, about half an hour before. During their jour- 
 ney the gray-haired, moody man had not spoken one word, 
 and the other had left him to his meditations. But now, as 
 the boat neared the shore, the restless traveler, rising from 
 his couch, called to his companion : "We are just at our des- 
 tination, Aristomachus! That pleasant house to the left yon- 
 der, in the garden of palms which you can see rising above 
 the waters,* is the dwelling of my friend Rhodopis. It was 
 built by her husband Charaxus, and all her friends, not except- 
 ing the king himself, vie with one another in adding new 
 
 that time, restricted to the little island of Pharos lying opposite to 
 the town of Thorns "Horn. Odyss.," iv, 36, "Herod.," ii, 113 and 114. 
 E. Curtius, in his clever pamphlet on the lonians, tries to prove that 
 communication between the Egyptians and lonians existed at a far 
 earlier period. There is no doubt that there was a communication 
 with foreigners at that time, but we hardly think directly through 
 that celebrated race. It was rather the Phoenicians who planted 
 colonies on the north coast of Upper Egypt at a very early period, 
 adopted the Egyptian customs, were called Egyptian Phoenicians, 
 and, remaining true to the policy of their kindred in Tyre and Car- 
 thage, endeavored by force or cunning to exclude all foreigners from 
 the ports and commercial towns established by themselves. Those 
 details are to be found in our work, "Aegypten und die Biicher 
 Mose's," p. 195. Mover's "Phonizier," ii, 2, p. 39 and following. As 
 soon as the Greeks had settled in Naukratis, they fortified it, and built 
 temples to their gods: the men of Aegina to Zeus, the Milesians to 
 Apollo, the Samians to Hera. A large temple was erected also, com- 
 mon to many tribes and towns, and a kind of trade-union j^Han- 
 seatic body) founded, called the Hellenion. It was near to this flour- 
 ishing commercial town that Alexander fixed on a spot for the site of 
 Alexandria. 
 
 *We are writing of the month of October, when the Nile begins to 
 sink. The inundations can now be accurately accounted for, espe- 
 cially since the important and laborious synoptical work of H. Barth 
 ("Zeitschrift fur Allgemeine Erdkunde," 1863, Vol. XIV, and S. 
 Baker's "Travels in Abyssinia"). They are occasioned by the tropical 
 rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at 
 the equator. In the beginning of June a gradual rising of the Nile 
 waters can be perceived; between the 15th and 20th of June, this 
 changes to a rapid increase; in the beginning of October the waters 
 reach their highest elevation, a point which, even after having begun 
 their retreat, they once more attempt to attain; then, at first gradu- 
 ally, and afterward with ever-increasing rapidity, they continue to 
 sink. In January, February and March the Nile is still drying up; and 
 in May is at its lowest point, when the volume of its waters is only one- 
 twentieth of that in October.
 
 4 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 beauties to it year by year. A useless effort! Let them adorn 
 that house with all the treasures in the world, the woman 
 who lives within will still remain its best ornament!" 
 
 The old man sat up, threw a passing glance at the building, 
 smoothed the thick gray beard which clothed his cheeks and 
 chin, but left the lips free,* and asked abruptly: "Why so 
 much enthusiasm, Phanes-, for this Rhodopis? How long 
 have the Athenians been wont to extol old women?" At this 
 remark the other smiled, and answered in a self-satisfied tone: 
 "My knowledge of the world, and particularly of women, is, 
 I flatter myself, an extended one, and yet I repeat, that in all 
 Egypt I know of no nobler creature than this gray-haired 
 woman. When you have seen her and her lovely grandchild, 
 and heard your favorite melodies sung by her well-practiced 
 choir of slave girls,f I think you will thank me for having 
 brought you hither." 
 
 "Yet," answered the Spartan gravely, "I should not have 
 accompanied you, if I had not hoped to meet Phryxus, the 
 Delphian, here." 
 
 "You will find him here; and besides, I cannot but hope 
 that the songs will cheer you, and dispel your gloomy 
 thoughts." Aristomachus shook his head in denial and 
 answered: "To you, sanguine Athenians, the melodies of 
 your country may be cheering, but not to me, as in many 
 a sleepless night of dreams my longings will be doubled, 
 not stilled by the songs of Alkman."$ 
 
 *The Spartans were not in the habit of wearing a beard on the 
 upper lip. 
 
 tThe Greeks often entertained their guests during the banquet 
 with music, and in the Egyptian pictures, women singing or playing 
 on the double-flute, blind harpers, etc., are generally to be seen at 
 the feasts. 
 
 JAlkman (Attic., Alkmaeon) flourished in Sparta about 650 B. C. 
 His mother was a Lydian slave in Sardes, and he came into the pos- 
 session of Agesides, who gave him his freedom. His beautiful songs 
 soon procured him the rights of a Lacedaemonian citizen. He was 
 appointed to the head dictatorship in the entire department of music 
 in Lacedaemon and succeeded in naturalizing the soft Lydian music, 
 brought in by Polymnestes, there. After a life devoted to song, the 
 pleasures of the table and of love, he is said to have died of a fearful 
 disease. From the frequent choruses of virgins (Partheniad) said 
 to have been originally introduced by him, his frequent songs in 
 praise of women, and the friendly relations in which he stood to the*
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 5 
 
 "Do you think, then," replied Phanes, "that I have no long- 
 ing for my beloved Athens, for the scenes of our youthful 
 games, for the busy life of the market? Truly, the bread of 
 exile is not less distasteful to my palate than to yours, but, 
 in the society afforded by this house, it loses some of its bit- 
 terness, and when the dear melodies of Hellas, so perfectly 
 sung, fall on my ear, my native land rises before me as in a 
 vision, I see its pine and olive grove, its cold, emerald green 
 rivers, its blue sea, the shimmer of its 1 towns, its snowy moun- 
 tain-tops and marble temples, and a half sweet, half bitter tear 
 steals -down my cheek as the music ceases, and I awake to 
 remember that I am in Egypt, in this monotonous, hot, eccen- 
 tric country, which, the gods be praised, I am soon about 
 to quit. But, Aristomachus, would you then avoid the few 
 oases in the desert, because you must afterward return to its 
 sands and drought? Would you fly from one happy hour 
 because days of sadness await you later? But stop, here we 
 are! Show a cheerful countenance, my friend, for it becomes 
 us not to enter the temple of the Charites* with sad hearts." 
 
 As Phanes uttered these words they landed at the garden 
 wall, washed by the Nile. The Athenian bounded lightly 
 from the boat, the Spartan following with a heavier, firmer 
 tread. Aristomachus had a wooden leg, but his step was so 
 firm, even when compared with that of the light-footed Phanes, 
 that it might have been thought to be his own limb. 
 
 The garden of Rhodopis was as full of sound, and scent 
 and blossom as a night in fairyland. It was one labyrinth of 
 acanthus-shrubs, yellow mimosa, the snowy guelder-roses, 
 jasmine and lilac, red roses and laburnums, overshadowed 
 by tall palm-trees, acacias and balsam-trees. Large bats hov- 
 ered softly on their delicate wings over the whole, and sounds 
 of mirth and song echoed from the river. 
 
 This garden had been laid out by an Egyptian, and the 
 
 Spartan women (more especially to the fair Megalostrata), he gained 
 his name of the woman's f>oet. His paeans and hymns are also 
 celebrated. The fragments of his poems have been collected by 
 Welcker and are to be found in Bergk's "Poeta Lyrici Graeci. Alcrn." 
 fr. German in Hartung's "Die Griechischen Lyriker," Greek with a 
 metrical translation. 
 
 *The goddesses of grace and beauty, better known by their Roman 
 name of "Graces."
 
 6 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 builders of the Pyramids had already been celebrated for 
 ages for their skill in horticulture.* They well understood 
 how to mark out neat flower-beds-, plant groups of trees and 
 shrubs in regular order, water the whole by aqueducts and 
 fountains, arrange arbors and summer-houses, and even inclose 
 the walks with artistically clipped hedges, and breed goldfish 
 in stone basins. 
 
 At the garden gate Phanes stopped, looked around him 
 carefully and listened; then shaking his head, "I do not 
 understand what this can mean," he said. "I hear no voices, 
 there is not a single light to be seen, the boats 1 are all gone, 
 and yet the flag is still flying at its gay flagstaff, there, by 
 the obelisks on each side of the gate.f Rhodopis- must surely 
 be from home; can they have forgotten 
 
 Here a deep voice suddenly interrupted him with the excla- 
 mation, "Ha! the commander of the bodyguard!" 
 
 "A pleasant evening to you, Knakias," exclaimed Phanes, 
 kindly greeting the old man, who now came up. 
 
 "But how is it that this garden is still as an Egyptian 
 tomb, and yet the flag of welcome is fluttering at the gate? 
 How long has that white ensign waved for guests in vain?" 
 
 "How long, indeed?" echoed the old slave of Rhodopis, 
 with a smile. "So long as the Fates graciously spare the 
 life of my mistress, the old flag is sure to waft as many guests 
 hither as the house is able to contain. Rhodopis is not at 
 home now, but she must return shortly. The evening being 
 so fine, she determined on taking a pleasure trip on the Nile 
 with her guests. They started at sunset two hours ago, and 
 the evening meal is already prepared ;$ they cannot remain 
 away much longer. I pray you, Phanes, to have patience and 
 follow me into the house. Rhodopis would not easily forgive 
 me, if I allowed such valued guests to depart. You stranger," 
 he added, turning to the Spartan, "I entreat most heartily to 
 
 ""Wilkinson," ii, 136-145. Rosellini "Monument! Civili," pi. 68 
 and 69. 
 
 tObelisks bearing the name of the owner were sometimes to be seen 
 near the gates of the Egyptian country houses. Flags, too, were not 
 uncommon, but these were almost exclusively to be found at the gates 
 ef the temples, where to this day the iron sockets for the flagstaffs 
 can still be seen. Neither were flags unknown to the Greeks. 
 
 tThe principal meal, especially at Athens (the Deipnon, c57nw) was 
 taken late in the day.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 7 
 
 remain; as friend of your friend you will be doubly welcome 
 to my mistress." 
 
 The two Greeks-, following the servant, seated themselves 
 in an arbor, and Aristomachus, after gazing on the scene 
 around him, now brilliantly lighted by the moon, said: 
 "Explain to me, Phanes, by what good fortune this Rhodopis, 
 formerly only a slave and courtesan,* can now live as a queen, 
 and receive her guests in this princely manner?" 
 
 "I have long expected this question," answered the Athe- 
 nian. "I shall be delighted to make you acquainted with the 
 past history of this woman before you enter her house. So 
 long as we were on the Nile I would not intrude my tale 
 upon you; that ancient river has a wonderful power of com- 
 pelling to silence and quiet contemplation. Even my usually 
 quick tongue was paralyzed like yours, when I took my first 
 night-journey on the Nile." 
 
 "I thank you for this," replied the Spartan. "When I first 
 saw the aged priest Epimenides-,f at Knossus in Crete, he was 
 one hundred and fifty years old, and I remember that his age 
 and sanctity filled me with a strange dread; but how far 
 older, how far more sacred, is this hoary river, the ancient 
 stream ' Aigyptos' !$ Who would wish to avoid the power of 
 his spells'? Now, however, I beg you to give me the history 
 of Rhodopis." 
 
 *The mistresses (Hetaere) of the Greeks must not be compared 
 with modern women of bad reputation. The better members of this 
 class represented the intelligence and culture of their sex in Greece, 
 and more especially in the Ionian provinces. As an instance we need 
 only recall Aspasia and her well-attested relation to Pericles and 
 Socrates. Our heroine Rhodopis was a celebrated woman. The 
 Hetaera, Thargalia of Miletus, became the wife of a Thessalian king. 
 Ptolemy Lagi married Thai's; her daughter was called Irene, and 
 her sons Leontiskus and Lagus. ("Athen.," xiii, p. 576.) Finally, 
 statues were erected to many. This subject is treated in the best 
 manner in F. Jakob's "Miscellaneous Writings," iv, and Becker's 
 "Charikles," ii, p. 51-69. More will be said on it in our text. 
 
 'tEpimenides, a priest of Zeus at Knossus in Crete. According to 
 Pliny he died at the age of two hundred and ninety-nine years; ac- 
 cording to Xenophanes of Kqlophon, his contemporary, of one hundred 
 and fifty-four years. Laertius Diogenes relates that he could die and 
 restore 'himself to life at pleasure. As he was in Sparta in 576, the 
 aged Aristomachus could well have seen him. 
 
 $The Nile was called "Aigyptos" by the Greeks in ancient times; 
 see Homer's "Odyssey," iv, 478.
 
 8 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Phanes began: "When Rhodopis was a little child play- 
 ing with her companions on the Thracian seashore, she was 
 stolen by some Phoenician mariners, carried to Samos, and 
 bought by Jadmon, one of the geomori, or landed aristocracy 
 of the island. The little girl grew day by day more beautiful, 
 graceful and clever, and was soon an object of love and 
 admiration to all who knew her. Aesop,* the fable-writer, 
 who was at that time also in bondage to Jadmon, took an 
 especial pleasure in the growing amiability and talents of the 
 child, taught her and cared for her in the same way as the 
 tutors whom we keep to educate our Athenian boys. 
 
 "The kind teacher found his pupil tractable and quick of 
 comprehension, and the little slave soon practiced the arts 
 of music, singing and eloquence, in a more charming and 
 agreeable manner than the sons of her master Jadmon, on 
 whose education the greatest care had been lavished. By 
 the time she had reached her fourteenth year Rhodopis was 
 so beautiful and accomplished that the jealous wife of Jad- 
 mon would not suffer her to remain any longer in the house, 
 and the Samian was forced, with a heavy heart, to sell her 
 to a certain Xanthus. The government of Samos at that 
 time was still in the hands of the less opulent nobles; had 
 Polykrates then been at the head of affairs- Xanthus need not 
 have despaired of a purchaser. These tyrants filled their 
 treasuries as the magpies their nests ! As it was, however, he 
 went off with his precious jewel to Naukratis, and there gained 
 
 *Aesop (620-550) was, according to Herodotus, a Thracian, according 
 to others a Phrygian, or a native of Mesembria, a Milesian colony on 
 the Black Sea. He was sold as a slave to Jadmon the Samian, served 
 in the same house with Rhodopis and at the same time, and afterward 
 received his freedom, "Herod.," ii, 134. Having attained celebrity 
 by his fables, he is said to have taken-up the calling of an advocate, 
 and to have enjoyed the friendship of Croesus. In his old age he was 
 sent by the latter on a commission to Delphi; there the offended 
 priests accused him of having stolen a golden vessel, he was unjustly 
 condemned to death, and thrown over the Delphian rocks. In after 
 times every tale taken from the natural life of men and animals and 
 practically illustrating some moral was called after Aesop's fables. 
 On himself and his fables see Grauert "De Aesopo et Fabulis Aeso- 
 piis." Bonn, 1825. It has lately been maintained, more especially by 
 Ziindel, "Revue Archeol.," iii, p. 354, and on good grounds, that the 
 origin of the Aesopian fables is to be found in Egypt. The universal 
 belief assigns India as the birthplace of fables about animals.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 9 
 
 a fortune by means of her wondrous charms. Thes-e were 
 three years of the deepest humiliation to Rhodopis, which 
 she still remembers with horror. 
 
 "Now it happened, just at the time when her fame was 
 spreading through all Greece, and strangers were coming 
 from far to Naukratis for her sake alone,* that the people 
 of Lesbos rose up against their nobles, drove them forth and 
 chose the wise Pittakus as their ruler. The highest families 
 of Lesbos were forced to leave the country, and fled, some 
 to Sicily, some to the Greek provinces of Italy, and others to 
 Egypt. Alcaeus,f the greatest poet of his day, and Charaxus, 
 
 * According to Herodotus the beauty of Rhodopis was so great that 
 every Greek knew her by name. 
 
 fAlcaeus, a friend and contemporary of Sappho, and descended like 
 her from one of the highest noble families of Lesbos, may take rank 
 among the best lyric poets of antiquity. Endowed with all the 
 advantages, and not less with all the pride and prejudices of his 
 class, he devoted himself, body and soul, in prose and in song, to 
 the overthrow of the tyrants, the expulsion of the Athenian settlers 
 from Sigaeum and the retention of the supremacy in the hands of the 
 nobles, who were making a powerful resistance to the tyrants 
 Melanchrus, Megalagyrus, Myrsilus, and the Kleanaktidae. He was 
 unsuccessful in his two last enterprises, and, when Pittakus attained 
 to the leadership of the people, was forced, with his brothers and 
 the rest of his party, to fly from Lesbos. The former entered the 
 army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Assyria; the latter, and with them 
 Alcaeus, wandered forth into the world at large. There is no doubt 
 that he and Charaxus, the brother of Sappho, were together for 
 some time in Naukratis. When Pittakus had completed the code of 
 laws to which he owes the name of a philosopher, he recalled the 
 exiles and forgave Alcaeus, notwithstanding the bitter verses which 
 the latter had written upon him even during his banishment. His 
 songs breathe "the spirit of the Mitylenian nobles, bread and edu- 
 cated as aristocrats, proud in the consciousness of their own high 
 position, and secure of the most unrivaled prerogatives, dividing 
 their time between action and enjoyment, and keeping up a light 
 heart even in the deepest misfortune." His was a burning genius 
 which burst into song whenever a fresh joy gladdened or a sorrow 
 crushed his spirit; he could not but sing, and therefore his songs 
 took the most perfect forms. In his transparency and wonderful 
 ease, his freedom from aspiration and enjoyment of the present 
 moment, he must be regarded as one of the most remarkable fore- 
 - runners of Horace, who adopted not only his meters, but many of his 
 ideas. His relation to Sappho, mentioned in the text, can be proved 
 from occasional fragments of his writings. They are to be found in 
 "A Matthiae Alcaei Reliquiae." L. 1827. Also Welcker, "Kleine 
 Schriften," i, pp. 126-147, and Bergk, "Lyr, gr. ed.," i, pp. 569-598. 
 Hartung, "Die Griechischen Lyriker, Griechisch mit Metrischer
 
 10 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the brother of that Sappho* whose odes it was our Solon's last 
 
 Uebersetzung," v, p. 18. His likeness as a statue has been found near 
 Monte Calvo and answers entirely to the above-mentioned description 
 of his character. There is also a very fine statue in the Villa Borghese 
 at Rome, which probably represents our poet. Braun, "Ruinen und 
 Museen Roms.," p. 548. 
 
 *The celebrated poetess Sappho, according to Athenaeus, lived in 
 the time of Alyattes, king of Lydia, therefore between 620-563 B. C.; 
 according to the Chronicle of Eusebius in the 44th Olympiad, or 
 about 600 B. C. She is also mentioned as a contemporary of Pittakus, 
 Alcaeus and Rhodopis, which coincides with the above statement. 
 We can scarcely be in error if we fix the time of her birth at 
 Mitylene in Lesbos, about the year 620 B. C. Her father's name was 
 Skamandronymus or Skamon. For this we have not only the 
 authority of Herodotus, Aelian, and other ancient writers, but also 
 of Welcker, Bernhardy, Richter and others. Her mother and her 
 daughter both bore the name of Kle'is. Beside the brother spoken 
 of in our tale (Charaxus), she had another, named Larichus, who is 
 said by Athenaeus to have held a high preferment in the Prytanaeum 
 at Mitylene. From this, and from the fact that Sappho and Charaxus 
 were both exiled at the time of Pittakus, it is evident that they be- 
 longed to a family of very high degree. They must also have been 
 wealthy, or Charaxus could not, as Herodotus relates, have bought 
 Rhodopis. Suidas calls Cerkolas, the husband of Sappho, expressly, 
 a very rich man. Among her admirers, her celebrated contemporary 
 Alcaeus must not be overlooked, while Bernhardy's well-known 
 story of her unfortunate passion for the young Phaon must be re- 
 garded as a fable. The story that Anacreon dedicated certain love 
 verses to Sappho is equally untrue, as he flourished some thirty or 
 forty years later, and the verses were intended for another Lesbian 
 woman. Her impure passion for beautiful young girls and her leap 
 from the Leukadian rocks are also totally fabulous. See Welcker, 
 F. W. Richter, Bernhardy and Kochly. Of Sappho's appearance we 
 know but little. Plato, Plutarch and others call her "the beautiful 
 Sappho." Alcaeus praises her black hair and her charming smile. 
 Welcker reckons her to the celebrated beauties of antiquity. She 
 was frequently represented on the coins, in the pictures and statues 
 of her native land, but it seems that between these representations 
 there were great differences. One of her pictures is thus described by 
 Democharis: 
 
 Nature herself the magic portrait drew, 
 And, painter, gave thy Lesbian Muse to view. 
 Light sparkles in her eyes; and fancy seems 
 The radiant fountain of those living beams; 
 Through the smooth fullness of the unclouded skin 
 Looks out the clear ingenuous soul within, 
 Joy melts to fondness in her glistening face 
 And love and music breathe a mingled grace. 
 
 Translated by Rev. Dr. Hodgson.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 11 
 
 wish to learn by heart, came here to Naukratis, which had 
 already long been the flourishing center of commercial com- 
 munication between Egypt and the rest of the world. Char- 
 axus saw Rhodopis, and soon loved her so passionately that 
 he gave an immense sum to secure her from the mercenary 
 Xanthus, who was on the point of returning with her to his 
 own country; Sappho wrote some biting verses-, derisive of 
 her brother and his purchase, but Alcaeus, on the other hand, 
 approved, and gave expression to his feelings in glowing 
 songs on the charms of Rhodopis. And now Sappho's brother, 
 who had till then remained undistinguished among the many 
 strangers at Naukratis, became a noted man through Rho- 
 dopis-. His house was soon the center of attraction to all 
 foreigners, by whom she was overwhelmed with gifts. The 
 king Hophra,* hearing of her beauty and talent, sent for 
 
 Thousands of songs were dedicated to her; we will only mention 
 here the two following epigrams by Pinytus, and Antipater of Sidon, 
 taken from F. Jacob's "Griechischen Blumenlese:" 
 
 "This tomb has Sappho's bones and idle name, 
 But her wise words have won immortal fame." 
 
 "Sappho my name. When Homer's song divine 
 Man hath surpassed, may maiden rival mine." 
 
 Sappho wrote in the Aeolic manner. 2A4>0 is only to be found on 
 a vase in Vienna, and Welcker believes is an error in the writing 
 alone. See the fragments of her poems, Bergk, "Lyr. Grec." ed., ii. 
 There is a first-rate lecture on Sappho to be found in Koechly's 
 "Academical Lectures and Discourses," p. 153 and following. Solon's 
 wish, alluded to in the text, was expressed to his nephew. "Stobaeus 
 Serm.," xxix, 28. 
 
 *For this king we have chosen his Biblical name, Hophra. Among 
 the Greeks he was called Uaphris and Apries. The hieroglyphical 
 signs for his name (see Lepsius, Konigsbuch, T. 48) produce Uah-pji- 
 ra-het, from whence comes the paraphrases Uaphris and Hophra 
 (Uah-ph-ra). He reigned from 588-569. The correctness of these 
 figures can be certified, first, by the existing agreement in the dates, 
 but more still by Mariette's discovery of the Apis tombs, the inscrip- 
 tions on which throw an especially strong light on the reigns of the 
 twenty-sixth dynasty of kings, to which Hophra belonged. He was 
 dethroned by Amasis (who, according to Athenaeus, was his friend), 
 during an insurrection mentioned by the prophets of the old Cove- 
 nant, Jeremiah, xliv, 30, xlvi, 24-26, and described more in detail by 
 Herodotus, "Herod.," ii, 169,
 
 12 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 her to Memphis, and offered to buy her of Charaxtis, but the 
 latter had already long, though secretly, given Rhodopis her 
 freedom, and loved her far too well to allow of a separation. 
 She, too, loved the handsome Lesbian and refused to leave 
 him despite the brilliant offers made to her on all sides. At 
 length Charaxus made this wonderful woman his lawful wife, 
 and continued to live with her and her little daughter Kleis 
 in Naukratis, until the Lesbian exiles were recalled to their 
 native land by Pittakus. He then started homeward with his 
 wife, but fell ill on the journey, and died soon after his arrival 
 at Mitylene. Sappho, who had derided her brother for mar- 
 rying one beneath him, soon became an enthusiastic admirer 
 of the beautiful widow and rivaled Alcaeus in passionate songs 
 to her praise. 
 
 "After the death of the poetess, Rhodopis returned, with 
 her little daughter, to Naukratis, where she was welcomed 
 as a goddess. During this interval Amasis,* the present king 
 of Egypt, had usurped the throne of the Pharaohs, and was 
 maintaining himself in its possession by help of the army, 
 to which caste he belonged. As his predecessor H-ophra had 
 accelerated his fall, and brought the army and priesthood to 
 open rebellion by his predilection for the Greek nation, and 
 for intercourse with foreigners generally (always an abom- 
 ination in the eyes- of the Egyptians), men felt confident that 
 Amasis would return to the old ways, would rigorously exclude 
 foreigners from the country, f dismiss the Greek mercenaries, 
 and instead of taking counsel from the Greeks, would hearken 
 
 *Amasis, of whom much will be said in our text, reigned 570-526 
 B. C. His name, in the hieroglyphic signs, was Aahmes or young 
 moon (Lepsius, "Konigsbuch," pi. 48, 8) but the name by which he 
 was commonly called was Sa-Nit, "Son of Neith." His name and 
 pictures of him are to be found on stones in the fortress of Cairo, on 
 a relief in Florence, a statue in the Vatican, on sarcophagi in Stock- 
 holm and London, a statue in the Villa Albani and on a little temple 
 of red granite at Leyden. 
 
 tin their relations with foreigners the Egyptians may be compared 
 with the Japanese of our own times. Every man not an Egyptian 
 was hateful to them, and yet, from the earliest times they had been 
 compelled to admit foreigners into their land. Indeed, they could 
 not prevent the Phoenicians, who, like the Spaniards and Portuguese 
 in Japan in the sixteenth century, had the whole foreign trade of 
 the country in their hands, from gaining considerable influence, not 
 only in all classes of Egyptian life, but even over the religious con-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 13 
 
 Only to the commands of the priesthood. But in this, as you 
 must see yourself, the prudent Egyptians- had guessed wide 
 of the mark in their choice of a ruler; they fell from Scylla 
 into Charybdis. If Hophra was called the Greeks' friend, 
 Amasis must be named our lover. The Egyptians, especially 
 the priests and the army, breathe fire and flame, and would 
 fain strangle us one and all, off-hand. This feeling on the 
 part of the soldiery does not disturb Amasis, for he knows too 
 well the comparative value of their and our services; but with 
 the priests it is another and more serious matter, for two rea- 
 sons: first, they possess an unbounded influence over the 
 people; and secondly, Amasis himself retains- more affection 
 than he likes to acknowledge to us, for this absurd and insipid 
 religion* a religion which appears doubly sacred to its adher- 
 ents simply because it has existed in this eccentric landf 
 unchanged for thousands of years. These priests make the 
 king's life burdensome to him; they persecute and injure us 
 in every possible way; and, indeed, if it had not been for the 
 king's protection, I should long ago have been a dead man. 
 But I am wandering from my tale! As I said before, Rhodopis 
 was received at Naukratis with open arms by all, and loaded 
 with marks of favor by Amasis, who formed her acquaintance. 
 Her daughter Kle'is as is the case with the little Sappho now 
 was never allowed to appear in the society which assembled 
 ever) r evening at her mother's- house, and indeed was even 
 more strictly brought up than the other young girls in Nauk- 
 ratis. She married Glaucus, a rich Phocaean merchant of noble 
 family, who had defended his native town with great bravery 
 against the Persians, and with him departed to the newly 
 founded Massilia,$ on the Celtic coast There, however, the 
 
 sciousness of the people. As in Japan the Iberians were succeeded 
 by the Dutch, so did the Greeks follow the Phoenicians in Egypt, and 
 after the Persian invasion and Alexander's expedition they ruled in 
 the valley of the Nile. 
 
 *We know that the wisdom of the Egyptian priesthood was highly 
 esteemed by the Greeks; but many passages in the classic writers 
 prove that the religion itself was looked upon by the Greeks and 
 Romans, who only saw the eccentric forms in which it was clothed, 
 as absurd and insipid. 
 
 f'Herod.," ii, 35. 
 
 tMassalia, the present Marseilles, was founded by a colony from 
 Phocaea, an Ionian town on the coast of Asia Minor, which, nineteen
 
 14 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 young couple both fell victims to the climate, and died, leaving 
 a little daughter, Sappho. Rhodopis at once undertook the 
 long journey westward, brought the orphan child back to live 
 with her, spent the utmost care on her education, and, now 
 that she is grown up, forbids her the society of men, still feel- 
 ing the stains of her own youth so keenly that she would fain 
 keep her granddaughter (and this in Sappho's case is not 
 difficult), at a greater distance from contact with our sex than 
 is rendered necessary by the customs of Egypt. To my friend 
 herself society is as indispensable as water to the fish or air 
 to the bird. Her house is frequented by all the strangers here, 
 and whoever has once experienced her hospitality and has the 
 time at command will never after be found absent when the 
 flag announces an evening of reception. Every Greek of mark 
 is to be found here, as it is in this house that we consult on the 
 wisest measures 1 for encountering the hatred of the priests and 
 bringing the king around to our own views. Here you can 
 obtain not only the latest news from home, but from the rest 
 of the world, and this house is an inviolable sanctuary for the 
 persecuted, Rhodopis possessing a royal warrant which secures 
 her from molestation on the part of the police.* Our own 
 songs and our own language are to be heard here, and here 
 we take counsel on the best means for delivering Greece from 
 the ever fresh encroachments of her tyrants.f 
 
 "In a word, this house is the center of attraction for all 
 
 years before the beginning of our tale, had fallen into the hands of 
 the Persians, the entire body of its citizens having fled to their ships. 
 It is probable that before the inhabitants of Asia Minor settled there, 
 a Phoenician factory stood on the site of Massalia. At all events, 
 we find the Phoenicians later as joint possessors of the place, proof 
 of which is borne not only by classical authority, but by the inscrip- 
 tions and monuments discovered there. The word Celt was applied 
 by the ancient Greeks not only to the Gauls, but also to the German 
 and Iberian races. 
 
 *A very active and strict police force existed in Egypt, the organi- 
 zation of which is said to have owed much to Amasis' care. We also 
 read in inscriptions and papyrus rolls that a body of mounted police 
 existed, the ranks of which were generally filled by foreigners in 
 preference to natives. 
 
 tShortly before the date of our narrative seyeral ambitious Greeks 
 had succeeded in overthrowing the oligarchy and obtaining the su- 
 preme power, among others Pisistratus of Athens (died 527), Poly- 
 krates of Samos (died 522), and Lygdamis of Naxos (died 524).
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 15 
 
 Hellenic interests in Egypt, and of more importance to us 
 politically, than our temple, the Hellenion itself, and our hall 
 of commerce.* 
 
 "In a few minutes you will see this remarkable grandmother, 
 and, if we should be here alone, perhaps the grandchild too; 
 you will then at once perceive that they owe everything to 
 their own rare qualities and not to the chances of good fortune. 
 Ah, there they come ! they are going toward the house. Can- 
 not you hear the slave-girls singing? Now they are going in. 
 First let them quietly be seated, then follow me, and when the 
 evening is over you shall say whether you repent of having 
 come hither, and whether Rhodopis resembles more nearly a 
 queen or a freed bond-woman." 
 
 The housef was built in the Grecian style. It was a rather 
 long, one-storied building, the outside of which would be 
 called extremely plain in the present day; within, it united 
 the Egyptian brilliancy of coloring with the Greek beauty of 
 form. The principal door opened into the entrance-hall 
 (thyroreion). To the left of this lay a large dining-room, 
 overlooking the Nile, and, opposite to this last was the kitchen, 
 an apartment only to be found in the houses of the wealthier 
 Greeks, the poorer families being accustomed to prepare their 
 food 'at the hearth in the front apartments. The hall of recep- 
 tion lay at the other end of the entrance-hall, and was in the 
 form of a square, surrounded within by a colonnade, into which 
 various chambers (oikemata) opened. This was the apart- 
 ment devoted to the men (andronitis), in the center of which 
 was the house-fire, burning on the altar-shaped hearth of rich 
 Aeginetan metal-work4 
 
 *See note p. 2. 
 
 tOn the internal arrangement of the rooms in this house I have 
 followed Becker and K. F. Hermann. The description in Barthele- 
 my's Anacharsis taken from the not perfectly clear passage in Vitru- 
 vius, is much too diffuse for our purpose. Hirt's design pleases us 
 less than most, while on the other hand, in the sketch drawn by 
 Hermann ("Charikles," ii, 99), acute criticism and good taste seem 
 to have been alike employed in the application of the passage re- 
 ferred to. A rich man, as was Charaxus, could easily have built 
 such a house as the one we have described, though the private dwell- 
 ings of the Greeks at the time referred to were probably of a more 
 simple character. 
 
 tAegina was very early celebrated for skill in the plastic arts. 
 The transition from a typical form to the free imitation of nature
 
 16 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 It was lighted by an opening in the roof, which formed, at 
 the same time, an outlet for the smoke. From this room (at 
 the opposite end to that on which it opened into the entrance- 
 hall), a passage, closed by a well-fastened door (metaulos 
 thyra), led :nto the chamber of the women (gynaekonitis). 
 This was also surrounded by a colonnade within, but only on 
 three sides, and here the female inhabitants were accustomed 
 to pass: chsir time, when not employed, spinning or weaving, 
 in the rooms lying near the back or garden-door (kepaia 
 thyra) as it was termed. Between these latter and the domestic 
 office, which lay on the right and left of the women's apart- 
 ment, were the sleeping-rooms; these served also as places 
 of security for the valuables of the house. The walls of the 
 men's apartment were painted of a reddish-brown color, against 
 which the outlines of some white marble carvings, the gift of 
 a Chian sculptor,* stood out in sharp relief. The floor was 
 covered with rich carpets from Sardis; low cushions of pan- 
 thers' skins lay ranged along the colonnade ; around the artist- 
 ically wrought hearth stood quaint Egyptian settees, and small, 
 delicately carved tables of Thya wood,f on which lay all kinds 
 
 can be more clearly perceived in early Aeginetan work than. else- 
 where. The groups from the pediment of the temple of Athene in 
 Aegina, discovered in 1811 by a party of English, Danish, and Ger- 
 man travelers and now in Munich, may be considered as the most 
 Interesting memorials of old Hellenic art. They afford sufficient 
 proof that the Greeks learned the mechanical part of the plastic arts, 
 the treatment of the materials, and even the relative proportions of 
 the human body from the Egyptians, though even as scholars they 
 excelled their masters. The above-mentioned figures represent com- 
 bats between the Greeks and Trojans for the bodies of fallen Greeks, 
 in one for the body of Achilles, in another for Oikles. The group, 
 from the west pediment, with the statue of Athene in the center, is 
 particularly well preserved and worthy of notice. S. Wagner, 
 "Bericht tiber die aginetischen Bildwerke mit Anmerkungen von 
 Schelling," 1817. Gerhard, "Vorlesungen tiber Gypsabgiisse," 1844, 
 s. 3-28. Welcker, "Antike Denkmaler," i, p. 30, and following. Over- 
 beck, "Geschichte der griech. Plastik," i, p. 117. Drawn by O. Miil- 
 ler. "Denkmaler d. Kunst," I. T. 6-8. Clarac, "Musee de Sculpture," 
 p. 815, 821 and following. 
 
 *The earliest marble sculptures are said to have been made in 
 Chios. 
 
 tEgyptian easy chairs or settees. "Wilkinson," ii, pi. ix, p. 192 and 
 following. "Rosellini Mon. Civ. T.," 60, 90-91, where there are sofas 
 also not unlike our own. The Thya wood was brought from the oasis
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 17 
 
 of musical instruments, the flute, cithara and lyre. Numerous 
 lamps of various and singular shapes, filled with Kiki oil,* 
 hung against the walls. Some represented fire-spouting dol- 
 phins; others 1 , strange winged monsters from whose jaws the 
 flame issued, and these, blending their light with that from the 
 hearth, illumined the apartment. 
 
 In this room a group of men were assembled, whose ap- 
 pearance and dress differed one from the other. A Syrian from 
 Tyre, in a long crimson robe, was talking animatedly to a 
 man whose decided features and crisp, curly, black hair pro- 
 claimed him an Israelite. The latter had come to Egypt to 
 buy chariots and horses for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah 
 the Egyptian equipages being the most sought after at the 
 time.f Close to him stood three Greeks from Asia Minor, the 
 rich folds of whose garments (for they wore the costly dress 
 of their native city Miletus), contrasted strongly with the plain 
 and unadorned robe of Phryxus, the deputy commis-sioned to 
 collect money for the temple of Apollo at Delphi, with whom 
 they were in earnest conversation. Ten years before the an- 
 
 of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert, and was so precious that 
 Cicero gave a million sesterces, or eight thousand two hundred and 
 fifty pounds sterling, for one table made of this wood. 
 
 *0il from the fruit of the Palma Christi (ricinus communis), called 
 by the Egyptians Kiki, and used for the purposes of burning and 
 anointing. "Herod.," ii. 94. Strabo ed. "Casaub.," 824. "Plinius," 
 xv, 7. "Dioscor.," iv, 164. 
 
 fl Chronicles, iii, 17-19. Even Solomon, as early as 1000 B. C. sent 
 for horses and chariots from Egypt. A horse cost one hundred and 
 fifty, and a chariot six hundred shekels. (11.5. and 45.) A shekel, 
 (translated by Luther "silbering") is worth about eighteen pence. 
 I Kings, x, 28, 29. II Chronicles, i, 16, 17. On the Egyptian monu- 
 ments we find not only beautiful horses before Pharaoh's chariots, 
 but even the manufactories where the chariots were built. The 
 monuments prove also that neither horses nor chariots were intro- 
 duced into Egypt earlier than 2000 B. C. The studs appear to have 
 been kept on the large plains in Northern Egypt. We hear of chief 
 officers over the stud (Stela with the era of four hundred years) and 
 of Pharaohs who considered the breeding and condition of horses in 
 Egypt as a matter of great importance, even before the twenty-sixth 
 dynasty, to which Amasis belonged. Pianchi's Stela. First-rate in- 
 formation on the Egyptian harness, and on the different parts of the 
 vehicles, which in Syria were manufactured with art and ingenuity 
 at an early period, is to be found in Chabas, "Analyse des Papyr- 
 Anastasi," i. "Voyage d'un Egyptian," etc.
 
 18 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 cient temple had been consumed by fire; and at this time 
 efforts were being made to build another, and a more beautiful 
 one.* 
 
 Two of the Milesians, disciples of Anaximander and Anaxi- 
 menes,f were staying then in Egypt, to study astronomy and 
 the peculiar wisdom of the Egyptians at Heliopolis, and the 
 third was a wealthy merchant and ship-owner, named Theo- 
 pompus, who had settled at Naukratis. Rhodopis herself was 
 engaged in a lively conversation with two Samian Greeks ; the 
 celebrated worker in metals, sculptor and goldsmith Theo- 
 dorus,$ and the Iambic poet Ibykus of Rhegium, who had 
 left the court of Polykrates for a time in order to become 
 acquainted with Egypt, and were bearers of presents to Amasis 4 
 
 *"Herodotus," ii, 180. "Pindar Pyth.," 7, 9. 
 
 tAnaximander of Miletus, born 611-546, was a celebrated geome- 
 trician, astronomer, philosopher and geographer. He was the author 
 of a book on natural phenomena, drew the first map of the world on 
 metal, and introduced into Greece a kind of clock which he seems to 
 have borrowed from the Babylonians. He supposes a primary and 
 not easily definable Being, by which the whole world is governed, 
 and in which, though in himself infinite and without limits, every- 
 thing material and circumscribed has its foundation. "Chaotic mat- 
 ter" represents in his theory the germ of all created things, from 
 which water, earth, animals, nereids or fish-men, human beings, etc., 
 have had their origin. Zeller, "Philosophic der Griechen," i, 170. 
 Brandis T., i, p. 123. Anaximenes, 570-500, also a Milesian natural 
 philosopher, considered air to be the primary matter from which all 
 things proceeded. Plutarch, "Plac. Phil.," i, 3, 6. Zeller, "Philosophie 
 der Griechen," i; "Brandis T.," i, p. 141. 
 
 JTheodorus, descended from a Samian family celebrated as artists, 
 did much toward the improvement of architecture and the artistic 
 casting of metals. 
 
 Ibykus, from Lower Italy, flourished about 530. Polykrates at- 
 tached this highly cultivated and impassioned poet to his court. The 
 events which followed his violent death became a proverb among the 
 ancients, and have become universally known in our own day 
 through Schiller's "Kraniche des Ibykus." Schneidewin collected 
 the fragments of his writings. "Ibyc. carm. reliq." and Bergk, "Poet, 
 lyr. gr." It is nowhere mentioned that he was ever in Egypt, but we 
 know that from him the Greeks first learned the identity of the morn- 
 ing and evening star, a fact long known to the Egyptians. Achilles 
 Tatius. Isag. in "Arati Phoenomen," in the "Uranolog. Petavii," p. 
 136. See Lepsius "Chronologie, Einleitung," p. 91. This passage, 
 and the friendship subsisting between Polykrates and Amasis, make 
 it not improbable that Ibykus was at one time in Egypt.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 1$ 
 
 from their ruler. Close to the fire lay Philoinus of Sybaris,* a 
 corpulent man with strongly marked features and a sensual 
 expression of face; he was stretched at full length on a couch 
 covered with spotted furs, and amused himself by playing with 
 his saented curls wreathed with gold, and with the golden 
 chains which fell from his neck onto the long saffron-colored 
 robe that clothed him down to the feet. 
 
 Rhodopis had a kind word for each of her guests, but at 
 present she occupied herself exclusively with the two cele- 
 brated Samians; their talk was of art and poetry. The fire of 
 youth still glowed in the eyes of the Thracian woman, her tall 
 figure was still full and unbent; her hair, though gray, was 
 wound round her beautifully formed head in luxuriant waves, 
 and laid together at the back in a golden net, and a sparkling 
 diadem shone above her lofty forehead. 
 
 Her noble Greek features were pale, but still beautiful and 
 without a wrinkle, notwithstanding her great age; indeed her 
 small mouth with its full lips, her white teeth, her eyes so bright 
 and yet so soft, and her nobly formed nose and forehead would 
 have been beauty enough for a young maiden. 
 
 Rhodopis looked younger than she really was, though she 
 made no attempt to disavow her age. Matronly dignity was 
 visible in every movement, and the charm of her manner lay, 
 not in a youthful endeavor to be pleasing, but in the effort of age 
 to please others, considering their wishes, and at the same time 
 demanding consideration in,, return. 
 
 Our two friends now presenting themselves in the hall, 
 every eye turned upon them, and as Phanes entered leading 
 his friend by the hand, the heartiest welcome met him from all 
 sides; one of the Milesians indeed exclaimed: "Now I see 
 what it is that was wanting to our assembly. There can be no 
 merriment without Phanes." 
 
 And Philoinus, the Sybarite, raising his deep voice, but not 
 allowing himself for a moment to be disturbed in his repose, 
 remarked: "Mirth is a good thing, and if you bring that with 
 you, be welcome to me also, Athenian." 
 
 "To me," said Rhodopis, turning to her new guests "you 
 are heartily welcome, but no more in your joy than if borne 
 
 *Sybaris was a town in Lower Italy notorious throughout the 
 ancient world for its luxury. According to Strabo it was founded by 
 Achaeans 262. About 510 it was conquered and destroyed by the 
 Crotoniates and then rebuilt under the name of Thurii.
 
 20 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 down by sadness. I know no greater pleasure than to remove 
 the lines of care from a friend's brow. Spartan, I venture to 
 address you as a friend too, for the friends of my -friends are 
 my own." 
 
 Aristomachus bowed in silence, but Phanes, addressing him- 
 self both to Rhodopis and to the Sybarite, answered* "Well, 
 then, my friends, I can content you both. To you, Rhodopis, 
 I must come for comfort, for soon, too soon, I must leave you 
 and your pleasant house; Philoinus, however, can still enjoy 
 my mirth, as I cannot but rejoice in the prospect of seeing my 
 beloved Hellas once more, and of quitting, even though in- 
 voluntarily, this golden mouse-trap of a country." 
 . "You are going away! you have been dismissed? Whither 
 are you going?" echoed on all sides. 
 
 "Patience, patience, my friends," cried Phanes. "I have a 
 long story to tell, but I will rather reserve it for the evening- 
 meal. And, indeed, dear friend, my hunger is nearly as- great 
 as my distress- at being obliged to leave you." 
 
 "Hunger is a good thing," philosophized the Sybarite once 
 more, "when a man has a good meal in prospect." 
 
 "On that point you may be at ease, Philoinus," answered 
 Rhodopis. "I told the cook to do his utmost, for the most 
 celebrated epicure from the most luxurious city in the world, 
 no less a person than Philoinus of Sybaris, would pass a stern 
 judgment on his delicate dishes. Go, Knakias, tell them to 
 serve the supper. Are you content now, my impatient guests? 
 As for me, since I heard Phane"s' mournful news, the pleasure 
 of the meal is gone." The Athenian bowed, and the Sybarite 
 returned to his philosophy. "Contentment is a good thing 
 when every wish can be satisfied. I owe you thanks, Rhodopis, 
 for your appreciation of my incomparable native city. What 
 says Anakreon?* 
 
 *Anakreon of Teos was, at the time of our narrative, also living at 
 the court of Polykrates. This celebrated, charming singer of love 
 and wine will be often mentioned and quoted in our text. The pas- 
 sage above is to be found Anacr. "Pragm. ed. Moebius," xv. 
 "To-day is ours what do we fear? 
 To-day is ours we have it here. 
 Let's treat it kindly, that it may 
 Wish at least with us to stay. 
 Let's banish business, banish sorrow; 
 To the gods belong to-morrow." 
 
 Translation by Cowley.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 21 
 
 "Eh! Ibykus, have I quoted your friend the poet, correctly, 
 who feasts with you at Polykrates' banquets? Well, I think 
 I may venture to say of my own poor self, that if Anakreon 
 can make better verses, I understand the art of living quite 
 as well as he, though he writes so many poems upon it. Why, 
 in all his- songs there is not one word about the pleasures of 
 the table! Surely they are as important as love and play! I 
 confess that the two last are dear to me also; still, I could 
 exist without them, though in a miserable fashion, but without 
 food, where should we be?" 
 
 The Sybarite broke into a loud laugh at his own joke; but 
 the Spartan turned away from the conversation, drew Phryxus 
 into a corner, and quite abandoning his usually quiet and 
 deliberate manner, asked eagerly whether he had at last 
 brought him the long-wished-for answer from the oracle. The 
 serious features of the Delphian relaxed, and thrusting his 
 hand into the folds of his Chiton,* he drew out a little roll of 
 parchment-like sheepskin, on which a few lines were written. 
 
 Tlje hands of the brave, strong Spartan trembled as he seized 
 the roll, and his fixed gaze on its characters was as- if it would 
 pierce the skin on which they were inscribed. 
 
 Then, recollecting himself, he shook his head sadly and said: 
 "We Spartans have to learn other arts than reading and writ- 
 ing; if thou canst, read me what Pythia says." 
 
 The Delphian glanced over the writing and replied: "Re- 
 joice! Loxiasf promises- thee a happy return home; hearken 
 to the prediction of the priestess." 
 
 "If once the warrior hosts from the snow-topped mountains descend- 
 ing 
 
 Come to the fields of the stream watering richly the plain, 
 
 Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey 
 thee 
 
 Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford. 
 
 When these warriors come, from the snow-topped mountains de- 
 scending 
 
 Then will the powerful Five grant thee what long they refused." 
 
 *An undergarment resembling a shirt. 
 
 fA name given to Apollo on account of the dark and incompre- 
 hensible answers of his oracle.
 
 22 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 To these words the Spartan listened with intense eagerness; 
 he had them read over to him twice, then repeated them from 
 memory, thanked Phryxus, and placed the roll within the folds 
 of his garment. 
 
 The Delphian then took part in the general conversation but 
 Aristomachus repeated the words of the oracle unceasingly to 
 himself in a low voice, endeavoring to impress them on his 
 memory, and to interpret their obscure import. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The doors of the supper-room now flew open. Two lovely, 
 fair-haired boys, holding myrtle-wreaths, stood on each side 
 of the entrance, and in the middle of the room was a large, 
 low, brilliantly polished table, surrounded by inviting purple 
 cushions.* 
 
 Rich nos-egays adorned this table, and on it were placed large 
 joints of roast meat, glasses and dishes of various shapes filled 
 with dates, figs, pomegranates, melons and grapes, little silver 
 beehives containing honey, and plates of embossed copper, on 
 which lay delicate cheese from the island of Trinakria. In the 
 midst was a silver table-ornament, something similar to an 
 altar, from which arose fragrant clouds of incense. 
 
 At the extreme end of the table stood the glittering silver 
 cup in which the wine was to be mixed.f This was of beauti- 
 
 *It was most probably usual to each guest to have his own little 
 table; but we read even in Homer of large tables on which the meals 
 were served up. "Iliad," ix, 206, 215. "Odyss.," i, 111. In the Sym- 
 posium described by Xenophanes at about the date of our history 
 a table is mentioned, the appointments of which we have more espe- 
 cially followed in the following description Xenoph. "Fragm. ed." 
 Bergk., i. In the time of Homer people sat at table, but the recumbent 
 position became universal in later times. 
 
 tThe Greeks were not accustomed to drink unmingled wine. Zaleu- 
 ku forbade to all citizens the pure juice of the grape under penalty 
 of death, and Solon under very severe penalties, unless required as 
 medicine. The usual mixture was composed of three-fifths water to 
 two-fifths wine. "Schol. z. d. Rittern des Aristophanes," v., 1184.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 23 
 
 ful Aeginetan workmanship, its crooked handles representing 
 two giants, who appeared ready to sink under the weight of 
 the bowl which they sustained. Like the altar, it was en- 
 wreathed with flowers, and a garland of roses or myrtle had 
 been twined around the goblet of each guest.* 
 
 The entire floor was strewed with rose leaves,f and the room 
 lighted by many lamps which were hung against the smooth, 
 white, stucco walls. 
 
 No sooner were the guests reclining on their cushions than 
 the fair-haired boys reappeared, wound garlands of ivy and 
 myrtle around the heads and shoulders of the revelers, and 
 washed their feet in silver basins4 The Sybarite, though 
 already scented with all the perfumes of Arabia, would not 
 rest until he was completely enveloped in roses and myrtle, 
 and continued to occupy the two boys even after the carver 
 had removed the first joints from the table in order to cut 
 them up, but as soon as the first course, thunny-fish with mus- 
 tard sauce, had been served, he forgot all subordinate matters- 
 and became absorbed in the enjoyment of the delicious viands. 
 
 Rhodopis, seated on a chair at the head of the table near the 
 
 *The Greeks, as well as the Egyptians, used drinking cups of vari- 
 ous shapes, and the most different materials. The graceful forms of 
 the Greek drinking vessels are well known, but even the Egyptians 
 knew how to manufacture beautiful goblets. They were made of the 
 precious metals, of bronze (such, according to Herodotus, were the 
 drinking vessels of the priests), of delicate clay partially glazed (in 
 the Berlin museum with blue glaze), and also, but probably only 
 seldom, of glass. Many were enameled in colors, and made in the 
 form of opening flowers, others represented the heads of animals or 
 birds, from the throats of which the wine was drunk; others again 
 were like our cups with handles. "Wilkinson," ii, pp. 348-355. Rosel- 
 lini, "Mon. Civ.," T. liii-lxii. "Ebers* Aegypten u. d. B. Moses," p. 
 328. Originals are to be found in the museums of Berlin, London, 
 Paris, Leyden, Turin, etc. 
 
 tThe dining-hall of Cleopatra is said to have been strewn ell deep 
 with roses. "Athenaeus, Deipnos," iv, 148, ed. Meincke. 
 
 tThe Greeks always wore garlands at meals, and the feet of the 
 guests were washed beforehand by slaves. Plato, "Symposium," p. 
 213. Water was also poured over the hands before eating. "Athen," 
 ii, 60. 
 
 This dish is mentioned by Hipponax about the date of our narra- 
 tive. "Hipponact. fragm.," 34, ed. Bergk. '
 
 * AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 wine-bowl, not only led the conversation, but gave directions 
 to the slaves in waiting.* 
 
 She gazed on her cheerful guests with a kind of pride, and 
 seemed to be devoting her attention to each exclusively, now 
 asking the Delphian how he had succeeded in his mission, 
 then the Sybarite whether he was content with the perform- 
 ances of her cook, and then listening eagerly to Ibykus, as he 
 told how the Athenian, Phrynichus, had introduced the relig- 
 ious dramas of Thespis of Ikaria into common life, and was 
 now representing entire histories from the past by means of 
 choruses, recitative and answer.f 
 
 Then she turned to the Spartan, remarking, that to him alone 
 of all her guests, instead of an apology for the simplicity of the 
 meal, she felt she owed one for its luxury. The next time he 
 came her slave Knakias, who, as an escaped Helot,$ boasted 
 that he could cook a delicious blood-soup (here the Sybarite 
 shuddered), should prepare him a true Lacedaemonian repast. 
 
 When the guests had eaten sufficiently, they again washed 
 their hands; the plates and dishes were removed, the floor 
 cleansed, and wine and water poured into the bowl. At last, 
 when Rhodopis had convinced herself that the right moment 
 had come, she turned to Phanes, who was engaged in a dis- 
 cussion with the Milesians, and thus addressed him: 
 
 "Noble friend, we have restrained our impatience so long 
 that it must surely now be your duty to tell us what evil chance 
 is threatening to snatch you from Egypt and from our circle. 
 You may be able to leave us and this country with a light 
 
 The women took their meals sitting. Usually a Symposiarch, or 
 steward of the banquet, was chosen by lot; but in this case the office 
 belongs naturally to Rhodopis. The duty of giving orders to the 
 other servants, some of whom were brought by the guests, fell to the 
 lot of one of the house slaves. 
 
 fAt the time of our tale, the drama was in its origin. Thespis gave 
 a dramatic form to the Dionysian choruses by the introduction of 
 strophe and antistrophe, and the adoption of masks; and Phrynichus 
 must be named as the first tragic poet. 
 
 JThe Spartan slaves, who often tried to escape from the service of 
 their masters, a service generally described in too dark terms. 
 
 The Symposium began after the real meal. Not till that was over 
 did the guests usually adorn themselves with wreaths, wash their 
 hands with Smegma or Smema (a kind of soap) and begin to drink.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 25 
 
 heart, for the gods are wont to bless you lonians with that 
 precious gift from your very birth, but we shall remember you 
 long and sadly. I know of no worse loss than that of a friend 
 tried through years; indeed, some of us have lived too long 
 on the Nile not to have imbibed a little of the constant, un- 
 changing Egyptian temperament. You smile, and yet I feel 
 sure that long as you have desired to revisit your dear Hellas, 
 you will not be able to leave us quite without regret. Ah, you 
 admit this? Well, I knew I had not been deceived. But now 
 tell us why you are obliged to leave Egypt, that we may con- 
 sider whether it may not be possible to get the king's decree 
 reversed, and so keep you with us." 
 
 Phanes smiled bitterly, and replied: "Many thanks, Rhodo- 
 pis, for these flattering words, and for the kind intention 
 either to grieve over my departure, or, if possible, to prevent 
 it. A hundred new faces will soon help you to forget mine, 
 for long as you have lived on the Nile, you are still a Greek 
 from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, and may 
 thank the gods that you have remained so. I am a great friend 
 of constancy, too, but quite as grea an enemy of folly, and 
 is there one among you who would not call it folly to fret over 
 what cannot be undone? I cannot call the Egyptian con- 
 stancy a virtue, it is a delusion. The men who treasure their 
 dead for thousands of years, and would rather lose their last 
 loaf than allow a single bone belonging to one of their ances- 
 tors to be taken from them,* are not constant, they are foolish. 
 Can it possibly make me happy to see my friends sad? Cer- 
 tainly not! You must not imitate the Egyptians, who, when 
 they lose a friend, spend months in daily repeated lamentations 
 over him. On the contrary, if you will sometimes think of the 
 distant, I ought to say, of the departed, friend (for as long as 
 I live I shall never be permitted to tread Egyptian ground 
 again), let it be with smiling faces ; do not cry, 'Ah ! why was 
 Phanes forced to leave us?' but rather, 'Let us- be merry, as 
 Phanes used to be when he made one of our circle!' In this 
 
 *An Egyptian, even when deeply involved in debt, was permitted 
 to remove the mummies of his ancestors. He would give all he had 
 rather than allow these to fall into decay, as in case of such neglect 
 he was exposed to shame and ignominy during life, and his body 
 denied burial at death. "Diodor.," i, 93.
 
 26 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 way you must celebrate my departure, as Simonides enjoined 
 when he sang: 
 
 " 'If we would only be more truly wise, 
 We should not waste on death our tears and sighs, 
 Nor stand and mourn o'er cold and lifeless clay 
 More than one day. 
 
 " 'For Death, alas! we have no lack of time; 
 But Life is gone, when scarcely at its prime, 
 And is e'en, when not overfill'd with care 
 But short and bare!'* 
 
 "If we are not to weep for the dead; how much less ought 
 we to grieve for absent friends! The former have left us for- 
 ever, but to the latter we say at parting, 'Farewell, until we 
 meet again.' " 
 
 Here the Sybarite, who had been gradually becoming more 
 and more impatient, could not keep silent any longer, and 
 called out in the most woe-begone tone: "Will you never begin 
 your story, you malicious fellow? I cannot drink a single 
 drop, until you leave off talking about death. I feel cold 
 already, and I am always ill, if I only think of, nay, if I only 
 hear the subject mentioned, that this life cannot last forever." 
 The whole company burst into a laugh, and Phanes began to 
 tell his- story: 
 
 "You know that at Sais I always live in the new palace ; but 
 at Memphis, as commander of the Greek bodyguard which 
 must accompany the king everywhere, a lodging was assigned 
 me in the left wing of the old palace.f 
 
 "Translation from Simonides, "fragm.," ed. Bergk. 
 
 tMemphis is said to have been founded b^ Menes, whom most of 
 the ancient chronologists, following Manetho, call the first king of 
 Egypt. He protected the place from inundations by constructing 
 canals on a large scale. "Herod.," ii, 99. Bunsen, "Aegypt. Stelle," 
 i, d. Weltgeschichte," ii, s. 40. According to Lepsius, who has ex- 
 amined every existing date and inscription most critically, he reigned 
 3892 B. C. His son and successor is said to have built the palace of 
 Memphis, according to Manetho, a priest of Heliopolis, who in the 
 year 250 B. C. translated the Egyptian sacred writings into Greek 
 for the Ptolemaic Pharaohs. A few scanty remains near the villages 
 Bedreschein and Mitrahenny some large heaps of rubbish the pros- 
 trate colossal statue of Rameses II, discovered by Cavaglia and Sloane, 
 mentioned by classical writers, and now the property of the English 
 fragments of columns and statues, traces of the walls of the Ptah-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 2V 
 
 "Since Psamtik I,* Sais has always been the royal residence, 
 and the other palaces have in consequence become somewhat 
 neglected. My dwelling was really splendidly situated, and 
 beautifully furnished; it would have been first-rate, if, from 
 the first moment of my entjance, a fearful annoyance had not 
 made its appearance. 
 
 "In the daytime, when I was seldom at home, my rooms 
 were all that could be wished, but at night it was impossible to 
 sleep for the tremendous noise made by thousands of rats and 
 mice under the old floors, and couches, and behind the hang- 
 ings . 
 
 "Even in the first night an impudent mousre ran over my 
 face. 
 
 "I was quite at a loss what to do, till an Egyptian soldier sold 
 me two large cats, and these, in the course of many weeks, 
 procured me some rest from my tormentors. 
 
 "Now, you are probably all aware that one of the charming 
 laws of the most eccentric nation (whose culture and wisdom, 
 you, my Milesian friends, cannot sufficiently praise), declares 
 the cat to be a sacred animal. Divine honors are paid to these 
 fortunate quadrupeds as well as to many other animals, and 
 he who kills a cat is punished with the same severity as the 
 murderer of a human being." 
 
 Till now Rhodopis had been smiling, but when she perceived 
 that Phanes' banishment had to do with his contempt for the 
 sacred animals, her face became more serious. She knew how 
 many victims, how many human lives, had already been sacri- 
 ficed to this Egyptian superstition, and how, only a short time 
 before, the king Amasis himself had endeavored in vain 'to 
 rescue an unfortunate Samian, who had killed a cat, from the 
 vengeance of the enraged populace.t 
 
 temple, broken sherds, and smaller memorials in larger numbers, are 
 all that now remain of this once gigantic city. The city of the dead 
 at Memphis is in better preservation. The Pyramids stand on un- 
 moved, and the Serapeium and the Apis tombs have been excavated 
 by Mariette Bey, a Frenchman in the service of the Viceroy. 
 
 *Psamtik I, better known by his Greek name Psametich (or Psam- 
 metichus) belonged to the twenty-sixth, or the Saitic dynasty. He 
 was the first to open a communication between Egypt- and foreign 
 countries. On this reign the inscriptions from the Apis tombs render 
 such good service, that we are enabled to fix the date of Psamtik's 
 accession to the throne on February 5, 664 B. C. 
 
 fThe cat was probably the most sacred of all the animals worshiped
 
 28 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Everything was going well," continued the officer, "when 
 we left Memphis two years ago. 
 
 "I confided my pair of cats- to the care of one of the Egyptian 
 servants at the palace, feeling sure that these enemies of the 
 rats would keep my dwelling clear "for the future; indeed I 
 began to feel a certain veneration for my deliverers from the 
 plague of mice/ 
 
 "Last year Amasis fell ill before the court could adjourn to 
 Memphis, and we remained at Sais. 
 
 "At last, about six weeks ago, we set out for the city of the 
 Pyramids.* I betook me to my old quarters; not the shadow 
 of a mouse's tail was to be seen there, but instead, they 
 swarmed with another race of animals not one whit dearer to 
 me than their predecessors. The pair of cats had, during my 
 two years' absence increased twelvefold. I tried all in my 
 power to dislodge this burdensome brood of all ages and colors, 
 but in vain; every night my sleep was disturbed by horrible 
 choruses of four-footed animals-, and feline war-cries and songs. 
 
 "Every year, at the period of the Bubastis festival, all super- 
 fluous cats may be brought to the temple of the cat-headed god- 
 dess Pacht, where they are fed and cared for, or as I believe, 
 when they multiply too fast, quietly put out of the way. These 
 priests are knaves! 
 
 "Unfortunately the journey to the said templef did not occur 
 
 by the Egyptians. While others were deified only in particular dis- 
 tricts, the cat was an object of adoration to all the subjects of the 
 Pharaohs. "Herod.," (ii, 66), tells that when a house was on fire the 
 Egyptians never thought of extinguishing the fire until their cats 
 were all saved, and that when a cat died they shaved their heads in 
 sign of mourning. Whoever killed one of these animals, whether 
 intentionally or by accident, suffered the penalty of death, without 
 any chance of mercy. "Diod.," (i, 81), himself witnessed the murder 
 of a Roman citizen who had killed a cat, by the Egyptian people; and 
 this in spite of the authorities, who in fear of the powerful Romans, 
 endeavored to prevent the deed. The bodies of the cats were carefully 
 embalmed and buried, and their mummies are to be found in every 
 museum. The embalmed cat, carefully wrapped in linen bandages, 
 is oftener to be met with than any of the many animals thus pre- 
 served by the Egyptians. 
 
 *The great Pyramids lie to the west of Memphis. 
 
 fThe chief temple of the goddess Pacht (Bast), who was represented 
 with a head of a cat, was at Bubastis, in the eastern delta. The mum- 
 mies of the efts were usually brought thither; some, however, have 
 been discovered in other places, and more especially at the Serapeium,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 2& 
 
 during the time of our stay in Memphis; however, as I realh 
 could not tolerate this army of tormentors any longer, I de- 
 termined at least to get rid of two families of healthy kittens 
 with which their mothers had just presented me. My old slave 
 Miis,* from his very name a natural enemy of cats, was told 
 to kill the little creatures, put them into a sack and throw them 
 into the Nile. 
 
 "This murder was necessary, as the mewing of the kittens 
 would otherwise have betrayed the contents of the sack to the 
 palace warders. In the twilight poor Mus betook himself to 
 the Nile through the grove of Hathor,f with his perilous 
 burden. But alas ! the Egyptian attendant who was in the habit 
 of feeding my cats, had noticed that two families of kittens were 
 missing, and had seen through the whole plan. 
 
 According to Herodotus she was similar to the Greek Artemis (Diana) 
 and was called Bubastian. Stephanus of Byzantium says also that the 
 cat was called Bubastos in Egyptian. The general name for the 
 animal was Mau Mie. She seems also to have been honored as the 
 deity who conferred the blessing of children and watched over their 
 birth. Representations of her are to be found in "Birch's Gallery," 
 p. 16 and following, and "Wilkinson's Manners and Customs," vi, pi. 
 27 and' 35. Since the publication by Diimichen of the temple inscrip- 
 tions at Dendera there seems to be no longer any doubt that, in the 
 Goddess Bast, the Egyptians worshiped certain phases of Astarte (the 
 Syrian Aphrodite, Venus urania). 
 
 *Mues, /zfr, a name not uncommon among the Greeks, signifies 
 Mouse. 
 
 tThe goddess of love, or Egyptian venus, who also had a temple 
 at Memphis. Her principal sanctuary was at Dendera (Ta-n-ta-rer, 
 the land of the Nile horse, of the goddess of the. Nile) where she is 
 mentioned by all her titles; of these more than three hundred are to 
 be found at Edfu. Throughout she appears as the female, or recep- 
 tive and productive principle, in opposition to the male, or generative; 
 and cosmic, as the earth, the exhibition of the Deity working in the 
 visible world of nature. As the impersonation of fertility, she rep- 
 resents the fruitfulness of the fields, and, as this is dependent on the 
 Nile, so it is Isis Hathor who "causeth the Nile to increase in his 
 season." She is the sublime goddess of love, the great heavenly 
 mother, who takes under her divine protection all the mothers of the 
 earth, the giver of all good things in this life, the beautiful-visaged 
 one, who fills heaven and earth with her benefits. In later times she 
 became transformed into a muse. The dance, song, mirth, even 
 material enjoyments and intoxication, were under her protection, but 
 she was principally revered as the goddess of love. The cord and 
 tamborine in her hand denote the captivating, riveting power and the 
 pleasure of love. Dendera was called Kantharonpolis, "the place of
 
 20 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "My slave took his way composedly through the great 
 avenue of Sphinxes, and by the temple Ptah,* holding the little 
 bag concealed under his mantle. Already in the sacred grove 
 he noticed that he was being followed, but on seeing that the 
 men behind him stopped before the temple of Ptah and entered 
 into conversation with the priests, he felt perfectly reassured 
 and went on. 
 
 "He had already reached the bank of the Nile, when he heard 
 voices calling him arfd a number of people running toward 
 him in haste; at the same moment a stone whistled close by 
 his head. 
 
 "Miis- at once perceived the danger which was threatening 
 him. Summoning all his strength he rushed down to the Nile, 
 flung the bag in, and then with a beating heart, but as he 
 imagined without the slightest evidence of guilt, remained 
 standing on the shore. A few moments "later he was sur- 
 rounded by at least a hundred priests. 
 
 "Even the high-priest of Ptah, my old enemy Ptahotep, had 
 not disdained to follow the pursuers in person. 
 
 "Many of the latter, and among them the perfidious palace 
 servant, rushed at once into the Nile, and there, to our con- 
 fusion, found the bag with its twelve little corpses, hanging 
 
 the cup," after her drinking-cup. She is called the great queen of 
 the golden wreath and the helper of mothers at the birth of their 
 children. She was the goddess most beloved by the wives of the 
 kings. Her sacred animal was the cow, and she generally appears 
 in the form of a woman with a cow's head; the sun's disk rests be- 
 tween her horns, which suggest the crescent moon. Drawings in 
 "Birch's Gallery," p. 19. Champollion, "Pantheon Egyptien," T. 18. 
 Rosell, "Mon. d. Culto," etc. The best information on this goddess 
 is to be had in Diimichen's "Bauurkunde von Dendera," L. 1865. Isis 
 is the most sensual form of the Goddess Hathor fertility as the idea 
 of the organic world. 
 
 *The temple of the great Memphian god, Ptah, was one of the most 
 celebrated buildings in Egypt. King Menes is said to have laid the 
 foundation, and many of the succeeding Pharaohs, especially Rameses 
 III. Rampsinit, known by his treasure-house, and Amenemha III 
 were zealous in extending and adorning it. Psamtik I is said to have 
 erected by its side a splendid house for Apis, the sacred bull of Ptah, 
 the roof of which was supported by statues twelve ells high in the 
 place of columns. Strabo 807. Amasis, too, assisted in the adornment 
 of this temple, causing a colossus of seventy-five feet in height to be 
 placed in its court. "Herod.," ii, 176. Remains of this are to be seen 
 near the Arabian village of Mitrahenny.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 31 
 
 entirely uninjured among the papyrus reeds and bean tendrils. 
 The cotton coffin was opened before the eyes of the high-priest, 
 a troop of lower priests, and at least a thousand of -the inhabit- 
 ants of Memphis, who had hurried to the spot, and when the 
 miserable contents were disclosed, there arose such fearful 
 howls of anguish, and such horrible cries of mingled lamenta- 
 tion and revenge, that I heard them even in the palace. 
 
 "The furious multitude, in their wild rage, fell on my poor 
 servant, threw him down, trampled on him and would have 
 killed him, had not the all-powerful high-priest designing to 
 involve me, as the author of the crime, in the same ruin com- 
 manded them to cease and take the wretched malefactor to 
 prison. 
 
 "Half an hour later I was in prison too. 
 
 "My old Miis took all the guilt of the crime on himself, until 
 at last, by means of the bastinado, the high-priest forced him 
 to confess that I had ordered the killing of the kittens, and that 
 he, as a faithful servant, had not dared to disobey. 
 
 "The supreme court of justice,* whose decision the king him- 
 self has no power to reverse, is composed of priests from 
 Memphis, Heliopolis and Thebes; you can, therefore, easily 
 believe that they had no scruple in pronouncing sentence of 
 death on poor Miis and my own unworthy Greek self. The 
 slave was pronounced guilty of two capital offenses; first, of 
 the murder of the sacred animals, and, secondly, of a twelvefold 
 pollution of the Nile through dead bodies. I was condemned 
 as originator of this (as they termed it) four-and-twenty-fold 
 crime. f Miis was executed on the same dsy. May the earth 
 rest lightly on him! I shall never think of him again as my 
 slave, but as- a friend and benefactor! My sentence of death 
 was read aloud in the presence of his dead body, and I was 
 
 *This court of justice, which may be compared with the Areopagus 
 at Athens, and the Gerusia at Sparta ("Diod.," i, 75), was composed 
 of thirty judges taken from the priestly caste (ten from Heliopolis, 
 ten from Memphis, ten from Thebes). The most eminent from among 
 their number (n-a rbv apiarov) was chosen by them as president. All 
 complaints and defenses had to be presented in writing, that the 
 judges might in no way be influenced by word or gesture. This 
 tribunal was independent, even of the king's authority. 
 
 fAccording to the Egyptian law, the man who was cognizant of a 
 crime was held equally culpable with the perpetrator.
 
 32 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 already preparing for a long journey into the nether world 
 when the king sent and commanded a reprieve. 
 
 "I was taken hack to prison. One of my guards, an Arca- 
 dian Taxiarch,* told me that all the officers of the guard and 
 many of the soldiers (altogether four thousand men) had 
 threatened to send in their resignation, unless I, their com- 
 mander, were pardoned. 
 
 "As it was beginning to grow dusk I was taken to the king. 
 
 "He received me graciously, confirmed the Taxiarch's state- 
 ment with his own mouth, and said how grieved he should be 
 to lose a commander so generally beloved. I must confess 
 that I owe Amasis no grudge for his conduct to me; on the 
 contrary I pity him. You should have heard how he, the 
 powerful king, complained that he could never act according 
 to his own wishes, that even in his most private affairs he was 
 crossed and compromised by the priests and their influence. 
 Had it only depended on himself he could easily have pardoned 
 the transgression of law, which I, as a foreigner, could not be 
 expected to understand, and might (though unjustly) esteem as 
 a foolish superstition. But for the sake of the priests he dare 
 not leave me unpunished. The lightest penalty he could in- 
 flict must be banishment from Egypt.f 
 
 "He concluded his complaint with these words: 'You little 
 know what concessions I must make to the priests- in order 
 to obtain your pardon. Why, our supreme court of justice 
 is independent even of me, its king!' 
 
 "And thus I received my dismissal, after having taken a 
 solemn oath to leave Memphis that very day, and Egypt, at 
 latest, in three weeks. 
 
 "At the palace gate I met Psamtik, the crown-prince. He 
 has- long been my enemy, on account of some vexatious matters 
 which I cannot divulge (you know them, Rhodopis). I was 
 going to offer him my parting salutation, but he turned his 
 back upon me, saying: 'Once more you have escaped punish- 
 ment, Athenian ; but you cannot elude my vengeance. Whith- 
 ersoever you may go I shall be able to find you!' That re- 
 
 "Commander of a Taxis, or captain of a company. "Lysias. Apol.," 
 p. 162. 
 
 tThe punishment of exile seems to have been employed against the 
 native Egyptians; it could be easily imposed on foreigners whom it 
 was desirable to get rid of,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. & 
 
 mains to be proved,' I answered, put myself and my possessions 
 on board a boat, and came to Naukratis. Here, by good 
 fortune, I met my old friend Aristomachus of Sparta, who, as 
 he was formerly in command of the Cyprian troops,* will most 
 likely be nominated my successor. I should rejoice to know 
 that such a first-rate man was going to take my place if I did 
 not at the same time fear that his eminent services will make 
 my own poor efforts seem even more insignificant than they 
 really were." 
 
 But here he was interrupted by Aristomachus, who called 
 out: "Praise enough, friend Phanes! Spartan tongues are 
 stiff; but if you should ever stand in need of my help, I will 
 give you an answer in deeds which shall strike the right nail 
 on the head." 
 
 Rhodopis smiled her approval, and giving her hand to each, 
 said: "Unfortunately, the only conclusion to be drawn from 
 your story, my poor Phanes,. is 1 that you cannot possibly remain 
 any longer in this country. I will not blame you for your 
 thoughtlessness, though you might have known you were ex- 
 posing yourself to great danger for a mere trifle. The really 
 wise and brave man never undertakes- a hazardous enterprise 
 unless the possible advantage and disadvantage that may ac- 
 crue to him from it can be reckoned at least as equal. Reck- 
 lessness is quite as foolish, but not so blamable as cowardice, 
 for though both do the man an injury, the latter alone can 
 dishonor him. 
 
 "Your thoughtlessness, this time, has very nearly cost your 
 life, a life dear to many, and which you ought to save for a 
 nobler end. We cannot attempt to keep you here; we should 
 thereby only injure ourselves without benefiting you. This 
 noble Spartan must now take your place as head and repre- 
 sentative of the Greek nation at the Egyptian court, must 
 endeavor to protect us against the encroachment of the priests, 
 and to retain for us the royal favor. I take your hand, 
 Aristomachus, and will not let it go until you have promised 
 that you will protect, to the utmost of your power, every 
 Greek, however humble (as- Phanes did before you), from the 
 insolence of the Egyptians, and- will sooner resign your office 
 than allow the smallest wrong done to a Hellen to go un- 
 
 *King Amasis carried on a successful war against Cyprus. "Herod.," 
 ii, 178. "Diod.," i, 68.
 
 34 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 punished. We are but a few thousands among millions of 
 enemies, but through courage we are great, and unity must 
 keep us strong. Hitherto the Greeks in Egypt have lived like 
 brothers; each has been ready to offer himself for the good 
 of all, and all for each, and it is- just this unity that has made 
 us, and must keep us powerful. 
 
 "Oh ! could we but bestow this precious gift on our mother 
 country and her colonies; would the tribes of our native land 
 but forget their Dorian, Ionian or Aeolian descent, and, con- 
 tenting themselves with the one name of Hellenes, live as the 
 children of one family, as the sheep of one flock then, indeed, 
 we should be strong against the whole world, and Hellas would 
 be recognized by all nations as the queen of the earth !"* 
 
 A fire glowed in the eyes of the gray-haired woman as she 
 uttered these words; and the Spartan, grasping her hand im- 
 petuously and stamping on the floor with his wooden leg, cried: 
 "By Zeus, I will not let a hair of their heads be hurt; but, thou, 
 Rhodopis, thou art worthy to have been born a Spartan 
 woman." 
 
 "Or an Athenian," cried Phanes. 
 
 "An Ionian," said the Milesians, and the sculptor: "A daugh- 
 ter of the Samian Geomori 
 
 "But I am more, far more, than all these," cried the enthusi- 
 astic woman. "I am a Hellen!" 
 
 The whole company, even to the Jew and the Syrian, were 
 carried away by the intense feeling of the moment; the Sybarite 
 alone remained unmoved, and, with his mouth so full as to 
 render the words almost unintelligible, said : 
 
 "You deserve to be a Sybarite too, Rhodopis, for your roast 
 beef is the best I have tasted since I left Italy, and your 
 Anthylla winef relishes almost as well as Vesuvian or Chian !" 
 
 Everyone laughed except the Spartan, who darted a look of 
 indignation and contempt at the epicure. 
 
 In this moment a deep voice, hitherto unknown to us, shouted 
 
 This longing desire for unity was by no means foreign to the 
 Greeks, though we seldom hear it expressed. Aristotle, for example, 
 says, vii, 7: "Were the Hellens united into one state, they could 
 command all the barbarous nations." 
 
 tAthenaeus (i, 25) calls the wine of Anthylla the best juice of the 
 grape in Egypt. On the monuments different kinds of red and white 
 wine are mentioned, for instance, the wine of Kakem. For particu- 
 lars see Ebers "Aegypten u. d. Biicher Mose's," p. 322.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 35 
 
 suddenly through the window, "A glad greeting to you, m> 
 friends!" 
 
 "A glad greeting," echoed the, chorus of revelers, question- 
 ing and guessing who this late arrival might prove to be. 
 
 They had not long to wait, for even before the Sybarite had 
 had time carefully to test and swallow another mouthful of 
 wine, the speaker, Kallias, the son of Phaenippus of Athens,* 
 was already standing by the side of Rhodopis. He was a tall, 
 thin man of over sixty, with a head of that oval form which 
 gives the impression of refinement and intellect. One of the 
 richest among the Athenian exiles, he had twice bought the 
 possessions of Pisistratus from the state, and twice been obliged 
 to surrender them, on the tyrant's return to power. Looking 
 round with his clear keen eyes on this circle of acquaintances, 
 he exchanged friendly greetings with all, and exclaimed: 
 
 "If you do not set a 'high value on my appearance among you 
 this evening I shall think that gratitude has entirely disappeared 
 from the earth." 
 
 "We have been expecting you a long time," interrupted one 
 of the Milesians. "You are the first man to bring us news of 
 the Olympic games!" 
 
 "And we could wish no better bearer of such news than the 
 victor of former days?" added Rhodopis. 
 
 "Take your seat," cried Phanes, impatiently, "and come to 
 the point with your news at once, friend Kallias." 
 
 "Immediately, fellow-countryman," answered the other. "It 
 is some time ago now since I left Olympia. I embarked at 
 Cenchreae in a fifty-oared Samian vessel, the best ship that ever 
 was built. 
 
 "It does not surprise me that I am the first Greek to arrive 
 in Naukratis. We encountered terrific storms at sea, and could 
 not have escaped with our lives if the big-bellied Samian galley, 
 with her Ibis beak and fish tail,f had not been so splendidly 
 timbered and manned. 
 
 *A distinguished Athenian, whom we hear mentioned at the date 
 of our narrative. According to "Herodotus," vi, 122, he had been 
 victor both in the horse and chariot races. 
 
 tThe celebrated Samian ships of that day are thus described by 
 Herodotus; they also often had boars' heads at the prow. At least 
 this seems implied in Strabo's account that the Aeginetans had struck 
 off the boars' heads from the ships, they had captured. Herod, (iii, 
 59) tells the same with regard to the beaks of the ships.
 
 36 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "How far the other homeward-bound passengers may have 
 been driven out of their course, I cannot tell ; we found shelter 
 in the harbor of Samos, and were able to put to sea again after 
 ten days. 
 
 "We ran into the mouth of the Nile this morning. I went 
 on board my own bark at once and was so favored by Boreas, 
 who, at least at the end of my voyage, seemed willing to prove 
 that he still felt kindly toward his old Kallias, that I caught 
 sight of this most friendly of all houses a few moments since. 
 I saw the waving flag, the brightly lighted windows, and 
 debated with myself whether to enter or not; but, Rhodopis, 
 your fascination proved irresistible, and besides,-! was bursting 
 with all my untold news, longing to share your feast, and to tell 
 you, over the viands and the wine, things that you have not 
 even allowed yourselves to dream of." 
 
 Kallias settled himself comfortably on one of the cushions, 
 and before beginning to tell his news, produced and presented 
 to Rhodopis a magnificent gold bracelet in the form of a 
 serpent,* which he had bought for a large sum at Samos, in the 
 goldsmith's workshop of the very Theodorus who was now 
 sitting with him at the table. 
 
 "This I have brought for you/'f he said, turning to the 
 delighted Rhodopis, "but for you, friend Phanes, I have some- 
 thing still better. Guess, who won the four-horse chariot 
 race?" 
 
 "An Athenian?" asked Phanes, and his face glowed with 
 excitement; for the victory gained by one citizen at the 
 Olympic games belonged to the whole people, and the Olympic 
 olive branch was the greatest honor and happiness that could 
 fall to the lot, either of a single Hellen, or an entire Greek 
 tribe. 
 
 "Rightly guessed, Ph-anes!" cried the bringer of this joyful 
 news. "The first prize has been carried off by an Athenian; 
 and not only so, your own cousin Cimon, the son of Kypselos, 
 
 *See Th. Hope, "Costume," i, 138. Egyptian bracelets in the form 
 of serpents are still extant. 
 
 fin ancient days, if was as usual as it is now to bring back little 
 presents for friends from a journey. Theocritus brought the wife of 
 his friend Nicias an ivory spindle and accompanied the gift with 
 charming verses. For these y^e must refer our readers to F. Rtick- 
 ert's delightful translation.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 37 
 
 the brother of that Miltiades, who, nine Olympiads ago, earned 
 us the same honor, is the man who has- conquered this year;* 
 and with the same steeds that gained him the prize at the last 
 games. The fame of the Alkmaeonidae is, verily, darkening 
 more and more before the Philaidae.f Are not you proud, 
 Phanes? do not you feel joy at the glory of your family?" 
 
 In his delight Phanes had risen from his seat, and seemed 
 suddenly to have increased in stature by a whole head. 
 
 With a look of ineffable pride and consciousness of his own 
 position, he gave his hand to the messenger of victory. The 
 latter, embracing his countryman, continued : 
 
 "Yes, we have a right to feel proud and happy, Phanes; you 
 especially, for no sooner had the judges unanimously awarded 
 the prize to Cimon, than he ordered the heralds to proclaim the 
 tyrant Pisistratus as the owner of the splendid team, and there- 
 fore victor in the race. Pisistratus at once caused it to be 
 announced that your family was free to return to Athens, and so 
 now, Phanes, the long-wished-for hour of your return home 
 is awaiting you." 
 
 But at these words Phanes turned pale, his look of conscious 
 pride changed into one of indignation, and he exclaimed: 
 
 "At this I am to rejoice, foolish Kallias? rather bid me weep 
 that a descendant of Ajax should be capable of laying his well- 
 worn fame thus ignominiously at a tyrant's feet! No! I swear 
 by Athene, by Father Zeus, and by Apollo, that I will sooner 
 starve in foreign lands than take one step homeward, so long 
 as the Pisistratidae hold my country in bondage. When I 
 leave the service of Amasis, I should be free, free as a bird in 
 the air; but I would rather be the slave of a peasant in foreign 
 lands, than hold the highest office under Pisistratus. The 
 
 *The second triumph won by the steeds of Cimon must have taken 
 place, as Duncker correctly remarks ("Geschichte des Alterthums," 
 iv, p. 343), about the year 528. The same horses won the race for the 
 third time at the next Olympic games, consequently four years later. 
 As token of his gratitude Cimon caused a monument to be erected in 
 their honor in "the hollow way" near Athens. We may here remind 
 our readers that the Greeks made use of the Olympic games to de- 
 termine the date of each year. They took place every four years. The 
 first was fixed 776 B. C. Each separate year was named the first, 
 second, third or fourth of such or such an Olympiad. 
 
 fNext to the Alkmaeonidae, the highest patrician family in Athens. 
 They boasted of being descended from Ajax the Homeric hero.
 
 38 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 sovereign power in Athens belongs to us, its nobles; but 
 Cimon by laying his chaplet at the feet of Pisistratus has 
 acknowledged the tyrants, and branded himself as their servant. 
 He shall hear that Phanes cares little for the tyrant's clemency. 
 I choose to remain an exile^till my country is free, till her nobles 
 and people govern themselves, and dictate their own laws. 
 Phanes will never do homage to the oppressor, though all the 
 Philaidae, the Alkmaeonidae, and even the men of your own 
 house, Kallias, the rich Daduchi,* should fall down at his feet!" 
 
 With flashing eyes he looked round on the assembly; Kallias 
 too scrutinized the faces of the guests with conscious pride, as 
 if he would say: 
 
 "See, friends, the kind of men produced by my glorious 
 country !" 
 
 Taking the hand of Phanes again, he said to him: 
 
 "The tyrants are as hateful to me as to you, my friend; but 
 I have seen, that, so long as Pisistratus lives, the tyranny cannot 
 be overthrown. His allies, Lygdamis of Naxos and Poly- 
 krates of Samos, are powerful; but the greatest danger of our 
 freedom lies in his own moderation and prudence. During 
 my recent stay in Greece I saw with alarm that the mass of the 
 people in Athens love their oppressor like a father. Notwith- 
 standing his great power, he leaves the commonwealth in the 
 enjoyment of Solon's constitution. He adorns the city with the 
 most magnificent buildings. They say that the new temple of 
 Zeus, now being built of glorious marble by Kallaeschrus, Anti- 
 states and Porinus (who must be known to you, Theodorus), 
 will surpass every building that has yet been erected by the 
 Hellens.f He understands how to attract poets and artists of 
 all kinds to Athens, he has had the poems of Homer put into 
 writing, and the prophecies of Musaeus collected by Onoma- 
 kritus. He lays out new streets and arranges fresh festivals; 
 trade flourishes under his rule, and the people find themselves 
 well off, in spite of the many taxes laid upon them. But what are 
 the people? a vulgar multitude who, like the gnats, fly toward 
 
 *Kallias was called one of the Daduchi " dadoiijof " because the 
 right of carrying torches at the Eleusinian mysteries was hereditary 
 in his family. Xenoph. "Hell.," vi, 3, 2. 
 
 f'Vitruv.," 7, "Praef.," 15, "Pausan," i, 18, "Dicaearch.," fragm. 
 ed. Miiller, 59. It is said to have been surpassed only by the temple 
 of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 39 
 
 everything brilliant, and, so long as the taper burns, will con- 
 tinue to flutter round it, even though they burn their wings 
 in doing so. Let Pisistratus' torch burn out, Phanes, and I'll 
 swear that the fickle crowd will flock around the returning 
 nobles, the new light, just as they now do around the tyrant. 
 
 "Give me your hand once more, you true son of Ajax; for 
 you, my friends, I have still many an interesting piece of news 
 untold. 
 
 "The chariot race, as I have just related, was won by Cimon 
 who gave the olive-branch to Pisistratus. Four finer horses 
 than his I never saw. Arkesilaus of Cyrene, Kleosthenes of 
 Epidamnus,* Aster of Sybaris, Hekataeus of Miletus and many 
 more had also sent splendid teams. Indeed, the games this 
 time were more than brilliant. All Hellas had sent deputies. 
 Rhoda of the Ardeates, in distant Iberia,f the wealthy Tartes- 
 sus, Sinope in the far east on the shores of Pontus*, in short, 
 every tribe that could boast of Hellenic descent was well repre- 
 sented. The Sybarite deputies were of a dazzling beauty; the 
 Spartans homely and simple, but handsome as Achilles, tall and 
 strong as Hercules ; the Athenians remarkable for their supple 
 limbs and graceful movements, and the men of Crotona were 
 led by Milo,| strongest of mortal birth. The Samian and 
 Milesian deputies vied in splendor and gorgeousness of attire 
 with those from Corinth and Mitylene: the flower of the Greek 
 youth was assembled there, and, in the space allotted to specta- 
 tors, were seated, not only men of every age, class, and nation, 
 but many virgins, fair and lovely maidens, who had come to 
 Olympia, more especially from Sparta, in order to encourage 
 the men during the games by their acclamations and applause. 
 
 *Kleosthenes won the chariot race three Olympiads later with his 
 four horses, Phoenix, Korax, Samos and Knakias, and caused monu- 
 ments to be erected in their honor. "Pausanias," iv, 14. 
 
 flberia (Spain) Rhoda is in the modern province of Catalonia Tar- 
 tessus in Andalusia. 
 
 {Incredible feats of strength are related of this strongest of all 
 Greeks. He conquered seven times at Olympia, nine times at Nemea, 
 six times in the Pythian games (Delphi), ten times in the Isthmian. 
 "Diod.," xii, 9. That he won the wreath in the sixty-second Olympiad 
 we know positively. Krause, "Olympia," p. 327. He can, therefore, 
 have wrestled in the sixty-third, that is, 528 B. C. 
 
 Meyer, "Olympische Spiele." Schdmann, "Privatalterthumer and 
 Others." Married women were forbidden, under penalty of death, 
 to appear among the spectators.
 
 40 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The market was set up beyond the Alphaeus, and there traders 
 from all parts of the world were to be seen; Greeks, Cartha- 
 ginians, Lydians, Phrygians, and shrewd Phoenicians from 
 Palestine settled weighty business transactions, or offered their 
 goods to the public from tents and booths. But how can I 
 possibly describe to you the surging throngs of the populace, 
 the echoing choruses, the smoking festal hectacombs, the bright 
 and variegated costumes, the sumptuousness of the equipages, 
 the clang of the different dialects, and the joyful cries of friends 
 meeting again after years of separation; or the splendid appear- 
 ance of the envoys, the crowds of lookers-on and venders of 
 small wares, the brilliant effect produced by the masses of 
 spectators who filled to overflowing the space allotted to them, 
 the eager suspense during the progress of the games, and the 
 never-ending shouts of joy when the victory v/as decided; the 
 solemn investiture with the olive-branch, cut with a golden 
 knife by the Elean boy (whose parents must both be living), 
 from the sacred tree in the Aids* planted so many centuries 
 ago by Hercules himself; or, lastly, the prolonged acclamations 
 which, like peals of thunder, resounded in the Stadium, when 
 Milo of Crotona appeared, bearing on his shoulders the bronze 
 statue of himself cast by Dameas, and ca'rried it through the 
 Stadiumf into the Altis 1 ^: without once tottering. The weight 
 of the metal would have crushed a bull to the earth ; but borne 
 by Milo it seemed like a child in the arms of its Lacedaemonian 
 nurse. 
 
 "The highest honors (after Cimo'n's) were adjudged to a pair 
 of Spartan brothers, Lysander and Maro, the sons of Aristom- 
 
 *Altis was the name of the sacred grove of plane and olive trees, 
 which, inclosed by a wall, lay between the river Alphoeus and the 
 brook Kladeus. Pindar "Olym.," viii. 
 
 fThe scene of the combats. 
 
 f'Pausanias," vi, 14. Euseb. "Chron.," 6, Ol. 72. An epigram by 
 Simonides "Fragm.," 179. Bergk. "Hartung," 222. 
 
 Fair statue this of Milo fair, who won 
 
 Seven times the Pisan prize, and quailed to none. 
 
 Translated by Sterling. 
 
 Seven times would probably have been better than six, for though 
 only six of Milo's victories are spoken of elsewhere, yet in "Anthol. 
 Plan.," 24, the word edxt is used, not tirraxi. 
 
 The Spartan nurses were celebrated and sought for through the 
 whole of Greece.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 41 
 
 achus. "Maro was victor in the foot-race, but Lysander pre- 
 sented himself, amid the shouts of the spectators, as the 
 opponent of Milo ! Milo, the invincible, victor at Pisa, and .in 
 the Pythian and Isthmian combats.* Milo was taller and 
 stouter than the Spartan, who was formed like Apollo, and 
 seemed from his great youth scarcely to have passed from under 
 the hands of the school-master. 
 
 "In their naked beauty, glistening with the golden oil, the 
 youth and the man stood opposite to one another, like a panther 
 and a lion preparing for the combat. Before the onset the 
 young Lysander raised his hands imploringly to the gods, 
 crying: 'For my father, my honor, and the glory of Sparta!' 
 The Crotonian looked down on the youth with a smile of 
 superiority, just as an epicure looks at the shell of the Lan- 
 gustef he is preparing to open. 
 
 "And now the wrestling began. For some time neither 
 could succeed in grasping the other. The Crotonian threw 
 almost irresistible weight into his attempts to lay hold of his 
 opponent, but the latter slipped through the iron grip like a 
 snake. This struggle to gain a hold lasted long, and the 
 immense multitude watched silently, breathless from excite- 
 ment. Not a sound was to be heard but the groans of the 
 wrestlers and the singing of the nightingales in the groves of 
 the Altis. At last the youth succeeded by means of the clever- 
 est trick I ever saw in clasping his opponent firmly. For a 
 long time Milo exerted all his strength to shake him off, but in 
 vain, and the sand of the Stadium was freely moistened by 
 the great drops of sweat, the result of this Herculean struggle. 
 
 "More and more intense waxed the excitement of the specta- 
 tors, deeper and deeper the silence, rarer the cries of encourage- 
 ment and louder the groans of the wrestlers. At last Lysan- 
 der's strength gave way. Immediately a thousand voices burst 
 forth to cheer him on. He roused himself and made one last 
 superhuman effort to throw his adversary, but it was too late. 
 Milo had perceived the momentary weakness. Taking ad- 
 vantage of it he clasped the youth in a deadly embrace; a full 
 
 *The groups of the wrestlers were decided by lot after their free 
 birth and unimpeachability of character had been established. 
 
 tThe Languste is the delicious clawless lobster which is found on 
 the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and sometimes 
 even on the French shores of the Atlantic.
 
 42 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 black stream of blood welled from Lysander's beautiful lips, 
 and he sank lifeless to the earth from the wearied arms of the 
 giant. Democedes,* the most celebrated physician of our day, 
 whom you Samians will have known at the court of Polycrates, 
 hastened to the spot, but no skill could now avail the happy 
 Lysander he was dead. 
 
 "Milo was obliged to forego the victor's wreath, f and the 
 fame of this youth will long continue to sound through the 
 whole of Greece. I myself would rather be the dead Lysander, 
 son of Aristomachus, than the living Kallias growing old in 
 inaction away from his country. Greece, represented by her 
 best and bravest, carried the youth to his grave, and his statue 
 is to be placed in the Altis by those of Milo of Crotona and 
 Praxidamas of Aegina4 At length the heralds proclaimed the 
 sentence of the judges: 'To Sparta be awarded a victor's 
 wreath for the dead, for the noble Lysander hath been van- 
 quished, not by Milo, but by death, and he who could go forth 
 unconquered from a two hours' struggle with the strongest of 
 all Greeks hath well deserved the olive-branch.' " 
 
 Here Kallias stopped a moment in his narrative. During 
 his animated description of these events, so precious to every 
 Greek heart, he had forgotten his listeners, and, gazing into 
 vacancy,. had seen only the figures of the wrestlers as they rose 
 before his remembrance. Now, on looking round, he per- 
 ceived, to his astonishment, that the gray-haired man with the 
 wooden leg, whom he had already noticed, though without 
 recognizing him, had hidden his face in his hands and was 
 weeping. Rhodopis was standing at his right hand, Phanes 
 at his left, and the other guests were gazing at the Spartan, as 
 
 "This celebrated physician was born at Crotona in Lower Italy, in 
 the middle of the sixth century B. C. He is said to have left his 
 native land in consequence of his father's severity, and to have been 
 employed as physician, first by the Pisistratidae for the yearly sum of 
 three hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling, and then by Poly- 
 krates for more than six hundred pounds sterling. Still later he was 
 forced to enter the Persian service, where he preserved his reputation 
 for skill, and from which he at last escaped by stratagem. In the 
 year 510 he reappeared in Crotona and married the daughter of the 
 celebrated athlete, Milo. 
 
 tBy the laws of the games, the wrestler whose adversary died had 
 no right to the prize of victory. 
 
 ^Victor in the pugilistic combat, fifty-ninth Olympiad.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 43 
 
 if he had been the hero of Kallias' tale. In a moment the quick 
 Athenian perceived that the aged man must stand in some very 
 near relation to one or other of the victors at Olympia, but 
 when 'he heard that he was Aristomachus the father of that 
 glorious pair of brothers, whose wondrous forms were con- 
 stantly hovering before his eyes like visions sent down from the 
 abodes of the gods, then he too gazed on the sobbing old man 
 with mingled envy and admiration, and made no effort to 
 restrain the tears which rushed into his own eyes, usually so 
 clear and keen. In those days men wept, as well as women, 
 hoping to gain relief from the balm of their own tears. In 
 wrath, in ecstasy of delight, in every deep inward anguish, we 
 find the mighty heroes weeping, while, on the other hand, the 
 Spartan boys would submit to be scourged at the altar of 
 Artemis Orthia, and would bleed and even die under the lash 
 without uttering a moan, in order to obtain the praise of the 
 men. 
 
 For a time everyone remained silent, out of respect to 
 the old man's emotion. But at last the stillness was broken by 
 Joshua the Jew, who began thus, in broken Greek: 
 
 "Weep thy fill, O man of Sparta! I also have known what 
 it is to lose a son. Eleven }/ears have passed since I buried 
 him in the land of strangers, by the waters of Babylon, where 
 my people pined in captivity. Had yet one year been added 
 unto the life of the beautiful child, he had died in his own land, 
 and been buried in the sepulchers of his fathers. But Cyrus 
 the Persian (Jehovah bless his prosperity!) released us from 
 bondage one year too late, and therefore do I weep doubly for 
 this my son, in that he is buried among the enemies of my 
 people Israel. Can there be an evil greater than to behold our 
 children, who are unto us as most precious treasure, go down 
 into the grave before us? And thy child, may the Lord be 
 gracious unto me! but to lose so excellent a son, and even at 
 the moment when he had thus played the man, and won a name 
 for himself, this is even a grief beyond all others!" 
 
 Then the Spartan took away his hands from before his face; 
 he was looking stern but smiled through his tears, and an- 
 swered: 
 
 "Phoenician, you err! I weep not for anguish, but for joy, 
 and would have gladly lost my other son, if he could have died 
 like my Lysander."
 
 44 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The Jew, horrified at these, to him, sinful and unnatural 
 words, shook his head disapprovingly; but the Greeks over- 
 whelmed the old man with congratulations, deeming him much 
 to be envied. His great happiness made Aristomachus look, 
 younger by many years, and he cried, to Rhodopis: ''Truly, 
 my friend, your house is for me a house of blessing; for this 
 is the second gift that the gods have allowed to fall to my lot, 
 since I entered it." "What was the first?" asked Rhodopis. 
 "A propitious oracle." "But," cried Phanes, "you have for- 
 gotten the third; on this day the gods have blessed you with 
 the acquaintance of Rhodopis. But, tell me, what is this about 
 the oracle?" "May I repeat it to our friends?" asked the 
 Delphian. 
 
 Aristomachus nodded assent, and Phryxus read aloud a 
 second time the answer of the Pythia: 
 
 "If once the warrior hosts from the snow-topped mountains de- 
 scending 
 
 Come to the fields of the stream watering richly the plain, 
 Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey 
 
 thee 
 
 Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford, 
 When those warriors come from the snow-topped mountains de- 
 scending 
 Then will the powerful Five grant thee what lo:ig they refused." 
 
 Scarcely was the last word out of his mouth, when Kallias 
 the Athenian, springing up, cried: "In this house, too, you 
 shall receive from me the fourth gift of the gods. Know that . 
 I have kept my rarest news till last:. The Persians are coming 
 to Egypt!" 
 
 At this everyone, except the Sybarite, rushed to his feet, and 
 Kallias found it almost impossible to answer their numerous 
 questions. "Gently, gently, my friends," he cried at last : "let 
 me tell my story in order, or I shall never finish it at all. It is 
 not an army, as Phanes supposes, that is on its way hither, but a 
 great embassy from Cambyses the present ruler of the most 
 powerful kingdom of Persia. At Samos I heard that they liad 
 already reached Miletus, and in a few days they will be here. 
 Some of the king's own relations are among the number, and 
 aged Croesus, king of Lydia, too; we shall behold a marvelous 
 splendor and magnificence! Nobody knows the object of their
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 45 
 
 ccming, but it is supposed that king Camoyses wishes to con- 
 clude an alliance with Amasis; indeed some say the king solicits 
 the hand of Pharaoh's daughter." 
 
 "An alliance?" asked Phanes, with an incredulous shrug of 
 the shoulders. "Why, the Persians are rulers over half the 
 world already. All the great Asiatic powers have submitted to 
 their s-cepter; Egypt and our own mother-country, Hellas, are 
 the only two that have been spared by the conqueror." 
 
 "You forget India with its wealth of gold, and the great mi- 
 gratory nations of Asia," answered Kallias. "And you forgot, 
 moreover, that an empire, composed like Persia of some seventy 
 nations or tribes of different languages and customs, bears the 
 seeds of discord ever within its-elf, and must therefore gward 
 against the chance of foreign attack ; lest, while the bulk of the 
 army be absent, single provinces should seize the opportunity 
 and revolt from their allegiance. Ask the Milesians how long 
 they would remain quiet if they heard that their oppressors had 
 been defeated in any battle?" 
 
 Theopompus, the Milesian merchant, called out, laughing at 
 the same time: "If the Persians were to be worsted in one war, 
 they would at once be involved in a hundred others, and we 
 should not be the last to rise up against our tyrants in the hour 
 of their weakness!" 
 
 "Whatever the intentions of the envoys may be," continued 
 Kallias, "my information remains unaltered; they will be here 
 at the latest in three days." 
 
 "And so your oracle will be fulfilled, fortunate Aristoma- 
 chus!" exclaimed Rhodopis, "for see, the warrior hosts can 
 only be the Persians. When they descend to the shores of the 
 Nile, then 'the powerful Five,' your Ephori* will change their 
 decision, and you, the father of two Olympian victors, will be 
 recalled to your native land. Fill the goblet, again, Knakias. 
 
 *The five Ephori of Sparta were appointed to represent the absent 
 kings during the Messenian war. In later days the nobles made use 
 of the Ephori as a power, which, springing immediately from their 
 own body, they could oppose to the kingly authority. Being the 
 highest magistrates in all judicial and educational matters, and in 
 everything relating to the moral police of the country, the Ephori 
 soon found means to assert their superiority, and on most occasions 
 over that of the kings themselves. Every patrician who was past 
 the age of thirty had the right to become a candidate yearly for the 
 office. Aristot. "Polit.," ii, and iv, Laert. "Diog.," i, 68.
 
 46 AN EGYPTIAN- PRINCESS. 
 
 Let us devote this last cup to the name of the glorious Lysan- 
 der; and then I advise you to depart, for it is long past mid- 
 night, and our pleasure has reached its highest point. The true 
 host puts an end to the banquet when his guests are feeling 
 at their best. Serene and agreeable recollections will soon 
 bring you hither again; whereas there would be little joy in 
 returning to a house where the remembrance of hours of 
 weakness, the result of pleasure, would mingle with your future 
 enjoyment." In this her guests agreed, and Ibykus named 
 her a thorough disciple of Pythagoras, in praise of the joyous, 
 festive evening. 
 
 Everyone prepared for departure. The Sybarite, who had 
 been drinking deeply in order to counteract the very inconven- 
 ient amount of feeling excited by the conversation, arose also, 
 assisted by his slaves, who had been called for this purpose.* 
 
 While he was being moved from his former comfortable po- 
 sition, he stammered something about a "breach of hospitality;" 
 but, when Rhodopis was about to give him her hand at part- 
 ing, the wine gained the ascendency and he exclaimed: "By 
 Hercules, Rhodopis, you get rid of us as if we were troublesome 
 creditors. It is not my custom to leave a supper so long as I 
 can stand, still less to be turned out of doors like a miserable 
 parasite!" 
 
 "Hear reason, you immoderate Sybarite," began Rhodopis, 
 endeavoring with a smile to excuse her proceeding. But these 
 words, in Philoinus' half-intoxicated mood, only increased his 
 irritation; he burst into a mocking laugh, and staggering to- 
 ward the door, shouted: "Immoderate Sybarite, you call me? 
 good! here you have your answer: Shameless slave! one can 
 still perceive the traces of what you were in your youth. Fare- 
 well, then, slave of ladmon and Xanthus, freedwoman of Char- 
 axus!" He had not, however, finished his sentence when Aris- 
 tomachus rushed upon him, stunned him with a blow of his 
 fist and carried him off like a child down to the boat in which 
 his slaves were waiting at the garden gate. 
 
 *The Greeks were usually accompanied by their slaves when they 
 went to entertainments. Thus, for instance, according to Plato, Al- 
 cibiades brought servants with him when he attended the Symposium 
 of Agathon.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The guests were all gone. Their departing mirth and joy 
 had been smitten down by the drunkard's abusive words like 
 fresh young corn beneath a hailstorm. Rhodopis was left 
 standing alone in the empty, brightly decorated supper-room. 
 Knakias extinguished the colored lamps on the walls, and a 
 dull, mysterious half-light took the place of their brilliant rays, 
 falling scantily and gloomily on the piled-up plates and dishes, 
 the remnants of the meal, and the seats and cushions pushed 
 out of their places by the retiring guests. A cold breeze came 
 through the open door, for the dawn was at hand, and just 
 before sunrise the air is generally unpleasantly cool in Egypt. 
 A cold chill struck the limbs of the aged woman through her 
 light garments. She stood gazing tearlessly and fixedly into 
 the desolate room, whose walls but a few moments before had 
 been echoing with joy and gladness, and it seemed to her that 
 the deserted guest chamber must be like her own heart. She 
 felt as if a worm were gnawing there and the warm blood con- 
 gealing into ice. 
 
 Lost in these thoughts she remained standing till at last her 
 old female slave appeared to light her to her sleeping apart- 
 ment. 
 
 Silently Rhodopis allowed herself to be undress-ed, and then 
 as- silently lifted the curtain which separated a second sleeping 
 apartment from her own. In the middle of this second room 
 stood a bedstead of maple wood, and there, on white sheets 
 spread over a mattress of fine sheep's wool and protected from 
 the cold by bright blue coverlets,* lay a graceful, lovely girl 
 asleep; this was Rhodopis' granddaughter, Sappho. The 
 rounded form and delicate figure seemed to denote one already 
 in opening maidenhood, but the peaceful, blissful smile could 
 only belong to a harmless, happy child. 
 
 One hand lay under her head hidden among the thick, dark- 
 
 *Becker, "Charikles," iii, 67. "Pollux," x, 67. See also the picture 
 of a bed from a painting on the wall of a Pompeian room. A. Rich, 
 under "lectulus."
 
 48 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 brown hair, the other clasped unconsciously a little amulet of 
 green stone* which hung round her neck. Over her closed 
 eyes the long lashes trembled almost imperceptibly, and a deli- 
 cate pink flush came and went on the cheek of the slumberer. 
 The finely cut nostrils rose and fell with her regular breathing, 
 and she lay there a picture of innocence, of peace, smiling in 
 dreams and of the slumber that the gods bestow on early youth 
 when care has not come. 
 
 Softly and carefully, crossing the thick carpetsf on tiptoe, 
 the gray-haired woman approached, looked with unutterable 
 tenderness into the smiling, childish face, and, kneeling down 
 silently by the side of the bed, buried her face in its soft cover- 
 ings, so that the girl's hand just came in contact with her hair. 
 Then she wept, and without intermission, as though she hoped 
 with this flood of tears to wash away not only her recent hu- 
 miliation, but with it all other sorrow from her mind. 
 
 At length she rose, breathed a light kiss on the sleeping girl's 
 forehead, raised her hands in prayer toward heaven, and re- 
 turned to her own room, gently and carefully as she had come. 
 
 At her own bedside she found the old slave woman still wait- 
 ing for her. 
 
 "What do you want so late, Melitta?" said Rhodopis, kindly, 
 under her breath. "Go to bed; at your age it is not good to 
 remain up late, and you know that I do not require you any 
 longer. Good night and do not come to-morrow until I send 
 for you. I shall not be able to sleep much to-night, and shall be 
 thankful if the morning brings me a short repose." 
 
 The woman hesitated; it seemed that she had something 
 on her mind which she feared to utter. 
 
 "There is something you want to ask me?" said Rhodopis. 
 
 Still the old slave hesitated. 
 
 "Speak!" said Rhodopis, "speak at once, and quickly." 
 
 "I saw you weeping," said the slave-woman, "you seem ill 
 or sad; let me watch this night by your bedside. Will you not 
 
 "The ancient Greeks constantly wore amulets, as protection against 
 evil, and to insure a lasting prosperity. On this see especially Arditi: 
 "II fascino e 1'amuleto; presso gli antichi." Among the ancient 
 Egyptians, however, we find the most frequent use of these charms. 
 
 (Though the carpets of Babylon and Sardis were especially famous, 
 those of Egypt were praised even by Homer, who calls them 
 "Odyss.," iv, 124.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 49 
 
 tell me what ails you? You have often found that to' tell a 
 sorrow lightens the heart and lessens the pain. Then tell me 
 your grief to-day too ; it will do you good, it will bring back 
 peace to your mind." 
 
 "No," answered the other, "I cannot utter it." And then she 
 continued, smiling bitterly: "I have once more experienced 
 that no one, not even a god, has power to cancel the past of 
 any human being, and that, in this world, misfortune and dis- 
 grace are one and the same. Good night, leave me, Melitta!" 
 
 At noon on the following day the same boat, which, the 
 evening before, had carried the Athenian and the Spartan, 
 stopped once more before Rhodopis' garden. 
 
 The sun was shining so brightly, so warmly and genially 
 in the dark blue Egyptian sky, the air* was so pure and light, 
 the beetles were humming so merrily, the boatman singing so 
 lustily and happily, the shores of the Nile bloomed in such gay, 
 variegated beauty, and were so thickly peopled, the palm-trees, 
 sycamores, bananas and acacias were so luxuriant in foliage 
 and blossom, and over the whole landscape the rarest and most 
 glorious gifts seemed to have been poured out with such divine 
 munificence that a passer-by must have pronounced it the very 
 home of joy and gladness, a place from which sadness and 
 sorrow had been forever banished. 
 
 How often we fancy in passing a quiet village hidden among 
 its orchards 1 , that this at least must be the abode of peace and 
 unambitious contentment! But alas! when we enter the cot- 
 tages, what do we find? there, as everywhere else, distress and 
 need, passion and unsatisfied longing, fear and remorse, pain 
 and misery; and by the side of these, ah! how few joys! Who 
 would have imagined on coming to Egypt, that this luxuriant, 
 laughing sunny land, whose sky is always unclouded, could 
 possibly produce and nourish men given to bitterness and 
 severity? that within the charming, hospitable house of the 
 fortunate Rhodopis, covered and surrounded as it was with 
 sweet flowers, a heart could have been beating in the deepest 
 sadness? And, still more, who among all the guests of that 
 honored, admired Thracian woman, would have believed that 
 this sad heart belonged to her? to the gracious, smiling matron, 
 Rhodopis herself? 
 
 She was sitting with Phanes, in a shady arbor near the 
 cooling spray of a fountain. One could see that she had been
 
 50 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 weeping again, but her face was beautiful and kind as ever. 
 The Athenian was holding her hand and trying to comfort her. 
 
 Rhodopis listened patiently, and smiled the while; at times 
 her smile was bitter, at others it gave assent to his words. At 
 last, however, she interrupted her well-intentioned friend by 
 saying: 
 
 "Phanes, I thank you. Sooner or later this last disgrace 
 must be forgotten too. Time is clever in the healing art. If 
 I were weak I should leave Naukratis- and live in retirement 
 for my grandchild alone; a whole world, believe me, lies slum- 
 'bering in that young creature. Many and many a time I have 
 longed to leave Egypt and as often have conquered the wish. 
 Not because I cannot live without the homage of your sex; 
 of that I have already had more than enough in my life, but 
 because I feel that I, the slave-girl and the despised woman 
 once, am now useful, necessary, almost indispensable indeed, 
 to many free and noble men. Accustomed as I am, to an 
 extended sphere of work, in its nature resembling a man's, I 
 could not content myself with living for one being alone, how- 
 ever dear. I should dry up like a plant removed from a rich 
 soil into the desert, and should leave my grandchild desolate 
 indeed, three times orphaned, and alone in the world. No! 
 I shall remain in Egypt. 
 
 "Now that you are leaving I shall be really indispensable to 
 our friends here. Amasis is old; when Psamtik comes to the 
 throne we shall have infinitely greater difficulties to contend 
 with than heretofore. I must remain and fight on in the fore- 
 front of our battle for the freedom and welfare of the Hellenic 
 race. Let them call my efforts unwomanly if they will. This is, 
 and shall be, the purpose of my life, a purpose to which I will 
 remain all the more faithful, because it is one of those to which 
 a woman rarely dares devote her life. During this last night 
 of tears I have felt that much, very much of that womanly 
 weakness still lingers in me which forms at once the happiness 
 and misery of our sex. To preserve this feminine weakness 
 in my granddaughter, united with perfect womanly delicacy, 
 has been my first duty; my second to free myself entirely from 
 it. But a war against one's own nature cannot be carried on 
 without occasional defeat, even if ultimately successful. When 
 grief and pain are gaining the upper hand and I am well-nigh 
 in despair, my only help lies in remembering my friend Pythag-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 51 
 
 oras, :|: that noblest among men, and his words: 'Observe a 
 clue proportion in all things, avoid excessive joy as well as 
 complaining grief, and seek to keep thy soul in tune and har- 
 mony like a well-toned harp.' This Pythagorean inward peace, 
 this deep, untroubled calm, I see daily before me in my Sappho; 
 and struggle to attain it myself, though many a stroke of fate 
 untunes the chords of my poor heart. I am calm now! You 
 would hardly believe what power the mere thought of that fist 
 of all thinkers, that calm, deliberate man, whose life acted on 
 mine like sweet, soft music, has over me. You knew him, you 
 can understand what I mean. Now, mention your wish; my 
 heart is as calmly quiet as the Nile waters which are flowing 
 by so quietly, and I am ready to hear it, be it good or evil." 
 
 "I am glad to see you thus," said the Athenian. "If you had 
 remembered the noble friend of wisdom, as Pythagoras was 
 wont to call himself, f a little sooner, your smil would have 
 regained its balance yesterday. The master enjoins us to look 
 back every evening on the events, feelings and actions of the 
 day just past. Now had you done this, you would have felt that 
 the unfeigned admiration of all your guests, among whom were 
 men of distinguished merit, outweighed a thousandfold the in- 
 ^jurious words of a drunken libertine; you would have felt too 
 that you were a friend of the gods, for was it not in your house 
 that the immortals gave that noble old man at last, after his long 
 years of misfortune, the greatest joy that can fall to the lot of 
 any human being? and did they not take from you one friend 
 only in order to replace him in the same moment, by another 
 and a better? Come, I will hear no contradiction. Now for 
 my request. 
 
 "You know that sometimes people call me an Athenian, 
 
 *There is no question that Pythagoras visited Egypt during the 
 reign of Amasis, probably toward the middle of the "sixth century 
 (according to our reckoning, about 536 B. C.). "Herod.," ii, 81, 123. 
 "Diod.," i, 98. Chaeremon in "Porphyrius de abstin.," iv. Jambli- 
 chus "vit. Pythag.," 35. Rich information about Pythagoras is to be 
 found in the works of the very learned scholar Roeth, "Geschichte 
 unserer Abendlander, Philos.," vol. ii, who is, however, occasionally 
 much too bold in his conjectures. 
 
 fPythagoras was the first among Greek thinkers (speculators). He 
 would not take the name of a wise man or "sage," but called himself 
 "Philosophus," or a "friend of wisdom."
 
 52 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 sometimes a Halikarnassian.* Now, as the Ionian, Aeolian 
 and Dorian mercenaries have never been on good terms with 
 the Karians, my almost triple descent (if I may call it so) has 
 proved very useful to me as commander of both of these 
 divisions. Well qualified as Aristomachus may be for the com- 
 mand, yet in this one point Amasis will miss me; for I found iti 
 an easier matter to settle the differences among the troops and 
 keep them at peace, while he, as a Spartan, will find it very diffi- 
 cult to keep right with the Karian soldiers. 
 
 "This double nationality of mine arises from the fact that my 
 father married a Halikarnassian wife out of a noble Dorian 
 family, and, at the time of my birth, was staying with her in 
 Halikarnassus, having come thither in order to cake possession 
 of her parental inheritance. So, though I was taken back to 
 Athens before I was three months old, I must still be called a 
 Karian, as a man's native land is decided by his birthplace. 
 
 "In Athens, as a young nobleman, belonging to that most 
 aristocratic and ancient family, the Philaidae, I was reared and 
 educated in all the pride of an Attic noble. Pisistratus, brave 
 and clever, and though of equal, yet by no means of higher 
 birth, than ourselves, for there exists no family more aristo- 
 cratic than my father's, gained possession of the supreme 
 authority. Twice, the nobles, by uniting all their strength, 
 succeeded in overthrowng him, and when, the third time, 
 assisted by Lygdamis of Naxos, the Argives and Eretrians, 
 he attempted to return, we opposed him again. We had en- 
 camped by the temple of Minerva at Pallene, and were engaged 
 in sacrificing to the goddess, early, before our first meal, when 
 we were suddenly surprised by the clever tyrant, who gained 
 an easy, bloodless victory over our unarmed troops. As half 
 of the entire army opposed to the tyrant was under my com- 
 
 *Halikarnassus, a town on the southwest coast of Asia Minor now 
 called Bodru, was a Dorian colony planted in the Karian territory. 
 Herodotus, himself a Halikarnassian, calls Phanes a native of the 
 same place. "Herod.," i, 63, 64. We have made him an Athenian 
 in order to give our readers an idea of an Attic noble. For this we 
 have been blamed and perhaps justly, by the learned Dutch Professor 
 Peth in his first-rate critique on this book; and in our second edition 
 we should have made a Halikarnassian of Phanes entirely, if it had 
 not been so important to our story to represent an Ionian Greek in 
 active life.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 53 
 
 mand, I determined rather to die than yield, fought with my 
 whole strength, implored the soldiers to remain steadfast, 
 resisted without yielding a point, but fell at last with a spear in 
 my shoulder. 
 
 "The Pisistratidae became lords of Athens.* I fled to 
 Halikarnassus, my second home, accompanied by my wife and 
 children. There my name being known through some daring 
 military exploits and through my having once conquered in the 
 Pythian gamesf I was appointed to a command in the mercen- 
 ary troops of the king of Egypt; accompanied the expedition to 
 Cyprus, shared with Aristomachus the renown of having con- 
 quered the birthplace of Aphrodite for Amasis, and finally 
 was named commander-in-chief of all the mercenaries in 
 Egypt 
 
 "Last summer my wife died; our children, a boy of eleven 
 and a girl of ten years old, remained with an aunt in Halikar- 
 nassus. But she, too, has followed to the inexorable Hades, 
 and so only a few days ago I sent for the little ones here. They 
 cannot, however, possibly reach Naukratis in less than three 
 weeks, and yet they will already have set out on their journey 
 before a letter to countermand my first order could reach them. 
 
 "I must leave Egypt in fourteen days, and cannot therefore 
 receive them myself. 
 
 "My own intentions are to go to the Thracian Chersonese, 
 where my uncle, as you know, has been called to fill a high 
 office among the Delonki4 The children shall follow me 
 thither; my faithful old slave Korax will remain in Naukratis 
 on purpose to bring them to me. 
 
 "Now if you will show me that you are in deed and truth 
 my friend, will you receive the little ones and take care of them 
 till the next ship sails for Thrace? But above all, will you care- 
 fully conceal them from the eyes of the crown prince's spies? 
 You know that Psamtik hates me mortally, and he could easily 
 
 *"Thucyd.," vi, 56, 57. 
 
 fThe Pythian games were solemnized every fourth year, near 
 Delphi, in honor of Apollo the Python slayer. They fell in the third 
 year of each Olympiad. 
 
 f'Herod.," vi, 35, 36. "Laert. Diog.," i, 47. Miltiades, having enter- 
 tained in his house, on their way to Delphi, the messengers sent by the 
 Dolonki, a Thracian tribe at feud with their neighbors, was chosen to 
 be their prince.
 
 54 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 revenge himself on the father through the children. I ask you 
 for this great favor; first, because I know your kindness by 
 experience; and secondly, because your house has been made 
 secure by the king's letter of guaranty, and they will therefore 
 be safe here from the inquiries of the police ; notwithstanding 
 that, by the laws of this most formal country, all strangers, 
 children not excepted, must give up their names to the officer 
 of the district. 
 
 "You can now judge of the depth of my esteem, Rhodopis. 
 I am committing into your hands all that makes life precious to 
 me, for even my native land has ceased to be dear while she sub- 
 mits, so ignominiously to her tyrants. Will you then restore 
 tranquillity to an anxious father's heart, will you 
 
 "I will, Phanes, I will!" cried the aged woman in undisguised 
 delight. "You are not asking me for anything, you are present- 
 ing me with a gift. Oh, how I look forward already to their ar- 
 rival! And how glad Sappho will be when the little creatures 
 come and enliven her solitude! But this I can assure you, 
 Phanes, I shall not let my little guests depart with the first 
 Thracian ship. You can surely afford to be separated from 
 them one short half-year longer, and I promise you they shall 
 receive the best lessons, and be guided to all that is good and 
 beautiful." 
 
 "On that head I have no fear," answered Phanes, with a 
 thankful smile. "But still you must send off the two little 
 plagues by the first ship; my anxiety as to Psamtik's revenge 
 is only too well grounded. Take my most heartfelt thanks be- 
 forehand for all the love and kindness which you will show to 
 my children. I too hope and believe that the merry little 
 creatures will be an amusement and pleasure to Sappho in her 
 lonely life." 
 
 "And more," interrupted Rhodopis, looking down; "this 
 proof of confidence repays a thousandfold the disgrace inflicted 
 on me last night in a moment of intoxication. But here comes 
 Sappho!"
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Five days after the evening we have just described at Rho- 
 dopis' house an immense multitude was to be seen assembled 
 at the harbor of Sais. 
 
 Egyptians of both sexes and of every age and class were 
 thronging to the water's edge. 
 
 Soldiers and merchants, whose various ranks in society were 
 betokened by the length of their white garments, bordered with 
 colored fringes, were interspersed among the crowd of half- 
 naked, sinewy men whose only clothing consisted of an apion, 
 the costume of the lower classes. Naked children crowded, 
 pushed and fought to get the best places. Mothers in short 
 cloaks* were holding their little ones up to see the sight which 
 by this means they entirely lost themselves, and a troop of dogs 
 and cats were playing and fighting at the feet of these eager 
 sight-seers, who took the greatest pains not to tread on, or in 
 any way injure the sacred animals. 
 
 The police kept order among this huge crowd with long 
 staves,f on the metal heads of which the king's name was in- 
 scribed. Their care was especially needed to prevent any of 
 the. people from being pushed into the swollen Nile, an arm of 
 which, in the season of the inundations, washes the walls of 
 Sais. 
 
 On the broad flight of steps, which led between two rows 
 of sphinxes down to the landing-place of the royal boats, was 
 a very different kind of assembly. 
 
 The priests of the highest rank were seated there on stone 
 benches, clothed in long white garments, white fillets bound 
 around their heads and staves in their hands. Among them 
 the supreme judge was distinguished by a long, waving ostrich 
 feather attached to his head-dress, longer and larger than any 
 
 *According to various pictures on the Egyptian monuments. The 
 mothers are from "Wilkinson," iii, 363. 
 
 f'Wilkinson," iii, 386. These sticks, in Mr. Salt's collection, were 
 found at Thebes and are made of cherry-tree wood. Egyptians bear- 
 ing staves are to be seen on nearly all the monuments; and Egyptian 
 staves are preserved in most museums.
 
 56 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 worn by the other priests, and by a costly sapphire amulet 
 which lay on his breast suspended by a golden chain.* 
 
 The highest officers of the Egyptian army wore uniforms of 
 gay colors,f .and carried short swords in their girdles. On the 
 right side of the steps a division of the bodyguard was sta- 
 tioned, armed with battle-axes, daggers, bows and large shields ; 
 on the left were the Greek mercenaries, armed in Ionian fash- 
 ion. Their new leader, our friend Aristomachus, stood with a 
 few of his own officers apart from the Egyptians, by the colossal 
 statues of Psamtik I, which had been erected on the space 
 above the steps, their faces toward the river. 
 
 In front of these statues, on a silver chair, sat Psamtik, the 
 heir to the throne. He wore a close-fitting garment of many 
 colors, interwoven with gold,J and was surrounded by the 
 most distinguished among the king's courtiers, chamberlains, 
 counselors and friends, all bearing staves with peacock's feath- 
 ers and lotus-flowers. 
 
 The multitude gave vent to their impatience by shouting, 
 singing and quarreling; but the priests and magnates on the 
 steps preserved a dignified and solemn silence. Each, with 
 his steady, unmoved gaze, his stiffly curled false wig and 
 beard,|| and his solemn, deliberate manner, resembled the two 
 long statues, which, the one precisely similar to the other, 
 stood also motionless on their respective places, gazing calmly 
 into the stream. 
 
 *This amulet bore a representation of t-Ma, the goddess of truth, 
 wearing an ostrich feather on her head. She is also represented 
 with closed eyes. See "Wilkinson," ii, 28, and vi, pi. 49. Aelian 
 mentions this amulet as an effigy in sapphire stone, dyafy/a aafaipov 
 AiOov. Diodorus speaks of it as set with precious stones. The 
 entire priesthood or orders of the Pterphorae wore the ostrich- 
 feather; and many high priestly orders wore feathers on the head. 
 See the edict of Kanopus, line 5 of the Greek text, and Clemens Alex. 
 "Strom, ed. Polter.," p. 767 and 58. (Vol. iv.) "Wilkinson," i, 1. 
 Ebers, "Aegypten.," i, p. 343. 
 
 f'Wilkinson," iii, PI. 3. Rosellini "Mon. Stor.," i, 79. "Mon. Civ.," 
 pi. 121. 
 
 JRosellini, "Mon. Stor.," i, pi. 81. 
 
 In nearly every case where the Pharaoh appears he is accompanied 
 by men with such staves in their hands. "Fan-bearer" was a usual 
 title among those in office about the court. 
 
 ||In the Berlin Museum a similar wig is still to be seen, the curls 
 of which are two feet six inches long. This mode probably owed its 
 origin to the religious ordinance which prescribed shorn hair.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 57 
 
 At last, silken sails, checkered with purple and blue, ap- 
 peared in sight.* 
 
 The crowd shouted with delight. Cries of "They are com- 
 ing! Here they are!" "Take care, or you'll tread on that kit- 
 ten." "Nurse, hold the child higher that she may see something 
 of the sight." "You are pushing me into the water, Sebak!" 
 "Have a care, Phoenician, the boys are throwing burrs into your 
 long beard." "Now, now, you Greek fellow, don't fancy that 
 all Egypt belongs to you, because Amasis allows you to live on 
 the shores of the sacred river!" "Shameless set, these Greeks, 
 down with them!" shouted a priest, and the cry was at once 
 echoed from many mouths. "Down with the eaters of swine's 
 flesh and despisers of the gods!"f 
 
 From words they were proceeding to deeds, but the police 
 were not to be trifled with, and by a vigorous use of their 
 staves, the tumult was soon stilled. The large, gay sails, easily 
 to be distinguished among the brown, white and blue ones of 
 the smaller Nile-boats which swarmed around them, came 
 nearer and nearer to the expectant throng. Then at last the 
 crown-prince and the dignitaries arose from their seats. The 
 royal band of trumpeters^ blew a shrill and piercing blast of 
 welcome, and the first of the expected boats stopped at the land- 
 ing place. 
 
 It was a rather long, richly gilded vessel, and bore a silver 
 sparrow-hawk as figurehead. In its midst rose a golden can- 
 
 ""Wilkinson," iii, p. 211, pi. 16. "Ezekiel," 27, 7. "Fine linen with 
 broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to 
 be thy sail." Diimichen, "Flotte einer Aegyptischen Konigin." The 
 colored pictures were still more brilliant. Rosellini, "Mon. Civ.," pi. 
 107, 108. 
 
 tThe Egyptians were, like the Jews, forbidden to eat swine's flesh. 
 Porphyr. "De Abstin.," iv. The swine was considered as an especially 
 unclean animal pertaining to Typhon (Egyptian, set) as the* boar to 
 Ares, and swineherds were an especially despised race. Animals 
 with bristles were only sacrificed at the feast of Osiris. "Herod.," ii, 
 i'!. It is probable that Moses borrowed his prohibition of swine'a 
 flesh from the Egyptian laws with regard to unclean animals. When 
 we read of rich Egyptians boasting in the possession, for example, of 
 fifteen hundred swine (S. Brugsch, "Reise nach Aegypten," p. 223) this 
 must be taken in connection with the information from Herodotus, no- 
 ticed. above. 
 
 f'Trumpeters," "Wilkinson," i, 290, pi. 13. Diimichen, "Flotte einer 
 Aegyptischen Konigin," taf. 8 and 10.
 
 58 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 opy with a purple covering, beneath which cushions were con- 
 veniently arranged. On each deck in the fore-part of the ship 
 sat twelve rowers, their aprons attached by costly fastenings.* 
 
 Beneath the canopy lay six fine-looking men in glorious ap- 
 parel ; and before the ship had touched the shore the youngest 
 of these, a beautiful fair-haired youth, sprang onto the steps. 
 
 Many an Egyptian girl's mouth uttered a lengthened "Ah" 
 at this glorious sight, and even the grave faces of some of the 
 dignitaries brightened into a friendly smile. 
 
 The name of this much-admired youth was Bartja.f He 
 was the son of the late, and brother of the reigning king of 
 Persia, and had been endowed by nature with every gift that a 
 youth of twenty years could desire for himself. 
 
 Around his tiara was wound a blue-and-white turban, be- 
 neath which hung fair, golden curls of beautiful, abundant hair; 
 his blue eyes sparkled with life and joy, kindness and high spir- 
 its, almost with sauciness; his noble features, around which the 
 down of a manly beard was already visible, were worthy of a 
 Grecian sculptor's chisel, and his slender but muscular figure 
 told of strength and activity. The splendor of his apparel was 
 proportioned to his personal beauty. A brilliant star of dia- 
 monds and turquoises glittered in the front of his tiara. An 
 upper garment of rich white and gold brocade reached just 
 below the knees, was fastened round the waist with a girdle of 
 blue and white, the royal colors of Persia. In this girdle 
 gleamed a short, golden sword, its hilt and scabbard thickly 
 studded with opals and sky-blue turquoises. The trousers were 
 
 *Splendid Nile-boats were possessed, in greater or less numbers, by 
 all men of high rank. Even in the tomb of Ti at Sakkara, which dates 
 from the time of the pyramids, we meet with a chief overseer of the 
 vessels belonging to a wealthy Egyptian. See note, p. 57. 
 
 tThis Bartja is better known under the name of Smerdes, but on 
 what account the Greeks gave him this name is not clear. In the 
 cuneiform inscriptions of Bisitun or Behistan, he is called Bartja, or, 
 according to Spiegel, "Altpersische Inschriften," p. 5, x, Bardiya. We 
 have chosen, for the sake of easy pronunciation, the former, which is 
 Rawlinson's simplified reading of the name. Note of the Behistun 
 inscription. "Journ. of the Asiat. Soc." The son of Amasis we have 
 named Psamtik after the titles at Karnak and in the island of Philae; 
 the Greeks called him Psammetichos, Psamenitos and also Psamme- 
 cherites a name in which Unger, "Chronologie des Manetho," p. 284, 
 conjectures a metathesis of Psemtek (Psamtik) Ra,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 59 
 
 of the same rich material as the robe, fitting closely at the ankle, 
 and ending within a pair of short boots of light blue leather. 
 
 The long, wide sleeves of his robe displayed a pair of vigor- 
 ous arms, adorned with many costly bracelets of gold and jew- 
 els; round his slender neck and on his broad chest lay a 
 golden chain.* 
 
 Such was the youth who first sprang on shore. He was 
 followed by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a young Persian of 
 the blood royal, similar in person to Bartja, and scarcely less 
 gorgeously appareled than he. The third to disembark was 
 an aged man with snow-white hair, in whose face the gentle 
 and kind expression of childhood was united with the intellect 
 of a man and the experience of old age. His dress consisted 
 of a long purple robe with sleeves and the yellow boots worn 
 by the Lydians,f his whole appearance produced an impression 
 of the greatest modesty and a total absence of pretension. Yet 
 this simple old man had been, but a few years before, the most 
 envied of his race and age, and, even in our day at two thousand 
 years interval, his name is used as a synonym for the highest 
 point of worldly riches attainable by mankind. The old man to 
 whom we are now introduced is no other than Croesus, the de- 
 throned king of Lydia, who was then living at the court of 
 Cambyses, as his friend and counselor, and had accompanied 
 the young Bartja to Egypt, in the capacity of mentor. 
 
 Croesus was followed by Prexaspes, the king's Ambassa- 
 dor, Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, a Persian noble, the friend 
 of Bartja and Darius, and, lastly, by his own son, the slender, 
 pale Gyges, who, after having become dumb in his fourth year 
 through the fearful anguish he had suffered on his father's ac- 
 count of the taking of Sardis, had now recovered the power of 
 speech. ij: 
 
 Psamtik descended the steps to welcome the strangers. His 
 
 *"Curtius," iii, 3. Xenoph.-"Cyrop.," vii, 3, 7. Book of Esther, i, 
 6; viii; 15. Aeschylus, "Persians," 661. "Sculptures of Persepolis in 
 Niebuhr and Others." The rest from Overbeck's Pompeian mosaic 
 floor representing Darius conquered by Alexander. Schneider's opin- 
 ion that this picture treats of the battle of Clastidium does not seem to 
 me justified. 
 
 fOn account of these boots, which are constantly mentioned, Croe- 
 sus was named by the oracle "soft-footed,""Aw57ro<5a6/>e," "Herod.," i, 55. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 85.
 
 60 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 austere, sallow face endeavored to assume a smile. The high 
 officials in his train bowed down nearly to the ground, allow- 
 ing their arms to hang loosely at their sides. The Persians, 
 crossing their hands on their breasts, cast themselves on the 
 earth before the heir to the Egyptian throne. When the first 
 formalities were over Bartja, according to the custom of his 
 native country, but greatly to the astonishment of the popu- 
 lace, who were totally unaccustomed to such a sight, kissed 
 the sallow cheek of the Egyptian prince; he then took his way 
 to the litters waiting to convey him and 'his escort to the dwell- 
 ing designed for them by the king in the palace at Sais. 
 
 A portion of the crowd streamed after the strangers, but the 
 larger number remained at their places, knowing that many a 
 new and wonderful sight yet awaited them. 
 
 "Are you going to run after those dresed-up monkeys and 
 children of Typhon, too?"'* asked an angry priest of his neigh- 
 bor, a respectable tailor of Sais. "I tell you, Puhor, and the 
 high-priest says so, too, that these strangers can bring no good 
 to the black land. I am for the good old times, when no one 
 who cared for his life dared set foot on Eyptian soil. Now our 
 streets are literally swarming with cheating Hebrews,f and, 
 above all, with those insolent Greeks whom may the gods de- 
 stroy ! Only look, there is the third boat full of strangers ! And 
 do you know what kind of people these Persians are? The 
 high-priest says that in the whole of their kingdom, which is as- 
 large as half the world, there is not a single temple to the 
 gods; and that instead of giving decent burial to the dead, they 
 leave them to be torn in pieces by dogs and vultures.^ 
 
 *See note p. 89. 
 
 tThe Jews were called Hebrews (Apuriu) by the Egyptians, as 
 brought to light by Chabas. See Ebers, "Aegypten," i, p. 316. 
 
 JThese statements are correct, as the Persians, at the time of the 
 dynasty of Achaemenidae, had no temples, but used fire-altars and 
 exposed their dead to the dogs and vultures. An impure corpse was 
 not permitted to defile the pure earth by its decay; nor might it be 
 committed to the fire or water for destruction, as their purity would 
 be equally polluted by such an act. But as it was impossible to cause 
 the dead bodies to vanish, Dakhmas or burying-places were laid out, 
 which had to be covered with pavement and cement not less than four 
 inches thick, and surrounded by cords to denote that the whole struc- 
 ture was as it were suspended in the air, and did not come in contact 
 with the pure earth. Spiegel, "Avesta.," ii, "Einleitung.," 2, "Cap. 
 nach Anquetil.," picture of the Dakhma, vol. ii, tafel. i.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 61 
 
 The tailor's indignation at hearing' this was even greater than 
 his astonishment, and pointing to the landing-steps, he cried: 
 
 "It is really too bad. See, there is the sixth boat full of these 
 foreigners !" 
 
 "Yes, it is hard indeed!" sighed the priest "One might fancy 
 a whole army arriving. Amasis will go on in this manner until 
 the strangers drive him from his throne and country, and plun- 
 der and make slaves of us poor creatures as the evil Hyksos, 
 those scourges of Egypt,* and the black Ethiopians did in the 
 days of old." 
 
 "The seventh boat!" shouted the tailor. 
 
 "May my protectress, Neith, the great goddess of Sais, de- 
 
 *Foreign rulers over Egypt, whose descent it is difficult to deter- 
 mine, were called Hyksos. We have proof of their existence, not :>nly 
 in Manetho, but from highly interesting monuments, discovered prin- 
 cipally at Tanis in the delta. These, coming from the hand of Egyptian 
 artists, represent the features of foreign rulers devoted to the worship 
 of Set (Typhon). A papyrus document ("Sallier," i), has also been pre- 
 served, which tells of the last days of this foreign supremacy; and a 
 description of the storming of their fortress Abaris from sea and land 
 is to be found in the tomb of the naval commander, Ahmes. Some of 
 the names of these Hyksos kings have been preserved through the 
 Turin papyrus of the kings, and the Stela with the era of the four 
 hundred years found at Tanis; a small lion discovered at Bagdad and 
 other monuments, refer also to the Hyksos epoch. The last kings of 
 the seventeenth dynasty (the lawful rulers of Egypt had been driven 
 southward), entered on a war with the alien rulers; and in the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth dynasty we find the whole kingdom under one 
 scepter. We believe these, Hyksos to have been the over-powerful 
 Phoenician colony in the north of the delta, joined by Arabians and 
 some of the tribes from Palestine. They ruled for more than four 
 hundred years; and their expulsion may be fixed about 1600 B. C. 
 They must, in no case, as has often been done since Fl. Josephus, ue 
 confounded with the Jews. For further particulars see Ebers, "Aegyp- ' 
 ten und die Biicher Mose's," p. 198 and following. We also refer the 
 reader (though we do not in all points agree with his conclusion) to 
 Chabas' interesting work, "Les Pasteurs en Egypte." Amsterdam, 
 1868. During the last thousand years before Christ the Ethiopians 
 prevailed in Egypt, under three rulers; the last of whom, Taharka 
 (Tirhaka), was expelled in 693. The priest-king of Upper Egypt, Pian- 
 chi, who had to encounter a severe resistance from the little dynasties 
 in the delta, was an Ethiopian, see the Stela of Pianchi. E. de Rouge, 
 "Rev. Archeol.," n. s. viii, p. 96. The appellation, "scourges of man- 
 kind," which the Egyptian here applies to the Hyksos, was in fact the 
 name of detraction applied to these interlopers; in Egyptian aat-u. 
 Chabas has explained this in the "Melanges Egyptol.," i, 263.
 
 62 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 stroy me, if I can understand the king," complained the priest. 
 "He sent three barks to Naukratis, that poisonous nest hated 
 of the gods, to fetch the servants and baggage of these Per- 
 sians; but instead of three, eight had to be procured, for these 
 despisers of the gods and profaners of dead bodies have not 
 only brought kitchen utensils, dogs, horses, carriages, chests, 
 baskets, and bales, but have dragged with them thousands of 
 miles a whole host of servants. They tell me that some of them 
 have no other work than twining of garlands and preparing 
 ointments.* Their priests, too, whom they call Magi, are here 
 with them. I should like to know what they are for. Of what 
 use is a priest where there is no temple?" 
 
 The old King Amasis received the Persian embassy shortly 
 after their arrival with all the amiability and kindness peculiar 
 to him. 
 
 Four days later, after having attended to the affairs of state, 
 a duty punctually fulfilled by him every morning without ex- 
 ception, he went forth to walk with Croesus in the royal gar- 
 dens. The remaining members of the embassy, accompanied 
 by the crown-prince, were engaged in an excursion up the Xile 
 to the city of Memphis. 
 
 The palace gardens, of a royal magnificence, yet similar in 
 their arrangement to those of Rhodopis, lay in the northwest 
 part of Sais near the royal citadel. 
 
 Here, under the shadow of a spreading plane-tree and near 
 a gigantic basin of red granite, into which an abundance or 
 clear water flowed perpetually through the jaws of black basalt 
 crocodile, the two old men seated themselves. 
 
 The dethroned king, though in reality some years the elder 
 of the two, looked far fresher and more vigorous than the pow- 
 erful monarch at his side. Amasis was tall, but his neck was 
 
 *"Herod.," vii, 83. Xenoph. "Cyrop.," vii, 10. "Anab.," vi, 4. In the 
 train of Darius taken captive by Alexander, there were according to 
 Athenaeus, two hundred and seventy-seven men-cooks, twenty-nine 
 kitchen-boys, seventeen coopers, seventy butlers, forty preparers of 
 ointments and sixty-six wreathers of garlands.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 63 
 
 bent; his corpulent body was supported by weak and slender 
 legs; and his face, though well formed, was lined and furrowed. 
 But a vigorous spirit sparkled in the small, flashing eyes, and 
 an expression of raillery, sly banter, and at times, even of irony, 
 played around his remarkably full lips. The low, broad brow, 
 the larger and beautifully arched head bespoke great mental 
 power,* and in the changing color of his eyes one seemed to 
 read that neither wit nor passion were wanting in the man, 
 who, from his simple place as soldier in the ranks, had worked 
 his way up to the throne of the Pharaohs. His voice was 
 sharp and hard, and his movements, in comparison with the 
 deliberation of the other members of the Egyptian court, ap- 
 peared almost morbidly active. 
 
 The attitude and bearing of his neighbor Croesus were 
 graceful, and in every way worthy of a king. His whole man- 
 ner showed that he had lived in frequent intercourse with the 
 highest and noblest minds of Greece. Thales, Anaximander 
 and Anaximenes of Miletus, Bias of Priene,t Solon of Athens, 
 Pittakus of Lesbos, the most celebrated Hellenic philosophers, 
 had in former and happier days been guests at the court of 
 Croesus in Sardis. His full clear voice sounded like pure song 
 when compared with the shrill tones of Amasis. 
 
 "Now tell me openly," began King Pharaoh $ in tolerably 
 fluent Greek, "what opinion hast thou formed of Egypt? Thy 
 judgment possesses for me more worth than that of any other 
 man, for three reasons; thou art better acquainted with most of 
 the countries and nations of this earth; the gods have not only 
 allowed thee to ascend the ladder of fortune to its utmost sum- 
 mit, but also to descend it; and thirdly, thou hast long been the 
 first counselor to the mightiest of kings. Would that my king- 
 dom might please thee so well that thou wouldst remain here 
 and become to me a brother. Verily, Croesus, my friend hast 
 
 *In Rosellini, "Mon. Stor.," pi. xiii, 53, is the portrait of Amasis as a 
 youth. The features lead one to suppose that Herodotus has given the 
 characteristics of this prince correctly. 
 
 fBias, a philosopher of Ionian origin, flourished about 560 B. C. and 
 was especially celebrated for his wise maxims on morals and law. 
 After his death, which took place during his defense of a friend in the 
 public court, a temple was erected to him by his countrymen. Lae'rt. 
 "Diog.," i, 88. 
 
 Jin English "great house," the high gate or "sublime porte." Egyp- 
 tian era. See Ebers, "Aegypten und die Biicher Mose's," i, p. 263.
 
 64 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 thou long been, though my eyes beheld thee yesterday for the 
 first time !" 
 
 "And thou mine," interrupted the Lydian. "I admire the 
 courage with which thou hast accomplished that which seemed 
 right and good in thine eyes, in spite of opposition near and 
 around thee. . I am thankful for the favor shown to the Hel- 
 lenes, my friends, and I regard thee as related to me by fortune, 
 for hast thou not also passed through all the extremes of good 
 and evil that life can offer?" 
 
 "With this difference," said Amasis, smiling, "that we started 
 from opposite points; in thy lot the good came first, the evil 
 later; whereas in my own this order has been reversed. In 
 saying this, however," he added, "I am supposing that my pres- 
 ent fortune is good for me, and that I enjoy it." 
 
 "And I, in that case," answered Croesus, "must be assuming 
 that I am unhappy in what men call my present ill-fortune." 
 
 "How can it possibly be otherwise after the loss of such 
 enormous possessions?" 
 
 "Does happiness consist then in possession?" asked Croesus. 
 "Is happiness itself a thing to be possessed? Nay, by no means! 
 It is nothing but a feeling, a sensation, which the envious gods 
 vouchsafe more often to the needy than to the mighty. The 
 clear sight of the latter becomes dazzled by the glittering treas- 
 ure, and they cannot but suffer continual humiliation; be- 
 cause, conscious of possessing power to obtain much, they 
 wage an eager war for all, and therein are continually defeated." 
 
 Amasis sighed, and answered: "I would I could prove thee 
 in the wrong; but in looking back on my past life I am fain 
 to confess that its cares began with that very hour which 
 brought me what men call my good fortune." "And I," 
 interrupted Croesus, "can assure thee I am thankful thou 
 delayedst to come to my help, inasmuch as the hour of my 
 overthrow was the beginning of true, unsullied happiness. 
 When I beheld the first Persians scale the walls of Sardis, I 
 execrated myself and the gods, life appeared odious to me, 
 existence a curse,. Fighting on, but in heart despairing, I 
 and my people were forced to yield. A Persian raised his 
 sword to cleave my skull in an instant my poor dumb son 
 had thrown himself between his father and the murderer, and 
 for the first time, after long years of silence, I heard him speak. 
 Terror had loosened his tongue; in that dreadful hour Gyges
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 65 
 
 learned once more to speak, and I, who but the moment 
 before had been cursing the gods, bowed down before their 
 power. I had commanded a slave to kill me the moment I 
 should be taken prisoner by the Persians, but now I deprived 
 him of his sword. I was a changed man, and by degrees 
 learned ever more and more to subdue the rage and indigna- 
 tion which yet from time to time would boil up again within 
 my soul, rebellious against my fate and my noble enemies. 
 Thou knowest that at last I became the friend of Cyrus, and 
 that my son grew up at his court, a free man at my side, 
 having entirely regained the use of his speech. Everything 
 beautiful and good that I had heard, seen or thought during 
 my long life I treasured up now for him ; he was my kingdom, 
 my crown, my treasure. Cyrus' days of care, his nights so reft 
 of sleep, reminded me with horror of my former greatness, 
 and from day to day it became more evident to me that happi- 
 ness has nothing to do with our outward circumstances. 
 Each man possesses the hidden germ in his own heart. A 
 contented, patient mind rejoicing much in all that is great 
 and beautiful and yet despising not the day of small things; 
 bearing sorrow without a murmur and sweetening it by call- 
 ing to remembrance former joy; moderation in all things; a 
 firm trust in the favor of the gods and a conviction that, all 
 things being subject to change, so with us too the worst must 
 pass ia due season; all this helps to mature the germ of happi- 
 ness, and give us power to smile where the man undisciplined 
 hy fate might yield to despair and fear." 
 
 Amasis listened attentively, drawing figures the while in 
 the sand with the golden flower on his staff. At last he 
 spoke: 
 
 "Verily, Croesus, I 'the great god,' 'the sun of righteous- 
 ness,' 'the son of Neith,' 'the lord of warlike glory,' as the 
 Egyptians call me,* am tempted to envy thee, dethroned 
 and plundered as thou art. I have been as happy as thou art 
 now. Once I was known through all Egypt, though only the 
 
 *Amasis bore this title. Rosellini, "Monument! dell'Egitt.," ii, 149. 
 That all the Pharaohs had similar distinctive titles and were honored 
 as gods is proved by thousands of hieroglyphic inscriptions, also by 
 the Rosetta inscription and canopus edict. The title of Neb pethi, 
 "lord of warlike glory," is frequently to be found in the twenty-sixth 
 dynasty.
 
 66 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 poor son of a captain, for my light heart, happy temper, fun 
 and high spirits* The common soldiers would do anything 
 for me, my superior officers could have found much fault, but 
 in the mad Amasis, as they called me, all was overlooked, and 
 among my equals (the other under-officers) there could be no 
 fun or merrymaking unless I took a share in it. My pred- 
 ecessor, King Hophra, sent us against Cyrene. Seized with 
 thirst in the desert we refused to go on, and a suspicion that 
 the king intended to sacrifice us to the Greek mercenaries 
 drove the army to open mutiny. In my usual joking manner 
 I called out to my friends: 'You can never get on without a 
 king, take me for your ruler; a merrier you will never find!' 
 The soldiers caught the words. 'Amasis will be our king,' 
 ran through the ranks from man to man, and, in a few hours 
 more, they came to me with shouts and acclamations of 'The 
 good, jovial Amasis for our king!' One of my boon-com- 
 panions set a field-marshal's helmet on my head; I made 
 the joke earnest, and we defeated Hophra at Momemphis. 
 The people joined in the conspiracy, I ascended the throne, 
 and men pronounced me fortunate. Up to that time I had 
 been every Egyptian's friend, and now I was the enemy of 
 the best men in the nation. 
 
 "The priests swore allegiance to me and accepted me as 
 a member of their caste, but only in the hope of guiding me at 
 their will. My former superiors in command either envied 
 me or wished to remain on the same terms of intercourse as 
 formerly. But this would have been inconsistent with my 
 new position and have undermined my authority. One day, 
 therefore, when the officers of the host were at one of my 
 banquets and attempting, as usual, to maintain their old con- 
 vivial footing I showed them the golden basin in which their 
 feet had been washed before sitting down to meat; five days 
 later, as they were again drinking at one of my revels I 
 caused a golden image of the great god Raf to be placed upon 
 
 *See "Herod.," ii, 172 and following. "Diod.," i, 95. 
 
 fRa, with the masculine article Phra, must be regarded as the 
 central point of the sun-worship of the Egyptians, which we consider 
 to have been the foundation of their entire religion. He was more 
 especially worshiped at Heliopolis, the Egyptian An. (Hebrew On). 
 He is generally represented in red on the monuments. His sacred 
 animal was the sparrow-hawk and a winged disk of the sun his sym-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 67 
 
 the richly ornamented banqueting-table. On perceiving it 
 they fell down to worship. As they rose from their knees I 
 took the scepter, and, holding it up on high with much 
 solemnity, exclaimed: 'In five days an artificer has trans- 
 formed the despised vessel into which ye spat and in which men 
 washed your feet into this divine image. Such a vessel was I, 
 but the deity, who can fashion better and more quickly than a 
 goldsmith, has made me your king. Bow down then before 
 me and worship. He who henceforth refuses to obey, or is 
 unmindful of the reverence due to the king, is guilty of death.' 
 
 "They fell down before me, every one, and I saved my 
 authority, but lost my friends. As I now stood in need of 
 some other prop I fixed on the Hellenes, knowing that in all 
 military qualifications one Greek is worth more than five 
 Egyptians, and that with this assistance I should be able to 
 carry out those measures which I thought beneficial. 
 
 "I kept the Greek mercenaries always round me, I learned 
 their language, and it was they who brought to me the noblest 
 being I ever met, Pythagoras. I endeavored to introduce 
 Greek art and manners among ourselves,' seeing what folly 
 
 bol. In the ritual of the dead he plays the most important part, and 
 hymns and prayers were principally addressed to him. Plato, Eudoxus 
 and probably Pythagoras also profited by the teachings of his priests. 
 The obelisks serving also as memorial monuments on which the 
 names and deeds of great kings were recorded, were sacred to him, 
 and Pliny remarks of them that they represented the rays of the sun. 
 He was regarded as the god of light, the director of the entire visible 
 creation, over which he reigned, as Osiris over the world of spirits. 
 As, however, every earthly manifestation is only the veil before a spir- 
 itual one, Ra is in reality only the earthly manifestation of Osiris. 
 Osiris is the "soul of Ra;" he walks in this our world as Ra, returning 
 every evening to the distant sphere in which he lives alone, and which 
 is his true native land. He only changes his name and outward form 
 of existence, governing as Osiris there and as Ra in our world. Each 
 morning he reproduces from himself the renovated Ra, as Horus Ra, 
 and again "enters on the same orbit. Lepsius, "Alteste Texte des 
 Todtenbuches." The myth of Osiris, Isis and Horus lends an allegor- 
 ic-dramatic form to these views. The Phoenix was also a part of the 
 worship of Ra. Every five hundred years it came from the land of 
 palms (the eastern Phoenicia) to be consumed by fire in the temple of 
 Heliopolis and to rise from its own ashes in new and greater beauty. 
 It symbolized a period of five hundred years, which, like the Phoenix, 
 eternally reproduced itself, and in its sixfold repetition determined 
 the time needed by the soul before it should go forth purified from its 
 pilgrimage. Lepsius, "Chronologic," p. 180 and following.
 
 68 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 lay in a self-willed adherence to that which has been handed 
 down to us, when it is in itself bad and unworthy, while the 
 good seed lay on our Egyptian soil, only waiting to be sown. 
 
 "I portioned out the whole land to suit my purposes,* ap- 
 pointed the best police in the world and accomplished much; 
 but my highest aim, namely, to infuse into this country, at 
 once so gay and so gloomy, the spirit and intellect of the 
 Greeks, their sense of beauty in form, their love of life and 
 joy in it, this all was shivered on the same rock which 
 threatens me with overthrow and ruin whenever I attempt 
 to accomplish anything new. The priests are my opponents, 
 my masters ; they hang like a dead weight upon me. Clinging 
 with superstitious awe to all that is old and traditionary, 
 abominating everything foreign, and regarding every stranger 
 as the natural enemy of their authority and their teachings, 
 they can lead the most devout and religious of all nations with 
 a power that has scarcely any limits. For this I am forced to 
 sacrifice all my plans, for this I see my life passing away in 
 bondage to their severe ordinances, this will rob my death- 
 bed of peace, and I cannot be secure that this host of proud 
 mediators between God and man will allow me to rest even 
 in my grave." 
 
 "By Zeus our savior, with all thy good fortune thou art 
 to be pitied," interrupted Croesus, sympathetically. "I under- 
 stand thy misery, for though I have met with many an in- 
 dividual who passed through life darkly and gloomily, I could 
 not have believed that an entire race of human beings existed 
 to whom a gloomy, sullen heart was as natural as a poisonous 
 tooth to the serpent. Yet it is true that on my journey hither 
 and during my residence at this court I have seen none but 
 morose and gloomy countenances among the priesthood. 
 Even the youths, thy immediate attendants, are never seen to 
 smile, though cheerfulness, that sweet gift of the gods, usually 
 belongs to the young, as flowers to spring." 
 
 "Thou errest," answered Amasis, "in believing this gloom 
 to be a universal characteristic of the Egyptians. It is true that 
 our religion requires much serious thought. There are few 
 nations, however, who have so largely the gift of bantering 
 fun and joke, or who on the occasion of a festival can so en- 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 177; "Died.," i, 95.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 69 
 
 tirely forget themselves and everything else but the enjoyments 
 of the moment; but the very sight of a stranger is odious to 
 the priests, and the moroseness which thou observest is in- 
 tended as retaliation on me for my alliance with the strangers. 
 Those very boys of whom thou spakest* are the greatest tor- 
 ment of my life. They perform for me the service of slaves 
 and obey my slightest nod. One might imagine that the par- 
 ents who devote their children to this service, and who are the 
 highest .in rank among the priesthood, would be the most 
 obedient and reverential servants of the king whom they pro- 
 fess to honor as divine; but believe me, Croesus, just in this 
 very act of devotion, which no ruler can refuse to accept with- 
 out giving offense, lies the most crafty, scandalous calculation. 
 Each of these youths is my keeper, my spy. They watch my 
 smallest actions and report them at once to the priests." 
 
 "But how canst thou endure such an existence? Why not 
 banish these spies and select servants from the military caste, 
 for instance? They would be quite as useful as the priests." 
 
 "Ah ! if I only could, if I dared !" exclaimed Amasis, loudly. 
 And then, as if frightened at his own rashness, he continued in 
 a low voice: "I believe that even here I am being watched. 
 To-morrow I will have that grove of fig-trees yonder uprooted. 
 The young priest there who s-eems so fond of gardening has 
 other fruit in his mind besides the half-ripe figs that he is so 
 slowly dropping into his basket. While his hand is plucking 
 the figs his ear gathers the words that fall from the mouth of 
 his king." 
 
 "But, by our father Zeus, and by Apollo 
 
 "Yes, I understand thy indignation and I share it; but every 
 position has its duties, and as king of a people who venerate 
 tradition as the highest divinity, I must submit, at least in the 
 main, to the ceremonies handed down through thousands of 
 years. Were I to burst these fetters, I know positively that at 
 my death my body would remain unburied; for, know that 
 the priests sit in judgment over every corpse, and deprive the 
 condemned of rest, even in the grave."f 
 
 *"Diodor.," i, 70. 
 
 fThis well-known custom among the ancient Egyptians is confirmed 
 not only by many Greek narrators but by the laboriously erased in- 
 scriptions discovered in the chambers of some tombs. The religious 
 views of the Egyptians will account for very great anxiety lest the rest
 
 70 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Why care about the grave?" cried Croesus, becoming angry. 
 "We live for life, not for death 1" 
 
 "Say rather," answered Amasis rising from his seat, "we, 
 with our Greek minds, believe a beautiful life to be the highest 
 good. But, Croesus, I was begotten and nursed of Egyptian 
 parents, nourished on Egyptian food, and though I have ac- 
 cepted much that is Greek, am still, in my innermost being, an 
 Egyptian. What has been sung to us in our childhood, and 
 praised as sacred in our youth, lingers on in tiie heart until the 
 day which sees us embalmed as mummies. I am an old man 
 and have but a short span yet to run before I reach the land- 
 mark which separate's us from that further country. For the 
 sake of life's few remaining days, shall I willingly mar death's 
 thousands of years? No, my friend, in this point at least 
 I have remained an Egyptian, in believing, like the rest of 
 my countrymen, that the happiness of a future life in the 
 kingdom of Osiris* depends on the preservation of my body, 
 the habitation of the soul. But enough of these matters; thou 
 wilt find it difficult to enter into such thoughts. Tell me rather 
 what thou thinkest of our temples and pyramids." 
 
 Croesus, after reflecting a moment, answered with a smile: 
 "Those huge pyramidal masses of stone seem to me creations 
 of the boundless desert, the gayly painted temple colonnades 
 to be the children of the Spring; but though the sphinxes lead 
 up to your temple gates, and seem to point the way into the 
 very shrines themselves, the sloping fortress-like walls of the 
 Pylons, those huge isolated portals, appear as if placed there 
 to repel entrance. Your many-colored hieroglyphics likewise 
 attract the gaze, but baffle the inquiring spirit by the mystery 
 that lies within their characters. The images of your manifold 
 gods are everywhere to be seen; they crowd on our gaze, and 
 yet who knows not that their real is not their apparent signifi- 
 cance? that they. are mere outward images of thoughts ac- 
 cessible only to the few, and, as I have heard, almost incom- 
 
 of the grave should be disturbed. It has been questioned whether the 
 Greek narrators may not possibly have confounded the court of justice 
 held over the dead here on earth with the judgment to come, to be 
 held over the soul in the other world; but we see no especial justifica- 
 tion for this view. 
 
 *Each human soul was considered as a part of the world-soul 
 Osiris, was reunited to him after the death of the body, and thence-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 7t 
 
 prehensible in their depth? My curiosity is excited every- 
 where, and my interest awakened, but my warm love of the 
 beautiful feels itself in no way attracted. My intellect might 
 strain to penetrate the secrets- of your sages, but my heart and 
 mind can never be at home in a creed which views life as a 
 short pilgrimage to the grave, and death as the only true life!" 
 "And yet," said Amasis, "death has for us, too, his terrors, 
 and we do all in our power to evade his grasp. Our physicians 
 would not be celebrated and esteemed as they are, if we did 
 not believe that their skill could prolong our earthly existence. 
 This reminds me of the oculist Nebenchari whom I sent to 
 
 forth took the name of Osiris. The Egyptian cosmos consisted of the 
 three great realms, the heavens, the earth and the depths. Over the 
 vast ocean which girdles the vault of heaven the sun moves in a boat 
 or car drawn by planets and fixed stars. On this ocean two great con- 
 stellations circle in their ships.and there is the kingdom of the blissful 
 gods who sit enthroned above this heavenly ocean under a canopy of 
 stars. The mouth of this great stream is in the east, where the sun- 
 god rises from the mists and is born again as a child every morning. 
 The surface of the earth is inhabited by human beings having a share 
 in the three great cosmic kingdoms. They receive their soul from the 
 heights of heaven, the seat and source of light; their material body is 
 of the earth, and the appearance or outward form by which one human 
 being is distinguished from another at sight, his phantom or shadow, 
 belongs to death. At death soul, body and shadow separate from one 
 another. The soul to return to the place from whence it came, to 
 heaven, for 1 it is a part of god (of Osiris); the body to be committed to 
 the earth from which it was formed in the image of its creator; the 
 phantom or shadow to descend into the depths, the kingdom of shad- 
 ows. The gate to this kingdom was placed in the west among sunset 
 hills, where the sun goes down daily where .he dies. Thence arise 
 the changeful and corresponding conceptions connected with rising 
 and setting, arriving and departing, being born and dying. The care- 
 ful preservation of the body after death from destruction not only 
 through the process of inward decay, but also through violence or 
 accident, was in the religion of ancient Egypt a principal condition 
 (perhaps introduced by the priests on sanitary grounds) on which 
 depended the speedy deliverance of the soul, and with this her early 
 appointed union with the source of light and good, which two proper- 
 ties were in idea one and indivisible. In the Egyptian conceptions 
 the soul was supposed to remain, in a certain sense, connected with the 
 body during a long cyclus of solar years. She could, however, quit the 
 body from time to time at will and could appear to mortals in various 
 forms and places; these appearances differed according to the hour, 
 and were prescribed in exact words and delineations. From "Tombs 
 and Papyri." Brugsch, "AegynHsche Graberwelt," p. 6.
 
 72 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Susa, to the king. Does he maintain his reputation? is the 
 king content with him?" 
 
 "Very much so," answered Croesus. "He has been of 
 use to many of the blind; but the king's mother is alas! still 
 sightless. It was Nebenchari who first spoke to Canibyses 
 of the charms of thy daughter Tachot. But we deplore that 
 he understands diseases of 4he eye alone. When the Princess 
 Atossa lay ill of fever, he was- not to be induced to bestow a 
 word of counsel." 
 
 "That is very natural; our physicians are only permitted to 
 treat one part of the body. We have aurists, dentists and 
 oculists, surgeons for fractures of the bone, and others for 
 internal diseases. By the ancient priestly law a dentist is not 
 allowed to treat a deaf man, nor a surgeon for broken bones 
 a patient who is suffering from a disease of the bowels, even 
 though he should have a first-rate knowledge of internal com- 
 plaints.* This law aims at securing a great deal of real and 
 thorough knowledge ; an aim, indeed, pursued by the priests (to 
 whose caste the physicians belong) with a most praiseworthy 
 earnestness in all branches of science. Yonder lies the house 
 of the high-priest Neithotep, whose knowledge of astronomy 
 and geometry was so highly praised, even by Pythagoras. 
 It lies next to the porch leading into the temple of the goddess 
 Neith, the protectress of Sais 1 . Would I could show thee the 
 sacred grove with its magnificent trees, the splendid pillars 
 of the temple with capitals modeled from the lotus-flower,f 
 and the colossal chapel which I caused to be wrought from a 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 84. Borner, "Antiquitates Medicinae," p. 20. Hirsch, 
 "Geschichte der Medicin." 
 
 fThe Egyptian columns were made in the form of plants. When the 
 capitals were not adorned with masks of the gods, as at Dendera, they 
 were intentionally carved in the likeness of palms, lotus-flowers, or 
 seed-capsules. Shafts representing a number of papyrus reeds are 
 often to be found, for example in the temple at Luxor. See Lepsius 
 "On the Connection Between Ancient Egyptian and Doric Columns." 
 "Ueber den Zusammenhang der altagyptischen, tmd dorischen Saule." 
 Lepsius. "Sur Pordre des colonnes pilliers en Egypte, et ses rap- 
 ports," etc., in the "Annales de 1'insitut de Corresp. Arch. Rome," 1838, 
 Vol. ix. Champollion has already inferred that the entrance to the 
 tombs of Benihassen might prove of great importance to the history 
 of the origin of the forms of columns. "Lettres ecr. d'Eg. et de Nubia," 
 p. 74 and following.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 73 
 
 single piece of granite, as an offering to the goddess;* but, 
 alas! entrance is strictly refus-ed to strangers by the priests. 
 Come, let us seek my wife and daughter; they have conceived 
 an affection for thee, and indeed it is my wish that thou shouldst 
 gain a friendly feeling toward this poor maiden before she 
 goes forth with thee to the strange land and to the strange 
 nation whose princess she is to become. Wilt thou not adopt 
 and take her under thy care?" 
 
 "On that thou may'st with fullest confidence rely," replied 
 Croesus, with warmth, returning the pressure of Amasis' hand. 
 "I will protect thy Nitetis as if I were her father; and she will 
 need my help, for the apartments of the women in the Persian 
 palaces are dangerous ground. But she will meet with great 
 consideration. Cambyses 1 may be contented with his choice, and 
 will be highly gratified that thou has intrusted him with thy 
 fairest child. Nebenchari had only spoken of Tachot, thy 
 second daughter." 
 
 "Nevertheless, I will send my beautiful Nitetis. Tachot is 
 so tender, that she could scarcely endure the fatigues- of the 
 journey and the pain of separation. Indeed, were I to follow 
 the dictates of my own heart, Nitetis should never leave us for 
 Persia. But Egypt stands in need of peace, and I was aching 
 before I became a father!" 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The other members of the Persian embassy had returned to 
 Sais from their excursion up the Nile to the pyramids. Prex- 
 aspes alone, the ambassador from Cambyses, had already set 
 out for Persia, in order to inform the king of the successful 
 issue of his suit. 
 
 The palace of Amasis was full of life and stir. The huge 
 building was filled in all parts by the followers of the embassy, 
 nearly three hundred in number, and by the high guests them- 
 selves, to whom every possible attention was paid. The courts 
 of the palace swarmed with guards and officials', with young 
 priests and slaves, all in splendid festal raiment 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 175.
 
 74 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 On this day it was the king's intention to make an especial 
 display of the wealth and splendor of his court at a festival 
 arranged in honor of his daugther's betrothal. 
 
 The lofty reception-hall opening onto the gardens, with its 
 ceiling sown with thousands of golden stars and supported 
 by gayly painted columns, presented a magic appearance. 
 Lamps of colored papyrus hung against the walls and threw a 
 strange light on the scene, something like that when the sun's 
 rays strike through colored glass. The space between the 
 columns and the walls was filled with choice plants 1 , palms, ole- 
 anders, pomegranates, oranges and roses, behind which an 
 invisible band of harp and flute players was stationed, who 
 received the guests with strains of monotonous, solemn music.* 
 
 The floor of this hall was paved in black and white, and in 
 the middle stood elegant tables covered with dishes of all kinds, 
 cold roast meats, sweets, well-arranged baskets of fruit and 
 cake, golden jugs of wine, glass 1 drinking-ctips and artistic 
 flower-vases. 
 
 A multitude of richly dressed slaves, under direction of the 
 high steward, busied themselves in handing these dishes to 
 the guests, who, either standing around, or reclined on sump- 
 tuous- seats, entertained themselves in conversation with their 
 friends. 
 
 Both sexes and all ages were to be found in this assembly. 
 As the women entered they received charming little nosegays 
 from the young priests in the personal service of the king, and 
 many a youth of high degree appeared in the hall with flowers, 
 which he not only offered to her he loved best, but held up for 
 her to smell. 
 
 The Egyptian men, who were dressed as we have already 
 seen them at the reception of the Persian embassy, behaved 
 toward the women with a politeness which might almost be 
 termed submissive; among the latter few could pretend to re- 
 markable beauty. The greater number wore roses and lotus- 
 flowers in their hair, on the forehead and temples. 
 
 They carried fans of bright feathers in their delicate hands. 
 
 "The description of this assembly is borrowed from the paintings 
 on walls which have been reproduced by Wilkinson, Rosellini, Lepsius 
 and others in their large works. A picture copied by Dumichen in 
 Egypt, but hitherto unpublished, and representing very graphically a 
 private party in the time of the Pharaohs interested me excessively.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 75 
 
 These were loaded with rings; the finger-nails were stained 
 red,* according to Egyptian custom, and gold or silver bands 
 were worn above the elbow, at the wrists and ankles. 
 
 Their robes were beautiful and costly, and in many cases so 
 cut as to leave the right breast uncovered. 
 
 Bartja, the young Persian prince, among the men, and 
 Nitetis, the Pharaoh's daughter, among the women, were 
 equally conspicuous for their superior beauty, grace and 
 charms. The royal maiden wore a transparent rose-colored 
 robe, in her black hair were fresh roses; she walked by the side 
 of her sister, the two robed alike, but Nitetis pale as the lotus- 
 flower in her mother's hair. 
 
 Ladice, the queen,f by birth a Greek, and daughter of Battus 
 of Cyrene, walked by the side of Amasis and presented the 
 young Persian to her children. A light lace robe was thrown 
 over her garment of purple, embroidered with gold ; and on 
 her beautiful Grecian head she wore the Uraeus serpent, the 
 ornament peculiar to Egyptian queens.^ 
 
 Her countenance was noble yet charming, and every move- 
 ment betrayed the grace only to be imparted by a Greek educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Amasis, in making choice of this queen, after the death of 
 his second wife (the Egyptian Tentcheta, mother of Psamtik, 
 the heir to the throne), had followed his prepossession in favor 
 of the Greek nation and defied the wrath of the priests. 
 
 The two girls at Ladice's side, Tachot and Nitetis, were called 
 twin sisters, but showed no signs of that resemblance usually 
 to be found in twins. 
 
 This custom is still prevalent in the east; the plant, Hehenna, 
 "Lausonia spinosa," called by Pliny, xiii, 1, Cyprus, being used for the 
 purpose. 
 
 f'Herod.," ii, 181. The second consort of Amasis must, according 
 to her cartouche, have been called Sebaste. This name may be Egyp- 
 tian, or it may be Greek. If the latter it signifies the "highly esteemed, 
 the worshiped," and proves that she was in fact a native of Hellas. 
 
 $The Uraeus, the emblem of sovereignty, formed part of the head- 
 dress of every Egyptian king or queen. A head-dress of silver, belong- 
 ing to an Egyptian queen with the head of this serpent, can be seen in 
 the museum at Leyden. Drawings in Champollion, "Mon.," Rosellini, 
 "Mon. Stor. and Civil.," Wilkinson, Lepsius and many others. 
 
 The first consort of Amasis appears to have been Anchnas, the 
 widow of Psamtik II, whom he probably married from political 
 reasons, as she was already somewhat advanced in years. Lepsius, 
 "Konigsbuch," ii, pi. xxxviii.
 
 76 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Tachot was a fair, blue-eyed girl,* small, and delicately built; 
 Nitetis, on the other hand, tall and majestic, with black hair 
 and eyes, evinced in every action that she was of royal blood. 
 
 "How pale thou look'st, my child!" said Ladice, kissing 
 Nitetis' cheek. "Be of good courage, and meet thy future 
 bravely. Here is the noble Bartja, the brother of thy future 
 husband." 
 
 Nitetis raised her dark, thoughtful eyes and fixed them long 
 and inquiringly on the beautiful youth. He bowed low before 
 the blushing maiden, kissed her garment, and said: 
 
 "I salute thee as my future queen and sister! I can believe 
 that thy heart is sore at parting from thy home, thy parents, 
 brethren and sisters; but be of good courage; thy husband 
 is a great hero and a powerful king; our mother is the nobles* 
 of women, and among the Persians the beauty and virtue of 
 women is as much revered as the life-giving light of the sun, 
 Of thee, thou sister of the lily Nitetis, whom by her side I 
 might venture to call the rose, I beg forgiveness for robbing 
 thee of thy dearest friend." 
 
 As he said these words he looked eagerly into Tachot's 
 beautiful blue eyes; she bent low, pressing her hand upon her 
 
 *The Egyptian women were not exactly considered as beautiful 
 among the ancients. Nevertheless we find some very agreeable coun- 
 tenances among the portraits of queens and princesses given us by 
 Rosellini and Lepsius. Among the sphinxes, too, we find heads which 
 correspond entirely to our present ideas of beauty. Denon, speaking 
 of the ancient pictures of Egyptian women, says: "Celle des femme? 
 ressemble encore a la figure des jolies femmes d'aujourd' hui: de la 
 rondeur, de la volupte, le nez petit, les yeux longs, peu ouverts . . . 
 le caractere de tete de la plupart tenait du beau styl." And Gen. Heil- 
 bronner, in his excellent book of travels in Egypt, goes even farther 
 when speaking of the heads of the women. It is placed beyond doubt 
 that the Egyptian nation was originally a wandering tribe, belonging 
 to the so-called Caucasian race, which settled on the Nile. See Ebers, 
 "Aegypten u. d. Biicher Mose's," i, 40 and following. Euripedes 
 speaks of beautiful maidens as dwelling on the shores of the Nile. It 
 is also certain that there were fair-haired women among the Egyp- 
 tians. In Syncellus' "Manetho" the queen Nitocris is called iW?) 
 TJ)V XP I & V , that is to say fair-haired, and among the portraits given 
 by Rosellini, "Mon. Stor.," pi. xix, we have discovered a fair-haired 
 princess who, in text vol. ii, p. 510, is called Reninofre, daughter 
 of Tutmes IV. It seems to us, however, that her cartouche must be 
 read Ranofre, who, according to Lepsius, was a daughter of Tutmes 
 III.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 77 
 
 heart, and gazed on him long after Amasis had drawn him 
 away to a seat immediately opposite the dancing-girls, who 
 were just about to display their skill for the entertainment of 
 the guests. A thin petticoat was the only clothing of these 
 girls', who threw and wound their flexible limbs to a measure 
 played on harp and tambourine. After the dance appeared 
 Egyptian singers and buffoons* for the further amusement of 
 the company. 
 
 At length some of the courtiers forsook the hall, their grave 
 demeanor being somewhat overcome by intoxication.f The 
 women were carried home in gay litters by slaves with torches, 
 and only the highest military commanders, the Persian am- 
 bassadors and a few officials, especial friends of Amasis, re- 
 mained behind. These were retained by the master of the 
 ceremonies and conducted to a richly ornamented salon, where 
 a gigantic wine-bowl standing on a table adorned in the Greek 
 fashion invited to a drinking-bout. 
 
 Amasis was seated in a high armchair^ at the head of the 
 
 *Dancing-girls who accompanied themselves on the guitar. "Wil- 
 kinson," ii, 301; players on the harp, "Wilkinson," ii, 20; harpists and 
 blind singers, ii, 239; women with tambourines, ii, 240; men playing 
 on the double flute, ii, 232 and 234; entertainment with dancing-girls 
 and musicians, "Wilkinson," ii, pi. xii; ii, 390; jugglers, "Wilkinson," 
 ii, 433. Musical instruments are to be found in the museums. The 
 dancing-girls whom we see singing at the same time may be com- 
 pared to the Almehs of the present day, who enliven the entertain- 
 ments of the modern Cairenes and the inhabitants of other towns on 
 the Nile by their charms, their singing and dancing. In ancient 
 Egypt they were called Achennu, and seem to have formed a part of 
 the establishments of the great lords. 
 
 fUnfortunately women as well as men are to be seen depicted on 
 the monuments in an intoxicated condition. One man is being car- 
 ried home like a log of wood on the heads of his servants. "Wilkin- 
 son," ii, 168. Another is standing on his head, ii, 169, and several 
 ladies are in the act of returning the excessive quantity which they 
 have drunk, "Wilkinson," ii, 167. At the great Techu festival at 
 Dendera intoxication seems to have been as much commended as at 
 the festivals of Dionysus under the Ptolemies, one of whom (Ptolemy 
 Dionysus) threatened those who. remained sober with the punishment 
 of death. But intoxication was in general looked upon by the Egyp- 
 tians as a forbidden and despicable vice. In the papyrus "Anastasi," 
 iv, for instance, we read these words on a drunkard: "Thou art as a 
 sanctuary without a divinity, as a house without bread," and further: 
 "How carefully should men avoid beer (hek)." 
 
 JRoyal armchairs, expensively gilded and cushioned in gay colors. 
 "Wilkinson," ii, pi. xi. Rosellini, "Mon. Civ.," pi. 90-92.
 
 78 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 table; at his left the youthful Bartja, at his right the aged 
 Croesus. Besides* these and the other Persians, Theodorus 
 and Ibykus, the friends of Polykrates already known to us, 
 and Aristomachus, now commander of the Greek bodyguard, 
 were among the king's guests. 
 
 Amasis, whom we have just heard in such grave discourse 
 with Croesus 1 , now indulged in jest and satire. He seemed 
 once more the wild officer, the bold reveler of the olden days. 
 
 His sparkling, clever jokes, at times playful, at times scorn- 
 ful, flew round among the revelers. The guests responded in 
 loud, perhaps often artificial, laughter to their king's jokes, 
 goblet after goblet was emptied, and the rejoicings had reached 
 their highest point, when suddenly the master of the ceremonies 
 appeared, bearing a small gilded mummy, and, displaying it 
 to the gaze of the assembly, exclaimed: "Drink, jest, and be 
 merry, for all too soon ye shall become like unto this!"* 
 
 "Is it your custom thus to introduce death at all your ban- 
 quets?" said Bartja, becoming serious, "or is this only a jest 
 devised for to-day by your master of the ceremonies?" 
 
 "Since the earliest ages," answered Amasis, " it has been our 
 custom to display these mummies at banquets', in order to 
 increase the mirth of the revelers, by reminding them that one 
 must enjoy the time while it is here. Thou young butterfly 
 hast still many a long and joyful 'year before thee; but we, 
 Croesus, we old men, must hold by this firmly. Fill the 
 goblets, cup-bearer; let not one moment of our lives be wasted! 
 Thou canst drink well, thou golden-haired Persian! Truly 
 the great gods 1 have endowed thee not only with beautiful eyes 
 and blooming beauty, but with a good throat! Let me em- 
 brace thee, thou glorious youth, thou rogue! What thinkest 
 thou, Croesus? my daughter Tachot can speak of nothing else 
 than of this beardless youth, who seems to have quite turned 
 her little head with his sweet looks and words. Thou needest 
 not blush, young madcap! A man such as thou art may well 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 78. Petron. "Satyr.," c. 34. Nicol. Damasc., "Orat," 
 i. "Wilkinson" gives drawings of these mummies (ii, 410), hundreds 
 of which were placed in the tombs, and have been preserved to us. 
 Lucian was present at a banquet when they were handed round. The 
 Greeks seem to have adopted this custom, but with their usual talent 
 for beautifying all they touched, substituted a winged figure of death 
 for the mummy.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 79 
 
 look at king's daughters; but wert thou thy father Cyrus him- 
 self, I could not allow my Tachot to leave me for Persia!" 
 
 "Father!" whispered the crown-prince Psamtik, interrupting 
 this conversation. "Father, take care what you say, and re- 
 member Phanes." The Icing turned a frowning glance on his 
 son ; but, following his advice, took much less part in the con- 
 versation, which now became more general. 
 
 The seat at the banquet-table, occupied by Aristomachus, 
 placed him nearly opposite to Croesus, on whom, in total si- 
 lence and without once indulging in a smile at the king's jests, 
 his eyes had been fixed from the beginning of the revel. When 
 the Pharaoh ceased to speak he accosted Croesus suddenly 
 with the following question: "I would know, Lydian, whether 
 the snow still covered the mountains when ye left Persia." 
 
 Smiling, and a little surprised at this strange speech, Croesus 
 answered: "Most of the Persian mountains were green when 
 we started for Egypt four months ago; but there are heights 
 in the land of Cambyses on which, even in the hottest seasons, 
 the snow never melts,* and the glimmer of their white crests 
 we could still perceive as 1 we descended into the plains." 
 
 The Spartan's face brightened visibly, and Croesus, attracted 
 by this serious, earnest man, asked his name. 
 
 "My name is Aristomachus." 
 
 "That name seems known to me." 
 
 "You were acquainted with many Hellenes, and my name 
 is common among them." 
 
 "Your dialect would bespeak you a Dorian; and in my 
 opinion a Spartan." 
 
 "I was one once." 
 
 "And now no more?" 
 
 "He who forsakes his native land without permission is 
 worthy of death." 
 
 "Have you forsaken it with your own free will?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "For what reason?" 
 
 "To escape dishonor." 
 
 "What was your crime?" 
 
 "I had committed none." 
 
 *More especially on the Demawend. I would refer the reader to 
 the ascent of this mountain as described by Brugsch in his very inter- 5 
 esting account of "Travels in Persia," i, p. 284.
 
 80 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "You were accused unjustly?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Who was the author of your ill-fortune?" 
 
 "Yourself." 
 
 Croesus started from his- seat. The^erious tone and gloomy 
 face of the Spartan proved that this was no jest, and those who 
 sat near the speakers and had been following this strange 
 dialogue were alarmed and begged Aristomachus to explain 
 his words. 
 
 He hesitated and seemed unwilling to speak; at last, how- 
 ever, at the king's- summons, he began thus: 
 
 "In obedience to the oracle,* you, Croesus, had chosen us 
 Lacedaemonians, as the most powerful among the Hellenes', 
 to be your allies against the might of Persia; and you gave us 
 gold for the statue of Apollo on Mount Thornax. The ephori, 
 on this, resolved to present you with a gigantic bronze wine- 
 bowl, richly wrought. I was chosen as bearer of this gift. 
 Before reaching Sardis our ship was wrecked in a storm. The 
 wine-cup sank with it, and we reached Samos with nothing 
 but our lives. On returning home I was accused by enemies, 
 and those who grudged my good fortune, of having sold both 
 ship and wine-vessel to the Samians. As they could not con- 
 vict me of the crime, and had yet determined on my ruin, I was 
 sentenced to two days' and nights' exposure on the pillory. 
 My foot was chained to it during the night; but before the 
 morning of disgrace dawned my brother brought me secretly 
 a sword, that my honor might be saved, though at the expense 
 of my life. But I could not die before revenging myself on the 
 men who had worked my ruin; and therefore, cutting the 
 manacled foot from my leg, I escaped and hid in the rushes on 
 the banks of the Eurotas. My brother brought me food and 
 drink in secret; and after two months I was able to walk on 
 the wooden leg you now see. Apollo undertook my revenge; 
 he never misses his mark, and my two worst opponents died 
 of the plague. Still I durst not return home, and at length 
 took ship from Gythium to fight against the Persians under 
 you, Croesus. On landing at Teos I heard that you were 
 king no longer; that the mighty Cyrus, the father of yonder 
 beautiful youth, had conquered the powerful province of Lydia 
 in a few weeks, and reduced the richest of kings to beggary." 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 52, 54, 69, 70. Xenoph., "Cyrop., iv, 2, 5.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 81 
 
 x 
 
 Every guest gazed at Aristomachus in admiration. Croesus 
 shook his hard hand; and Bartja exclaimed: "Spartan, I would 
 I could take you back with me to Susa, that my friends there 
 might see what I have seen myself, the most courageous, the 
 most honorable of men!" 
 
 "Believe me, boy," returned Aristomachus smiling, "every 
 Spartan would have done the same. In our country it needs 
 more courage to be a coward than a brave man." 
 
 "And you, Bartja," cried Darius, the Persian king's cousin, 
 "could you. have borne to stand at the pillory?" 
 
 Bartja reddened, but it was easy to see that he, too, preferred 
 death to disgrace. 
 
 "Zopyrus, what say you?" asked Darius 1 of the third young 
 Persian. 
 
 "I could mutilate my own* limbs for love of you two," an- 
 swered he, grasping unobserved the hands of his two friends. 
 
 With an ironical smile Psamtik sat watching this scene 
 the pleased faces of Amasis, Croesus, and Gyges, the meaning 
 glances of the Egpytians and the contented looks with which 
 Aristomachus gazed on the young heroes. 
 
 Ibykus now told of the oracle which had promised Aristom- 
 achus a retarn to his native land, on the approach of the men 
 from the snowy mountains, and at the same time mentioned 
 the hospitable house of Rhodopis. 
 
 On hearing this name Psamtik grew restless ; Croesus ex- 
 pressed a wish to form the acquaintance of the Thracian ma- 
 tron, of whom Aesop had related so much that was praise- 
 worthy; and as the other guests, many of whom had lost con- 
 sciousness through excessive drinking, were leaving the hall 
 the dethroned monarch, the poet, the sculptor, and the Spartan 
 hero made an agreement to go to Naukratis the next day and 
 there enjoy the- conversation of Rhodopis. 
 
 *Further on in our story we shall see that this apparently hyper- 
 bolical protestation was carried out by Zopyrus.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On the night following the banquet just described Amasis 
 allowed himself only three hours' rest. On this, as on every 
 other morning, the young priests wakened him at the first 
 cock crow, conducted him as usual to the bath, arrayed him in 
 the royal vestments- and led him to the altar in the court of 
 the palace, where in presence of the populace he offered sacri- 
 fice. During the offering the priests sang prayers in a loud 
 voice, enumerated the virtues of their king, and that blame 
 might in no case light on the head of their ruler made his bad 
 advisers responsible for every deadly sin committed in igno- 
 rance. 
 
 They exhorted him to the performance of good deeds while 
 extolling his virtues; read aloud profitable portions of the holy 
 writings- containing the deeds and sayings of great men, and 
 then conducted him to his apartments, where letters and in- 
 formation from all parts of the kingdom awaited him.* 
 
 Amasis was in the habit of observing most faithfully these 
 daily repeated ceremonies and hours of work; the remaining 
 portion of the day he spent as it pleased him, and generally 
 in cheerful society.f 
 
 The priests reproached him with this, alleging that such a 
 life was not suited to a monarch ; and on one occasion he had 
 thus replied to the indignant high-priest: "Look at this bow! 
 if always bent it must lose its power, but if used for half of 
 each day and then allowed to rest it will remain strong and 
 useful till the string breaks." 
 
 Amasis had just signed his name to the last letter granting 
 the petition of a Nomarch$ for money to carry on different 
 
 *This arrangement of the day of a king of Egypt, given by Dio- 
 dorus (i, 70), is in its principal particulars confirmed by the monu- 
 ments. 
 
 f'Herod.," ii, 173. 
 
 JNomarch was the title given to the supreme administrators of the 
 provinces of Nomoi, into which the entire kingdom of Egypt was 
 divided. The word Nomos ( vo^oq ) is purely Greek and probably
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 83 
 
 embankments* rendered necessary by-the last inundation, when 
 a servant entered, bringing a request from the crown-prince 
 Psamtik for an audience of a few minutes. 
 
 Amasis, who till this moment had been smiling cheerfully 
 at the cheering reports from all parts of the country, now be- 
 came suddenly serious and thoughtful. After long delay he 
 answered: "Go and inform the prince that he may appear." 
 
 Psamtik appeared, pale and gloomy as ever; he bowed low 
 and reverentially on entering his father's presence. 
 
 Amasis nodded silently in return, and then asked abruptly 
 and sternly: "What is thy desire? my time is limited." 
 
 "For your son, more than for others," replied the prince, 
 with quivering lips. "Seven times have I petitioned for the 
 great favor which thou grantest for the first time to-day." 
 
 "No reproaches! I suspect the reason of thy visit. Thou 
 desirest an answer to thy doubts as to the birth of thy sister 
 Nitetis." 
 
 "I have no curiosity; I come rather to warn thee and to 
 
 signified originally a district of pasture or meadow-land. The 
 Egyptian word is p-tesch or hesp. We are now, more especially 
 owing to the labors of Harris, Brugsch, Parthey, Dumichen and 
 Jacques de Rouge, possessed of the most exact information on the 
 division of the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs. The results arrived 
 at by the above-mentioned scholars were obtained through the dis- 
 covery of numerous lists of the Nomoi carved in the temple walls, 
 from which it can be seen that the entire kingdom was divided into 
 fifty provinces or districts, viz. : twenty-six for Upper and twenty-four 
 for Lower Egypt. Each of these was subdivided into three smaller 
 ones. A very correct definition of the Nomoi is given by Cyril, 
 Bishop of Alexandria. "Easai.," 19. From the latest discoveries it 
 seems probable that the limits of the Nomoi were not determined by 
 local conditions, but by accurate mathematical measurements. In- 
 ferior in rank to the Nomarchs, who governed each an entire province, 
 and probably resided in its metropolis, were the Toparchs, who ad- 
 ministered the affairs of the local circles. These smaller districts 
 were again divided into plots of meadow or pastureland (apovpai, 
 fiepides). Strabo, 787. 
 
 *Embankments were peculiarly necessary on the shores of the Nile, 
 and the Pharaohs took much pride in maintaining them. Herodotus 
 speaks of the embankment of the western arm of the Nile near Mem- 
 phis, constructed by Menes, which information may be correct. Bun- 
 sen, "Aegyptens Stelle i. d. Weltgeschichte," ii, p. 40. There is no 
 longer any doubt that the lake of Moeris was excavated as a means 
 of regulating the inundations of the river. Lepsius, "Chronol.," i, 
 p. 262. Linant de Bellefonds, "Memoire sur le lac de Moeris."
 
 84 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 remind thee that I am not the only one who is acquainted vviti* 
 this mystery." 
 
 "Speakest thou of Phanes?" 
 
 "Of whom- else should I speak? He is banished from Egypt 
 and from his own country and must leave Naukratis in a few 
 days. What guaranty hast thou that he will not betray us to 
 the Persians?" 
 
 "The friendship and kindness which I have always shown 
 him." 
 
 "Dost thou believe in the gratitude of men?" 
 
 "No! but I rely on my own discernment of character. 
 Phanes will not betray us! he is my friend, I repeat it!" 
 
 "T-hy friend, perhaps, but my mortal enemy!" 
 
 "Then stand on thy guard! I have nothing to fear from 
 him." 
 
 "For thyself perhaps nought, but for our country! O father, 
 reflect that though as thy son I may be hateful in thine eyes-, 
 yet as Egypt's future king I ought to be near thy heart. Remem- 
 ber, that at thy death, which may the gods long avert! I shall 
 represent the existence of this glorious land as thou dost now; 
 my fall will be the ruin of thine house, of Egypt!" 
 
 Amasis became more and more serious and Psamtik went 
 on, eagerly: "Thou knowest that I am right! Phanes can 
 betray our land to any foreign enemy; he is as intimately ac- 
 quainted with it as we are, and, besides this, he possesses a 
 secret, the knowledge of which would convert our most pow- 
 erful ally into a most formidable enemy." 
 
 "There thou art in error. Though not mine, Nitetis is a 
 king's daughter and will know how to win the love of her 
 husband." 
 
 "Were she the daughter of a god she could not save thee 
 from Cambyses' wrath if he discovers the treachery; lying is 
 to a Persian the worst of crimes,* to be deceived the greatest 
 disgrace; thou hast deceived the highest and proudest of the 
 nation, and what can one inexperienced girl avail when hun- 
 dreds of women, deeply versed in intrigue and artifice, are 
 striving for the favor of their lord?" 
 
 "Hatred and revenge are good masters in the art of rhetoric," 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 138. Xenoph., "Cyrop.," viii, 7, 8. "Avesta" (Spiegel), 
 "Fargard," iv.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 85 
 
 said Amasis, in a cutting tone. "And think'st thou, then, oh, 
 foolish son, that I should have undertaken such a dangerous 
 game without due consideration? Phanes may tell the Per- 
 sians what he likes, he can never prove his point. I, the father, 
 Ladice, the mother, must know best whether Nitetis is our 
 child or not. We call her so; who dare aver the contrary? 
 If it please Phanes to betray our land to any other enemy be- 
 sides the Persians, let him; I fear nothing! Thou wouldst have 
 meTuin a man who has been my friend, to whom I owe much 
 gratitude, who has served me long and faithfully, and this 
 without offense from his side. Rather will I shelter him from 
 thy revenge, knowing as I do the impure source from which 
 it springs." 
 
 "My father!" 
 
 "Thou desirest the ruin of this man because he hindered 
 thee from taking forcible possession of the granddaughter of 
 Rhodopis, and because thine own incapacity moved me to 
 place him in thy room as commander of the troops. Ah ! thou 
 growest pale! Verily, I owe Phanes thanks for confiding in 
 me your vile intentions, and so enabling me to bind my friends 1 
 and supporters, to whom Rhodopis is precious, more firmly 
 to my throne." 
 
 "And is it thus thou speakest of these strangers, my father? 
 Dost thou thus forget the ancient glory of Egypt? Despise 
 me if thou wilt; I know thou lovest me not; but say not that 
 to be great we need the help of strangers! Look back on our 
 history! Were we not greatest when our gates were closed 
 to strangers, when we depended on -ourselves and our own 
 strength, and lived according to the ancient laws of our an- 
 cestors and our gods? Those days beheld the most distant 
 lands subjugated to Rameses,* and heard Egypt celebrated in 
 
 *Rameses the Great, son of Sethos, reigned over Egypt 1394-1328 
 B. C. He was called Sesostris by the Greeks, see Lepsius ("Chron. 
 d. Aegypter.," p. 538) on the manner in which this confusion of names 
 arose. Egypt attained the zenith of her power under this king, 
 whose army, according to Diodorus (i, 53-58), consisted of six hundred 
 thousand foot and twenty-four thousand horsemen, twenty-seven 
 thousand chariots, and four hundred ships of war. With these hosts 
 he subdued many of the Asiatic and African nations, carving his 
 name and likeness as trophies of victory on the rocks of the conquered 
 countries. Herodotus speaks of having seen two of these inscriptions 
 himself (ii, 102-106), and two are still to be found not far from Bairut,
 
 86 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the whole world as its first and greatest nation. What are we 
 now? The king himself calls beggars and foreigners the sup- 
 porters of his throne, and devises a petty stratagem to secure 
 the friendship of a power over whom we were victorious before 
 the Nile was infested by these strangers. :ic Egypt was then a 
 mighty queen in glorious apparel; she is now a painted woman 
 decked out in tinsel!" 
 
 the ancient Eep6r/ or ~Rrjpvr6g. Drawings of these have been given 
 by Guys and Wyse, and are also to be found in the "Annales de 
 1'institut de Corresp. Archeol. Rome, 1834." It is probable in refer- 
 ence to these pictures and inscriptions that the Egyptian monu- 
 ments call him, "He who holds the world firmly by means of the 
 monuments bearing his name." Ker ta-u em menn-u hi ran-f. His 
 conquests brought vast sums of tribute into Egypt. Tacitus "An- 
 nal.," ii, 60, and these enabled him to erect magnificent buildings 
 in the whole length of the land from Nubia to Tanis, but more espe- 
 cially in Thebes, the city in which he resided. One of the obelisks 
 erected by Rameses at Heliopolis is now standing in the Place de la 
 Concorde, at Paris, and has been lately translated by F. Chabas. On 
 the walls of the yet remaining palaces and temples, built under this 
 mighty king, we find, even to this day, thousands of pictures repre- 
 senting himself, his armed hosts, the many nations subdued by the 
 power of his arms, and the divinities to whose favor he believed 
 these victories were owing. Among the latter Ammon and Bast 
 seem to have received his especial veneration, and, on the other 
 hand, we read in these inscriptions that the gods were very willing to 
 grant the wishes of their favorite. A poetical description of the 
 wars he waged with the Khita is to be found in long lines of hiero- 
 glyphics on the south wall of the hall of columns of Rameses II. at 
 Karnak, also Luxor and in the Sallier Papyrus, and an epic poem 
 referring to his mighty deeds in no less than six different places. 
 This has been treated by Vicomte E. de Rouge. The very interesting 
 treaty of peace concluded by Rameses with the Khita has been pre- 
 served to us and translated by Chabas in the appendix to his 
 "Analysis of the Papyrus Anastasi I, Voyage d'un Egyptien." The 
 portrait with the slightly arched nose, representing him in the en- 
 thusiasm of enterprise, is highly characteristic. The existing mon- 
 uments enable us to follow his entire history and to become ac- 
 quainted with every member of his family. In the reign of Rameses 
 Egyptian art reached its highest point. Schnaase, "Kunstge- 
 schichte," i, 417. 
 
 *Josephus (following Manetho) relates that Rameses also conquered 
 the Medes. This would not be so improbable if we may consider 
 Bachtan, where in the twentieth dynasty we find one of the Pharaohs 
 levying tribute, to be Ekbatana. Bachtan was certainly in Asia. 
 See the Bentrescht Stela in the library at Paris. E. de Roug6, "Etude 
 sur une Stele Egyptienne, etc. Journ. Asiat.," 1856-1858.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 87 
 
 "Have a care what thou sayest!" shouted Amasis, stamping 
 on the floor. "Egypt was never so great, so flourishing as 
 now! Rameses carried our arms 1 into distant lands and earned 
 blood; through my labors the products of our industry have 
 been carried to all parts of the world and instead of blood have 
 brought us treasure and blessing. Rameses caused the blood 
 and sweat of his subjects to flow in streams for the honor of 
 his own great name; under my rule their blood flows rarely, 
 and the sweat of their brow only in works 1 of usefulness. Every 
 citizen can now end his days in prosperity and comfort. Ten 
 thousand populous cities rise on the shores of the Nile,* not 
 a foot of the soil lies untilled, every child enjoys the protection 
 of law and justice, and every ill-doer shuns the watchful 
 eye of the authorities. 
 
 "In case of attack from without have we not, as defenders 
 of those god-given bttlwarks,t our cataracts-, our sea and our 
 deserts, the finest army that ever bore arms? Thirty thousand 
 Hellenes besides our entire Egyptian military caste, such is 
 the present condition of Egypt ! Rameses purchased the bright 
 tinsel of empty fame with the blood and tears of his people. 
 To me they are indebted for the pure gold of a peaceful welfare 
 as citizens to me and to my predecessors, the Saitic kings!" 
 
 "And yet I tell thee," cried the prince, "that a worm is 
 gnawing at the root of Egypt's greatness and her life. This 
 struggle for riches and splendor corrupts the 1 hearts of the peo- 
 ple, foreign luxury has given a deadly blow to the simple man- 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 177. This information seems to be exaggerated, as, 
 according to Diodorus, th'e population of Egypt at the time of the 
 Ptolemies did not exceed seven millions. "Diod.," i, 31. Josephus 
 makes it seven millions five hundred thousand. The number given 
 by Theokritus is nothing more than a mnemonic play on the number 
 three. Lane, in his account of the manners and customs of the 
 modern Egyptians, reckons that the country could supply food for 
 eight million inhabitants. Champollion le jeune believes that six 
 or seven millions may be accepted as the correct number. In 1830 the 
 population of Egypt amounted to two million five hundred thousand 
 souls, according to Lane. 
 
 fThe science of fortification was very fairly understood by 'the 
 ancient Egyptians. Walled and battlemented forts are to be seen 
 depicted on their monuments. We have already endeavored to show 
 (see our work on "Egypt.," i, 78 and following) that, on the northeast, 
 Egypt was defended from Asiatic invasion by a line of forts extending 
 from Pelusium to the Red Sea.
 
 88 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ners of our citizens, and many an Egyptian has been taught by 
 the Greeks to scoff at the gods of his fathers. Every day brings 
 news of bloody strife between the Greek mercenaries and our 
 native soldiery, between our own people and the strangers. 
 The shepherd and his- flock are at variance; the wheels of the 
 state machinery are grinding one another, and thus the state 
 itself, into total ruin. This once, father, though never again, 
 I must speak out clearly what is weighing on my heart. While 
 engaged in contending with the priests thou hast seen with 
 calmness the young might of Persia roll on from the east, con- 
 suming the nations on its way, and, like a devouring monster, 
 growing more and more formidable from every fresh prey. 
 Thine aid was not, as thou hadst intended, given to the Lydians 
 and Babylonians against the enemy, but to the Greeks in the 
 building of temples to their false gods. At last resistance 
 seemed hopeless; a whole hemisphere with its rulers lay in 
 submission at the feet of Persia; but even then the gods willed 
 Egypt a chance of deliverance. Cambyses desired thy 
 daughter in marriage. Thou, however, too weak to sacrifice 
 thine own flesh and blood for the good of all, hast substituted 
 another maiden, not thine own child, as an offering to the 
 mighty monarch; and at the same time, in thy soft-heartedness, 
 wilt spare the life of a stranger in whose hand lie the fortunes 
 of this realm, and who will assuredly work its ruin; unless 
 indeed, worn out by internal dissension, it perish even sooner 
 from its own weakness!" 
 
 Thus far Amasis had listened to these revilings of all he held 
 dearest in silence, though pale and trembling with rage; but 
 now he broke forth in a voice the trumpet-like sound of which 
 pealed through the wide hall: "Know'st thou not, then, thou 
 boasting and revengeful son of evil, thou future destroyer of 
 this ancient and glorious kingdom know'st thou not whose 
 life must be the sacrifice? were not my children and the dynasty 
 which I have founded dearer to me than the welfare of the 
 whole realm? Thou, Psamtik, thou art the man, branded by the 
 gods, feared by men the man to whose heart love and friend- 
 ship are strangers, whose face is never seen to smile nor his 
 soul known to feel compassion! It is not, however, through 
 thine own sin that thy nature is thus unblessed, that all thine 
 undertakings end unhappily. Give heed, for now I am forced 
 to relate what I had hoped long to keep secret from thine ears
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 89 
 
 After dethroning my predecessor, I forced him to give me his 
 sister Tentcheta in marriage. She loved me; a year after 
 marriage there was a promise of a child. During the night 
 preceding thy birth I fell asleep at the bedside of my wife. I 
 dreamed that she was lying on the shores of the Nile and 
 complained to me of pain in the breast. Bending down I be- 
 held a cypress-tree springing from her heart. It grew larger 
 and larger, black and spreading, twined its roots around thy 
 mother and strangled her. A cold shiver seized me, and I 
 was on the point of flying from the spot when a fierce hurricane 
 came from. the east, struck the tree and overthrew it, so that 
 its spreading branches were cast into the Nile. Then the 
 waters ceased to flow; they congealed, and, in place of the 
 river, a gigantic mummy lay before me. The towns on its 
 banks dwindled into huge funereal urns, surrounding the vast 
 corpse of the Nile as 1 in a tomb. At this I awoke and caused 
 the interpreters' of dreams to be summoned. None could ex- 
 plain the vision till at last the priests of the Libyan -Ammon 
 gave me the following interpretation: 'Tentcheta will die in 
 giving birth to a son. The cypress which strangled its mother 
 is this gloomy, unhappy man. In his days a people shall 
 come from the east and shall make of the Nile, that is of the 
 Egyptians, dead bodies, and of their cities ruinous heaps; these 
 are the urns for the dead, which thou sawest/ " 
 
 Psamtik listened as if turned into stone; his father continued: 
 "Thy mother died in giving birth to thee; fiery-red hair, the 
 mark of the sons of Typhon,* grew around thy brow; thou 
 
 *Typhon, in Egyptian Seth, the god of evil and misfortune, passed 
 through a remarkable transformation in the religious consciousness 
 of the Egyptians. In the earliest ages of their history he was not 
 regarded as a destructive deity. Mariette proves that he was wor- 
 shiped at Memphis from the fifth dynasty. His first appearance as 
 a deity of destruction seems to have been in the time of the Hyksos, 
 who worshiped him exclusively. Before this the principle of evil 
 had been personified by the serpent Appe, and Seth had been wor- 
 shiped as the god of war and of foreign countries. If their foes were 
 worsted in battle the Egyptians glorified this deity, but despised and 
 maltreated him if the contrary were the case. Rameses took pleasure 
 in calling himself a worshiper of Seth; but succeeding monarchs 
 erased his name wherever they found it, and at last the god was uni- 
 versally detested as the principle of destruction. According to Plu- 
 tarch he had dominion over all the passionate, ill-regulated, un- 
 steadfast, false and foolish feelings in the souls of men. In one
 
 90 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 becam'st a gloomy man. Misfortune pursued thee and robbed 
 thee of a beloved wife and four of thy children. The astrol- 
 ogers computed that even as I had been born under the fortu- 
 nate sign of Ammon, so thy birth had been watched over by 
 the rise of the awful planet Seb.* Thou But here 
 
 Amasis broke off, for Psamtik, in the anguish produced by 
 these fearful disclosures, had given way, and, with sobs and 
 groans, cried: 
 
 "Cease, cruel father! spare me at least the bitter words that 
 I am the only son in Egypt who is hated by his father without 
 cause !" 
 
 Amasis looked down on the wretched man who had sunk to 
 the earth before him, his face hidden in the folds of his robe, 
 and the father's wrath was changed to compassion. 
 
 He thought of Psamtik's mother, dead forty years before, 
 and felt he had been cruel in inflicting this poisonous wound 
 
 Papyrus he is called "the omnipotent destroyer and devastator." 
 Lepsius, "erster Gotterkreis," p. 53. The destroying forces of nature 
 were reflected in his being. All noxious plants and destructive 
 animals were his property, and the capricious and unfruitful sea 
 formed a part of his dominions. His favorite animals were the stub- 
 born ass, the disgusting hippopotamus, the voracious crocodile and 
 the wild boar. Red was his distinctive color, in consequence of which 
 people with red hair were called Typhonian, and are said to have been 
 offered in sacrifice to this deity. "Diod.," 88. Plutarch gives the 
 same account. But these human sacrifices had already ceased to be 
 practiced at a very early period, though red-headed Egyptians con- 
 tinued to be held in contempt, and were often pelted with mud much 
 later. The pictures of the god represent him as deformed, having a 
 back covered with bristles and the head of a crocodile, an ass or 
 hippopotamus. In the myth of Isis and Osiris we find Seth-Typhon 
 again. 
 
 *The Egyptian astrologers had a world-wide renown. "Herodotus" 
 (ii, 82) says that they were the inventors of astrology, and Aristoteles 
 (de coelo, ii, 12) that they were the first astronomers. Each hour, 
 with them, had its respective planets boding good fortune or the re- 
 verse; horoscopes drawn from the position of the stars determined 
 these predictions. Ammon (Jupiter) was invariably a fortunate star, 
 Seb (Saturn) unpropitious, Thoth (Mercury) fluctuating. It was also 
 believed that even a single limb could be affected by certain stars. 
 "Champollion letters," p. 239. "Fermicus Maternus," iv, 16, even 
 mentions the names of two celebrated Egyptian astrologers, Petosiris 
 and Nechepso. See also "Diodorus," i, 50, 81, ii, 92. The monuments 
 abound in astronomical representations, and the calendars of their 
 festivals which have come down to us confirm the reports of classical 
 writers as to the progress of astronomy in Egypt.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 91 
 
 on her son's soul. It was the first time for years that he had 
 been able to feel toward this cold, strange man as a father and 
 a comforter. For the first time he saw tears in the cold eyes 
 of his son, and could feel the joy of wiping them away. He 
 seized the opportunity at once, and, bending down over the 
 groaning form, kissed his forehead, raised him from the ground, 
 and said, gently: 
 
 "Forgive my anger, my son! the words that have grieved 
 thee came not from my heart, but were spoken in haste of wrath. 
 Many years hast thou angered me by thy coldness, hardness, 
 and obstinacy; to-day thou hast wounded me again in my most 
 sacred feelings-; this hurried me into an excess of wrath. But 
 now all is right between us. Our natures are so diverse that 
 our innermost feelings will never be one, but at least we can 
 act in concert for the future and show forbearance one toward 
 the other." 
 
 In silence Psamtik bowed down and kissed his father's robe. 
 "Not so!" exclaimed the latter; "rather let my lips receive thy 
 kiss, as- is meet and fitting between father and son! Thou 
 needest not to think again of the evil dream I have related. 
 Dreams are phantoms, and even if sent by the gods the inter- 
 preters thereof are human and erring. Thy hand trembles 
 still, thy cheeks are white as thy robe. I was hard toward thee, 
 harder than a father." 
 
 "Harder than a stranger to strangers," interrupted his son. 
 "Thou hast crushed and broken me, and if till now my face 
 has seldom worn a smile, from this day forward it can be 
 naught but a mirror of my inward misery." 
 
 "Not so," said Amasis, laying his hand on his son's shoulder. 
 "If I wound, I can also heal. Tell me the dearest wish of thy 
 heart; it shall be granted thee!" 
 
 Psamtik's eyes flashed, his sallow cheeks glowed for a 
 moment, and he answered without consideration, though in a 
 voice still trembling from the shock he had just received: 
 "Deliver Phanes, my enemy, into my power!" 
 
 The king remained a few moments in deep thought, then 
 answered: "I knew what thou woulclst ask, and will fulfill 
 thy desire ; but I would rather thou hadst asked the half of my 
 treasures. A thousand voices within warn me that I am 
 about to do an unworthy and a ruinous deed ruinous for my- 
 self, for thee, the kingdom and our house. Reflect before
 
 92 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 acting, and remember, whatever thou mayst meditate against 
 Phanes, not a hair of Rhodopis' head shall be touched. Also, 
 that the persecution of my poor friend is to remain a s-ecret 
 from the Greeks. Where shall I find his equal as a com- 
 mander, an adviser and a companion? He is not yet in thy 
 power, however, and I advise thee to remember that, though 
 thou mayst be clever for an Egyptian, Phanes is a clever 
 Greek. I will remind thee, too, of thy solemn oath to renounce 
 the grandchild of Rhodopis. Methinks vengeance is dearer 
 , to thee than love, and the amends- I offer will, therefore, be 
 acceptable! As to Egypt, I repeat once more, she was never 
 more flourishing than now; a fact which none dream of dis- 
 puting, except the priests and those who retail their foolish 
 words. And now give ear, if thou wouldst know the origin 
 of Nitetis. Self-interest will enjoin secrecy." 
 
 Psamtik listened eagerly to his- father's communication, in- 
 dicating his gratitude at the conclusion by a warm pressure of 
 the hand. 
 
 "Now, farewell," said Amasis. "Forget not my words, and 
 above all, shed no blood! I will know nothing of what hap- 
 pens to Phanes, for I hate cruelty and would not be forced to 
 stand in horror of my own son. But thou, thou rejoicest! 
 My poor Athenian, better were it for thee hadst thou never 
 entered Egypt!" 
 
 Long after Psamtik had left, his father continued to pace the 
 hall in deep thought. He was sorry he had yielded; it 
 already seemed as if he saw the bleeding Phanes lying mas- 
 sacred by the side of the dethroned Hcphra. "It is true, he 
 could have worked our ruin," was the plea he offered to the 
 accuser within his own breast, and with these words, he raised 
 his head, called his s-ervants and left the apartment with a 
 smiling countenance. 
 
 Had this sanguine man, this favorite of fortune, thus speedily 
 quieted the warning voice within, or was he strong enough to 
 cloak his torture with a smile?
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 33 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Psamtik went at once from his father's apartments to the 
 temple of the goddess Neith. At the entrance he asked for 
 the high-priest and was begged by one of the inferior priests 
 to wait, as the great Neithotep was at that moment praying in 
 the holiest sanctuary* of the exalted queen of heaven. 
 
 After a short time a young priest appeared with the intelli- 
 gence that his superior awaited the prince's visit. 
 
 Psamtik had seated himself under the shadow of the sacred 
 grove of silver poplars, bordering the shores of the consecrated 
 lake,f holy to the great Neith. He rose immediately, crossed 
 the temple court, paved with stone and asphalt, on which the 
 sun's rays were darting like fiery arrows, and turned into one 
 of the long avenues of Sphinxes which led to the isolated 
 Pylonsij: before the gigantic temple of the goddess. He then 
 passed through the principal gate, ornamented, as were all 
 Egyptian temple-entrances, with the winged sun's disk. 
 Above its widely opened folding-doors arose on either side 
 
 *The temples of Egypt were so constructed as to intensify the devo- 
 tion of the worshiper by conducting him onward through a series of 
 halls or chambers gradually diminishing in size. "The way through 
 these temples is clearly indicated, no digression is allowed, no error 
 possible. We wander on through the huge and massive gates of 
 entrance, between the ranks of sacred animals. The worshiper is 
 received into an ample court, but by degrees the walls on either side 
 approach one another, the halls become less lofty, all is gradually 
 tending toward one point. And thus we wander on, the sights and 
 sounds of God's world without attract us no longer, we see nothing 
 but the sacred representation which encompass us so closely, feel only 
 the solemnity of the temple in which we stand. And the consecrated 
 walls embrace us ever more and more closely, until at last we reach 
 the lonely, resonant chamber occupied by the divinity himself, and 
 entered by no human being save his priest." Schnaase, "Kunst- 
 geschichte," i, 394. 
 
 fThis lake exists still near the ruins of Sais. "Herod.," ii, 170. 
 "Wilkinson," iv, 192, ii, 509. Map in the "Description de 1'Egypte.'' 
 Lepsius, "Denkmaler. Abth.," i, pi. 55 and 56. 
 
 JThe isolated gateways with slanting piers or side-walls, which led 
 to the Egyptian temples, and which perhaps obtained for Homer's 
 Phebes the name, "city of a hundred gates."
 
 94 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 tower-like buildings, slender obelisks and waving flags. The 
 front of the temple, rising from the earth in the form of an 
 obtuse angle, had somewhat the appearance of a fortress, and 
 was covered with colored pictures- and inscriptions. Through 
 the porch Psamtik passed on into a lofty entrance-chamber, 
 and from thence into the great hall itself, the ceiling of which 
 was strewn with thousands of golden stars, and supported by 
 four rows of lofty pillars. Their capitals were carved in imita- 
 tion of the lotus-flower, and these, the shafts of the columns, 
 the walls of this huge hall and indeed every niche and corner 
 that met the eye were covered with brilliant colors and hiero- 
 glyphics. The columns rose to a gigantic height, the eyes 
 seemed to wander through immeasurable space, and the air 
 breathed by the worshipers was heavy with the fragrance of 
 Kyphi and incense and the odors which aros-e from the labora- 
 tory attached to the temple. Strains of soft music, proceeding 
 from invisible hands, flowed on unceasingly, only occasionally 
 interrupted by the deep lowing of the sacred cows of Isis, or the 
 shrill call of the sparrow-hawk of Horus, whose habitations 
 were in one of the adjoining halls. No sooner did the pro- 
 longed low of a cow break like distant thunder on the ear, or 
 the sharp cry of the sparrow-hawk shoot like a flash of light- 
 ning through the nerves of the worshipers, than each crouch- 
 ing form bent lower still and touched the pavement with his 
 forehead. On a portion of this pavement, raised above the 
 rest, stood the priests, some wearing ostrich feathers on their 
 bald and shining heads; others panther skins over their white- 
 robed shoulders. Muttering and singing, bowing low and 
 rising again, they swung the censers and poured libations- of 
 pure water to the gods out of golden ves-sels. In this immense 
 temple man seemed a dwarf in his own eyes. All his senses, 
 even to the organs of respiration, were occupied by objects far 
 removed from daily life, objects that thrilled and almost op- 
 pressed him. Snatched from all that was familiar in his daily 
 existence, he seemed to grow dizzy and seek support beyond 
 himself. To this the voice of the priests directed him and the 
 cries of the sacred animals were believed to prove a divinity 
 at hand. 
 
 Psamtik assumed the posture of a worshiper on the low, 
 gilded and cushioned couch set apart for him, but was unable 
 to pay any real devotion, and passed on to the adjoining
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 35 
 
 apartment before mentioned, where the sacred cows of Isis- 
 Neith and the sparrow-hawk of Horus were kept. These 
 creatures were concealed from the gaze of the worshipers by a 
 curtain of rich fabric embroidered with gold; the people were 
 only allowed an occasional and distant glimpse of the adorable 
 animals. When Psamtik passed they were just being fed; 
 cakes soaked in milk, salt and clover-blossoms were placed 
 in golden cribs for the cows, and small birds of many-colored 
 plumage in the beautifully wrought and ornamented cage of 
 the sparrow-hawk. But, in his present mood, the heir to the 
 throne of Egypt had no eye for these rare sights, but ascended 
 at once, by means of a hidden staircase, to the chambers lying 
 near the observatory, where the high-priest was accustomed 
 to repose after the temple-service. 
 
 Neithotep, a man of seventy years, was seated in a splendid 
 apartment. Rich Babylonian carpets covered the floor, and 
 his chair was of gold, cushioned with purple. A tastefully 
 carved footstool supported his feet, his hand held a roll covered 
 with hieroglyphics, and a boy stood behind him with a fan of 
 ostrich-feathers to keep away the insects. 
 
 The face of the old man was deeply lined now, but it might 
 once have been handsome, and in the large blue eyes there 
 still lay evidence of a quick intellect and a dignified self-respect. 
 
 His 1 artificial curls had been laid aside, and the bald, smooth 
 head formed a strange contrast to the furrowed countenance, 
 giving an appearance of unusual height to the forehead, gen- 
 erally so very low among the Egyptians. The brightly colored 
 walls of the room, on which numerous sentences in hiero- 
 glyphic characters were painted, the different statues of the 
 goddess painted likewise in gay colors, and the snow-white 
 garments of the aged priest were calculated to fill a stranger 
 not only with wonder, but with a species of awe. 
 
 The old man received the prince with much affection, and 
 asked: 
 
 "What brings my illustrious son to the poor servant of the 
 deity?" 
 
 "I have much to report to thee, my father," answered Psam- 
 tik, with a triumphant smile, "for I come in this moment from 
 Amasis." 
 
 "Then he has at length granted thee an audience?" 
 
 "At length!"
 
 96 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Thy countenance tells me that thou hast been favorably 
 received by our lord, thy father." 
 
 "After having first experienced his wrath. For, when I laid 
 before him the petition with which thou hadst intrusted me, 
 he was exceedingly wroth and nearly crushed me by his awful 
 words." 
 
 "Thou hadst surely grieved him by thy language. Didst 
 thou approach him as I advised thee, with lowliness, as a son 
 humbly beseeching his father?" 
 
 "No, my father; I was irritated and indignant." 
 
 "Then was Amasis right to be wrathful, for never should 
 a son meet his father in anger; still less when he hath a request 
 to bring before him. Thou know'st the promise, 'The days of 
 him that honoreth his father shall be many.'* In this one 
 thing, my scholar, thou errest always ; to gain thine ends thou 
 usest violence and roughness where good and gentle words 
 would more surely prevail. A kind word hath far more power 
 than an angry one, and much may depend on the way in which 
 a man ordereth his speech. Hearken to that which I will now 
 relate: In former years there was a king in Egypt named 
 Snefru, who ruled in Memphis. And it came to pass that he 
 dreamed, and in his dream his teeth fell out of his mouth. And 
 he sent for the soothsayers and told them the dream. The first 
 interpreter answered: 'Woe unto thee, O king! all thy kins-- 
 men shall die before thee!' Then was Snefru wroth, caused 
 this messenger of evil to be scourged and sent for a second 
 interpreter. He answered: 'O king, live forever; thy life 
 shall be longer than the life of thy kinsmen and the men of thy 
 house!' Then the king smiled and gave presents unto this 
 interpreter, for though the interpretations were one, yet he had 
 understood to clothe his message in a web of fair and pleasant 
 words. Apprehendest thou? Then hearken to my voice and 
 refrain from harsh words, remembering that to the ear of a 
 ruler the manner of a man's speech is weightier than its 
 matter." 
 
 "Oh, my father, how often hast thou thus admonished me! 
 How often have I been convinced of the evil consequences of 
 
 "This Egyptian command bears a remarkable resemblance to the 
 fifth in the Hebrew decalogue, both having a promise annexed. It 
 occurs in the Prisse Papyrus, the most ancient sacred writing extant.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 97 
 
 my rough words and angry gestures! But I cannot change 
 my nature, I cannot " 
 
 "Say, rather, I will not; for he that is indeed a man dare 
 never again commit those sins' of which he has once repented. 
 But I have admonished sufficiently. Tell me, now, how thou 
 didst calm the wrath of Amasis?" 
 
 "Thou knowest my father. When he saw that he had 
 wounded me in the depths of my soul by his awful words he 
 repented him of his anger. He felt that he been too hard and 
 desired to make amends at any price." 
 
 "He hath a kindly heart, but his mind is blinded and his 
 senses taken captive," cried the priest. "What might not 
 Amasis do for Egypt would he but hearken to our counsel and 
 to the commandments of the gods!" 
 
 "But hear me, my father. In his emotion he granted me 
 the life of Phanes !" " 
 
 "Thine eyes flash, Psamtik! That pleaseth me not. The 
 Athenian must die, for he has offended the gods; but though 
 he that condemns must let justice have her way, he should have 
 no pleasure in the death of the condemned; rather should he 
 mourn. Now speak; didst thou obtain aught further?" 
 
 "The king declared unto me to what house Nitetis belongs." 
 
 "And further naught?" 
 
 "No, my father; but art thou not eager to learn " 
 
 "Curiosity is a woman's vice; moreover, I have long known 
 all that thou canst tell me." 
 
 "But didst thou nof charge me but yesterday to ask my 
 father this question?" 
 
 "I did so to prove thee, and know whether thou wert re- 
 signed to the divine will and wert walking in those ways 
 wherein alone thou canst become worthy of initiation into the 
 highest grade of knowledge. Thou hast told us faithfully all 
 that thou hast heard and thereby proved that thou canst obey 
 the first virtue of a priest." 
 
 "Thou knewest then the father of Nitetis?" 
 
 "I myself pronounced the prayer over King Hophra's 
 tomb." 
 
 "But who imparted the secret to thee?" 
 
 "The eternal stars, my son, and my skill in reading them." 
 
 "And do these stars never deceive?" 
 
 "Never him who truly understands them."
 
 98 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Psamtik turned pale. His father's dream and his own fear- 
 ful horoscope passed like awful visions through his mind. 
 The priest detected at once the change in his features and said, 
 gently: "Thou deem'st thyself a lost man because the heavens 
 prognosticated evil at thy birth; but take comfort, Psamtik; 
 I observed another sign in the heavens at that moment, which 
 escaped the notice of the astrologers. Thy horoscope was a 
 threatening, a very threatening one, but Its omens may be 
 averted, they may " 
 
 "Oh, tell me, father, tell me how!" 
 
 "They must turn to good, if thou, forgetful of all else, canst 
 live alone to the gods, paying a ready obedience to the Divine 
 voice audible to us, their priests, alone in the innermost and 
 holiest sanctuary." 
 
 "Father, I am ready to obey thy slightest word." 
 
 "The great goddess Neith, who rules in Sais, grant this, my 
 son!" answered the priest, solemnly. "But now leave me 
 alone," he continued, kindly; "lengthened devotions and the 
 weight of years bring weariness. If possible, delay the death 
 of Phanes; I wish to speak with him before he dies. Yet one 
 more word. A troop of Ethiopians arrived yesterday. These 
 men cannot speak a word of Greek and under a faithful leader, 
 acquainted with the Athenians and the locality, they would be 
 the best agents for getting rid of the doomed man, as their 
 ignorance of the language and the circumstances render 
 treachery or gossip impossible. Before starting for Naukratis 
 they must know nothing of the design of their journey; the 
 deed once accomplished we can send them back to Kush.* 
 Remember, a secret can never be too carefully kept! I'are- 
 well." 
 
 Psamtik had only left the room a few moments-, when a 
 young priest entered, one of the king's attendants. 
 
 "Have I listened well, father?" he inquired of the old man. 
 
 "Perfectly, my son. Nothing of that which passed between 
 Amasis and Psamtik has escaped thine ears. May Isisf pre- 
 serve them long to thee!" 
 
 *The Egyptian name for Ethiopia. 
 
 tlsis, the wife or sister of Osiris, is the phenomena of nature, by 
 means of which the god is able to reveal himself to human contem- 
 plation.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 99 
 
 "Ah, father, a deaf man could have heard every word in the 
 ante-chamber to-day, for Amasis bellowed like an ox." 
 
 "The great Neith has smitten him with the lack of prudence. 
 But now return, keep thine eyes open and inform me at once if 
 Amasis, as is possible, should attempt to thwart the conspiracy 
 against Phanes. Thou wilt certainly find me here. Charge 
 the attendants to admit no one, and to say I am at my devotions 
 in the holy of the holies. May the ineffable One protect thy 
 footsteps !" 
 
 While Psamtik was making every preparation for the cap- 
 ture of Phanes:, Croesus, accompanied by his followers, had 
 embarked on board a royal bark, and was on his way down 
 the Nile to spena the evening with Rhodopis. 
 
 His son Gyges and the three young Persians remained in 
 Sais, passing the time in a manner most agreeable to them. 
 
 Amasis loaded them with civilities, allowed. them, accord- 
 ing to Egyptian custom, the society of his queen and of the twin 
 sisters, as they were called; taught Gyges the game of 
 draughts,* and looking on while the strong, dexterous young 
 heroes joined his daughters in the game of throwing balls and 
 hoops, so popular among Egyptian maidens, f enlivened their 
 amusements with an inexhaustible flow of wit and humor. 
 
 "Really," said Bartja, as- he watched Nitetis catching the 
 slight hoop ornamented with gay ribbons for the hundredth 
 time on her slender ivory rod, "we must introduce this game 
 at home. We Persians are so different from you Egyptians. 
 Everything new has a special charm for us, while to you it is 
 
 *The Pharaohs themselves, as well as their subjects, were in the 
 habit of playing at draughts and other similar games. Rosellini 
 gives us Rameses playing with his daughter; see also two Egyptians 
 playing together, "Wilkinson," ii, 419, V. Minutoli, "Gesellchaftliche 
 Spiele bei den Alten Aegyptern." "Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung." 
 An especially beautiful draught board exists in the Egyptian collec- 
 tion at the Louvre Museum. 
 
 tV Minutoli, "Gesellschaftliche Spiele." "Wilkinson," ii, 429. 
 Rosellini, "Mon. Civ.," pi. 100 and 101. Balls that have been found 
 in the tombs are still to be seen; some, for instance, in the museum 
 at Leyden.
 
 100 ' AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 just as hateful. I shall describe the game to our mother, Kas- 
 sandane, and she will be delighted to allow my brothers' wives 
 this new amusement." 
 
 "Yes, do, do!" exclaimed the fair Tachot, blushing deeply. 
 "Then Nitetis can play, too, and fancy herself back again at 
 home and among those she loves; and Bartja," she added, in 
 a low voice, "whenever you watch the hoops flying you, too, 
 must remember this hour." 
 
 "I shall never forget it," answered he, with a smile, and 
 then, turning to his future sister-in-law, he called out cheer- 
 fully: "Be of good courage, Nitetis-; you will be happier than 
 you fancy with us. We Asiatics know how to honor beauty; 
 and prove it by taking many wives." 
 
 Nitetis sighed, and the queen Ladice exclaimed: "On the 
 contrary, that very fact proves that you understand but poorly 
 how to appreciate woman's nature! You can have no idea, 
 Bartja, what a woman feels on finding that her husband the 
 man who to her is more than life itself, and to whom she would 
 gladly and without reserve give up all that she treasures as 
 most sacred looks down on her with the same kind of admira- 
 tion that he bestows on a pretty toy, a noble steed, or a well- 
 wrought wine-bowl. But it is yet a thousandfold more pain- 
 ful to feel that the love which every woman has a right to 
 possess for herself alone must be shared with a hundred 
 others !" 
 
 "There speaks the jealous wife!" exclaimed Amasis. 
 "Would you not fancy that I had often given her occasion to 
 doubt my faithfulness?" 
 
 "No, no, my husband," answered Ladice ; "in this point the 
 Egyptian men surpass other nations, that they remain con- 
 tent with that which they have once loved; indeed, I venture 
 to assert that an Egyptian wife is the happiest of women.* 
 
 * According to Diodorus the queen of Egypt held a higher position 
 than the king himself. The monuments and lists of names certainly 
 prove that women could reign with sovereign power. We notice also 
 that sons, in speaking of their descent, quite as often reckon it from 
 the mother's as from the father's side, that a married woman is con- 
 stantly alluded to as the "mistress," the "lady" of the house; in 
 short, that the weaker sex seems to have enjoyed equal rights with 
 the stronger. We learn, too, from the inscriptions, that pretenders 
 to the crown were often anxious to secure the hand of a princess 
 belonging to a legitimate dynasty.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 101 
 
 Even the Greeks, who in so many things may serve as patterns 1 
 to us, do not know how to appreciate woman rightly. Most of 
 the young Greek girls pass their sad childhood in close rooms, 
 kept to the wheel and the loom by their mothers and those who 
 have charge of them, and, when marriageable, are transferred 
 to the quiet house of a husband they do not know, and whose 
 work in life and in the state allows him but seldom to visit 
 his wife's apartments. Only when the most intimate friends 
 and nearest relations are with her husband does she venture to 
 appear in their midst, and then shyly and timidly, hoping to 
 hear a little of what is going on in the great world outside. Ah, 
 indeed! we women thirst for knowledge, too, and there are cer- 
 tain branches of learning at least which it cannot be right to 
 withhold from those who are to be the mothers and educators 
 of the next generation. What can an Attic mother, without 
 knowledge, without experience, give to her daughters? 
 Naught but her own ignorance; and so it is, that a Hellene, 
 seldom satisfied with the society of his lawful but mentally 
 inferior wife, turns for satisfaction to those courtesans, who, 
 from their constant intercourse with men, have acquired knowl- 
 edge, and well understand how to adorn it with the flowers 
 of feminine grace, and to season it with the salt of a woman's 
 more refined and delicate wit." In Egypt it is different. A 
 young girl is allowed to associate freely with the most en- 
 lightened men. Youths and maidens meet constantly on fes- 
 tive occasions, learn to know and to love one another. The 
 wife is not the slave, but the friend of her husband; the one 
 supplies the deficiencies of the other. In weighty questions 
 the stronger decides, but the lesser cares of life are left to her 
 who is the greater in small things. The daughters grow up 
 under careful guidance, for the mother is neither ignorant 
 nor inexperienced. To be virtuous and diligent in her affairs 
 becomes easy to a woman, for she sees that it increases his 
 happiness whose dearest possession she boasts of being, and 
 who belongs to her alone. We women only do that which 
 pleas-es us! but the Egyptian men understand the art of making 
 us pleased with that which is really good, and with that alone. 
 On the shores of the Nile Phocylides, of Miletus, and Hip- 
 ponax, of Ephesus, would never have dared to sing their libels 
 
 *See note p. 7.
 
 102 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 on women, nor could the fable of Pandora* have been possibly 
 invented here!'' 
 
 "How beautifully you speak!" exclaimed Bartja. "Greek 
 was not easy to learn, but I am very glad now that I did not 
 give it up in despair, and really paid attention to Croesus' 
 lessons." 
 
 "Who could those men have been," asked Darius, "who dared 
 to speak evil of women?" 
 
 "A couple of Greek poets," answered Amasis, "the boldest 
 of men, for I confess I would rather provoke a lioness than a 
 woman. But these Greeks do not know what fear is. I will 
 give you a specimen of Hipponax's poetry: 
 
 " 'There are but two days when a wife 
 Brings pleasure to her husband's life: 
 The wedding-day, when hopes are bright, 
 And the day he buries her out of his sight.' "f 
 
 "Cease, cease," cried Ladice, stopping her ears; "that is too 
 bad. Now, Persians, you can see what manner of man Amasis 
 is. For the sake of a joke, he will laugh at those who hold 
 precisely the same opinion as himself. There could not be a 
 better husband " 
 
 "Nor a worse wife," laughed Amasis. "Thou wilt make 
 men think that I am a too-obedient husband. But now fare- 
 
 *Simonides of Amorgos, an Iambic poet who delighted in writing 
 satirical verses on women. He divides them into different classes 
 which he compares to unclean animals, and considers that the only 
 woman worthy of a husband and able to make him happy must be 
 like the bee. The well-known fable of Pandora owes its origin to 
 Simonides. He lived about 650 B. C. The Egyptians, too, speak very 
 severely of bad women, comparing them quite in the Simonides 
 style to beasts of prey (hyenas, lions and panthers). We find this 
 sentence on a vicious woman: "She is a collection of every kind of 
 meanness, and a bag full of wiles." Chabas, "Papyr. Magique Harris," 
 p. 135. Phocylides, of Miletus, a rough and sarcastic, but observant 
 man, imitated Simonides in his style of writing. But the deformed 
 Hipponax, of Ephesus, a poet crushed down by poverty, wrote far 
 bitterer verses than Phocylides. He lived about 550 B. C. "His own 
 ugliness (according to Bernhardy) is reflected in every one of his 
 Choliambics." See Welcker, Schneidewin and Bergk for fragments 
 of his poems. 
 
 tTaken from F. W. Richter's excellent translation.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 103 
 
 well, my children; our young heroes must look at this our 
 city of Sais; before parting however I will repeat to them what 
 the malicious Simonides has sung of a good wife: 
 
 " 'Dear to her spouse from youth to age she grows; 
 ' Fills with fair girls and sturdy boys his house; 
 Among all women womanliest seems, 
 And heavenly grace about her mild brow gleams. 
 A gentle wife, a noble spouse, she walks, 
 Nor ever with the gossip-mongers talks. 
 Such women sometimes Zeus to mortals gives, 
 The glory and the solace of their lives.' " 
 
 Translated by Edwin Arnold. 
 
 "Such is my Ladice! now farewell!" 
 
 "Not yet!" cried Bartja. "Let me first speak in defense of 
 our poor Persia and instill fresh courage into my future sister- 
 in-law; but no! Darius, thou must speak, thine eloquence is 
 as great as thy skill in figures and swordsmanship !" 
 
 "Thou speakest of me as if I were a gossip or a shop- 
 keeper,"* answered the son of Hystaspes. "Be it so; I have 
 been burning all this time to defend the customs of our coun- 
 try. Know, then, Ladice, that if Auramazdaf dispose the 
 heart of our king in his own good ways, your daughter will not 
 be his slave but his friend. Know, also, that in Persia, though 
 certainly only at high festivals, the king's wives have their 
 places at the men's table, and that we pay the highest reverence 
 to our wives and mothers. A king of Babylon once took a 
 Persian wife; in the broad plains of the Euphrates she fell sick 
 of longing for her native mountains; he caused a gigantic 
 structure to be raised on arches, and the summit thereof to be 
 covered with a depth of rich earth; caused the choicest trees 
 and flowers to be planted there and watered by artificial ma- 
 'chinery. This wonder completed, he led 'his wife thither; 
 from its top she could look down into the plains below, as from 
 
 *This nickname, which Darius afterward earned, is more fully 
 spoken of at the end of the second volume. 
 
 tAuramazda, called in the cuneiform writings Ormuzd, was the 
 mighty, pure and immaculate god of the Persians, always opposed 
 to Angramainjus or Ahriman, the principle of evil and darkness. In 
 the Zend-Avesta Auramazda (according to Spiegel) is called Ahura- 
 Mazda.
 
 104 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the heights of Rachmed, -and with this costly gift he presented 
 her.* Tell me, could even an Egyptian give more?" 
 
 "And did she recover?" asked Nitetis, without raising her 
 eyes. 
 
 "She recovered health and happiness; and you, too, will soon 
 feel well and happy in our country." 
 
 "And now," said Ladice, with a smile, "what, think you, 
 contributed most to the young queen's recovery? the beautiful 
 mountain or the love of the husband who erected it for her 
 sake?" 
 
 "Her husband's love," cried the young girls. 
 
 "But Nitetis would not disdain the mountain either," main- 
 tained Bartja, "and I shall make it my ca.re that whenever the 
 court is at Babylon she has the hanging-gardens for her 
 residence." 
 
 "But now come," exclaimed Amasis, "unless you wish to 
 see the city in darkness. Two secretaries have been awaiting 
 me yonder for the last two hours. Ho! Sachons! give orders 
 to the captain of the guard to accompany our noble guests 
 with a hundred men." 
 
 "But why? a single guide, perhaps one of the Greek officers, 
 would be amply sufficient." 
 
 "No, my young friends, it is better so. Foreigners can 
 never be too prudent in Egypt. Do not forget this, and 
 especially be careful not to ridicule the sacred animals. And 
 now farewell, my young heroes, till we meet again this evening 
 over a merry wine-cup." 
 
 The Persians then quitted the palace, accompanied by their 
 interpreter, a Greek, but who had been brought up in Egypt 
 and spoke both languagesf with equal facility. 
 
 Those streets of Sais which lay near the palace wore a pleas- 
 ant aspect. The houses, many of which were five stories high, 
 were generally covered with pictures or hieroglyphics, galleries- 
 with balustrades of carved and gayly painted woodwork, _sup- 
 
 *This stupendous erection is said to have been constructed by 
 Nebuchadnezzar for his Persian wife, Amytis. "Curtius," v, 5. "Jose- 
 phtis contra Apion," i, 19. "Antiquities," x, ii, 1. "Diod.," ii, 10. 
 
 tPsamtik I is said to have formed a new caste, viz.: the caste of 
 interpreters, out of those Greeks who had been born and bred in 
 Egypt. "Herod.," ii, 154. Herodotus himself was probably conducted 
 by such a "Dragoman.'*
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 105 
 
 ported by columns also brightly painted, ran round the walls 
 surrounding 1 the courts. In many cases the proprietor's name 
 and rank was to be read on the door,* which was, however, 
 well closed and locked. Flowers and shrubs ornamented the 
 flat roofs, on which the Egyptians loved to spend the evening 
 hours, unless, indeed, they preferred ascending the mosquito- 
 tower with which nearly every house was provided. These 
 troublesome insects, engendered by the Nile, fly low, and these 
 little watchtowers were built as a protection from them.f 
 
 The young Persians admired the great, almost excessive, 
 cleanliness with which each house, nay, even the streets them- 
 selves, literally shone. The door-plates and knockers sparkled 
 in the sun; paintings, balconies, and columns all had the ap- 
 pearance of having been only just finished, and even the street 
 pavement looked as if it were often scoured. $ But as the 
 Persians left the neighborhood of the Nile and the palace the 
 streets became smaller. Sais was built on the slope of a moder- 
 ately high hill, and had only been the residence of the Pharaohs 
 for two centuries and a half; but during that comparatively 
 short interval had risen from an unimportant place into a town 
 of considerable magnitude. 
 
 On its river side the houses and streets were brilliant, but on 
 the hill slope lay, with but few more respectable exceptions, 
 miserable, poverty-stricken huts constructed of acacia boughs 
 and Nile mud. On the northwest rose the royal citadel. 
 
 "Let us turn back here," exclaimed Gyges to his young 
 companions. During his father's absence he was responsible 
 as their guide and protector, and now perceived that the crowd 
 of curious spectators which had hitherto followed them was 
 increasing at every step. 
 
 "I obey your orders," replied the interpreter, "but yonder 
 in the valley, at the foot of that hill, lies the Saitic city of the 
 
 *"Wilkinson," ii, p. 102, 95, 1. 
 
 f'Wilkinson," ii, p. 119 and 121. "Herod.," ii, 95. Similar little 
 towers can be seen in the present day. 
 
 fThe streets of Egyptian towns seem to have been paved, judging 
 from the ruins of Alabastron and Memphis. We know at least with 
 certainty that this was the case with those leading to the temples. 
 
 The mounds of rubbish indicating the site of the Acropolis of 
 Sais were seen by Lepsius ("Brief e S.," 13), and even earlier by the 
 savants who accompanied the French expedition.
 
 106 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 dead, and for foreigners I should think that would be of great 
 interest" 
 
 "Go forward!" cried Bartja. "For what did we leave .Persia, 
 if not to behold these remarkable objects?" 
 
 On arriving at an open kind of square surrounded by work- 
 men's booths,* and not far from the city of the dead, confused 
 cries rose among the crowd behind them. The children shouted 
 for joy, the women called out and one voice louder than the rest 
 was heard exclaiming: ''Come hither to the fore-court of the 
 temple and see the works of the great magician, who comes 
 from the western oases of Libya and is endowed by miraculous 
 gifts by Chunsu, the giver of good counsels, and by Thoth, 
 th rice-greatest."f 
 
 "Follow me to the small temple yonder," said the interpreter, 
 "and you will behold a strange spectacle." 
 
 He pushed a way for himself and the Persians through the 
 crowd, obstructed in his course by many a sallow woman and 
 naked child; and at length came back with a priest who con- 
 ducted the strangers into the fore-court of the temple. Here, 
 surrounded by various chests and boxes, stood a man in the 
 dress of a priest; beside him on the earth knelt two negroes. 
 
 The Libyan^ was a man of gigantic stature, with great sup- 
 pleness of limb and a pair of piercing, black eyes. In his hand 
 he held a wind-instrument resembling a modern clarionet and a 
 number of snakes known in Egypt to be poisonous lay coiling 
 themselves over his breast and arms. 
 
 'Artisans, as well among the ancient as the modern Egyptians, were 
 accustomed to work in the open air. 
 
 tMany texts in the Bible and narratives related by the ancients 
 prove that magicians and snake-charmers were not uncommon in 
 ancient Egypt. "Psalm," 58, 4, 5. "Jerem.," 8, 17. "Aelian Histor. 
 Animal," xvii, 5. Lane tells us that at the present day there are 
 more than three hundred such snake-charmers in Cairo alone. We 
 would remind our readers also of the Psylli of Cyrenaica. We have 
 chosen, so to speak, the gods Chunsu and Thoth as the tutelary deities 
 of these conjurers, because the former is mentioned on the Bentrescht 
 Stela in the library at Paris, as casting out evil spirits, and Thoth 
 (the Greek Hermes), the inventor of the art of writing and patron 
 of knowledge generally, seems also to have presided over magic. 
 
 tThe name Libya was applied to the western shores of the Nile 
 and the regions beyond. The Libyan Nomos lay in northwest Egypt; 
 and abounded in serpents, especially in its western portions near the 
 Marmarica, which partake of the desert character.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 107 
 
 On finding himself in the presence of the Persians he bowed 
 low, inviting them by a solemn gesture to gaze at his per- 
 formances ; he then cast off his white robe and began all kinds 
 of tricks with the snakes. 
 
 He allowed them to bite him till the blood trickled down 
 his cheeks; compelled them by the notes of his flute to assume 
 an erect position and perform a kind of dancing evolution: 
 by spitting into their jaws he transformed them to all appear- 
 ance into motionless rods ; and then dashing them all onto the 
 earth, performed a wiM dance in their midst, yet without once 
 touching a single snakt. 
 
 Like one possessed he contorted his pliant limbs until his 
 eyes seemed starting from his 1 head and a bloody foam issued 
 from his lips. 
 
 Suddenly he fell to the ground, apparently lifeless. A slight 
 movement of the lips and a low, hissing whistle were the only 
 signs of life; but, on hearing the latter, the snakes creeped up 
 and twined themselves like living rings around his neck, legs 
 and body. At last he arose, stitig a hymn in praise of the 
 divine power which had made him a magician, and then laid 
 the greater number of his snakes in one of the chests, retaining 
 a few, probably his favorites, to serve as ornaments for his neck 
 and arms. 
 
 The second part of this performance consisted of clever con- 
 juring-tricks, in which he swallowed burning flax, balanced 
 swords while dancing, their points standing in the hollow of his 
 eye; drew long strings and ribbons out of the noses of the 
 Egyptian children, exhibited the well-known cup-and-ball trick, 
 and at length raised the admiration of the spectators to its 
 highest pitch by producing five living rabbits from as many 
 ostrich-eggs. 
 
 The Persians formed no unthankful portion of the assembled 
 crowd ; on the contrary, this scene, so .totally new, impressed 
 them deeply. 
 
 They felt as if in the realm of miracles and fancied they had 
 now seen the rarest of all Egyptian rarities. 
 
 In silence they took their way back to the handsomer streets 
 of Sais, without noticing how many mutilated Egyptians crossed 
 their path. These poor disfigured creatures were indeed no 
 unusual sight for Asiatics, who punished many crimes by the 
 amputation of a limb. Had they inquired, however, they would
 
 10 g AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 have heard that, in Egypt, the man deprived of his hand was a 
 convicted forger; the woman of her nose, an adulteress; that 
 the man without a tongue had been found guilty of high trea- 
 son or false witness; that the loss of the ears denoted a spy and 
 that the pale, idiotic-looking woman yonder had been guilty of 
 infanticide and had been condemned to hold the little corpse 
 three days and three nights in her arms. What woman could 
 retain her senses after these hours of torture?* 
 
 The greater number of the Egyptian penal laws not only 
 secured the punishment of the criminal, but rendered a repeti- 
 tion of the offense impossible. 
 
 The Persian party now met with a hindrance, a large crowd 
 having assembled before one of the handsomest houses in the 
 street leading to the temple of Neith. The few windows of 
 this house that could be seen (the greater number opening on 
 the garden and court) were closed with shutters and at the door 
 stood an old man, dressed in the plain white robe of a priest's 
 servant. He was endeavoring, with loud cries, to prevent a 
 number of men of his class from carrying a large chest out of 
 the house. 
 
 "What right have you to rob my master?" he shrieked, 
 indignantly. "I am the guardian of this house and when my 
 master left for Persia (may the gods destroy that land !) he bade 
 me take especial care of this chest in which his manuscripts lay." 
 
 "Compose yourself, old Hib!" shouted one of these inferior 
 priests, the same whose acquaintance we made on the arrival of 
 the Asiatic embassy. "We are here in the name of the high- 
 priest of the great Neith, your master's master. There must 
 be queer papers in this box or Neithotep would not have 
 honored us with his commands to fetch them." 
 
 "But I will not allow my master's papers to be stolen," 
 shrieked the old man. "My master is the great physician Ne- 
 benchari and I will secure his rights, even if I must appeal to 
 the king himself." 
 
 "There," cried the other, "that will do; out with the chest 
 you fellows. Carry it at once to the high-priest; and you, old 
 man, would do more wisely to hold your tongue and remember 
 that the high-priest is your master as well as mine. Get into the 
 house as quick as you can or to-morrow we shall have to drag* 
 
 *"Diodorus," i, 77.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 109 
 
 you off as we did the chest to-day!" So saying he slammed 
 the heavy door, the old man was flung backward into the house 
 and the crowd saw him no more. 
 
 The Persians- had watched this scene and obtained an ex- 
 planation of its meaning from their interpreter. 
 
 Zopyrus laughed on hearing that the possessor of the stolen 
 chest was the oculist Nebenchari, the same who had been sent 
 to Persia to restore the sight of the king's mother, and whose 
 grave, even morose, temper had procured him but little love 
 at the court of Cambyses. 
 
 Bartja wished to ask Amasis the meaning of this strange 
 robbery, but Gyges begged him not to interfere in matters with 
 which he had no concern. Just as they reached the palace 
 and darkness, which in Egypt so quickly succeeds the daylight, 
 was already stealing over the city Gyges felt himself hindered 
 from proceeding farther by a firm hand on his robe and per- 
 ceived a stranger holding a finger on his lips in token of silence. 
 
 "Where can I speak with you alone and unobserved?" he 
 whispered. 
 
 "What do you wish from me?" 
 
 "Ask no questions but answer me quickly. By Mithra,* I 
 have weighty matters to disclose." 
 
 "You speak Persian, but your garments would proclaim you 
 an Egyptian." 
 
 "I am a Persian, but answer me quickly or we shall be 
 noticed. When can I speak to you alone?" 
 
 "To-morrow morning." 
 
 "That is too late." 
 
 "Well then, in a quarter of an hour, when it is quite dark, at 
 this gate of the palace." 
 
 "I shall expect you." 
 
 So saying the man vanished. Once within the palace, Gyges 
 left Bartja and Zopyrus, fastened his sword into his girdle, 
 begged Darius to do the same and to follow him, and was soon 
 standing again under the great portico with the stranger, but 
 this time in total darkness. 
 
 "Auramazda be praised that you are there!" cried the latter 
 in Persian to the young Lydian ; "but who is that with you?" 
 
 *Oaths sworn in the name of Mithra, the god of the sun, were held 
 specially sacred among the Persians. "Vendid. Farg.," iv, 36. "Spie- 
 gel, Avesta. S.," 94.
 
 110 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, one of the Achaemenidae,* 
 and my friend." 
 
 The stranger bowed low and answered, "It is well ; I feared 
 an Egyptian had accompanied you." 
 
 "No, we are alone and willing to hear you; but be brief. 
 Who are you and what do you want?" 
 
 "My name is Bubares. I served as a poor captain under the 
 great Cyrus. At the taking of your fathers city, Sardis, the 
 soldiers were at first allowed to plunder freely; but on your 
 wise father's representing to Cyrus that to plunder a city al- 
 ready taken was an injury to the present and not to the former 
 possessor}" they were commanded on pain of death to deliver 
 up their booty to their captains and the latter to cause everything 
 of worth, when brought to them, to be collected in the market- 
 place. Gold and silver trappings lay there in abundance, costly 
 articles of attire studded with precious stones " 
 
 "Quick, quick! our time is short," interrupted Gyges. 
 
 "You are right. I must be more brief. By keeping for 
 myself an ointment-box sparkling with jewels taken from your 
 father's palace I forfeited my life. Croesus, however, pleaded 
 for me with his conqueror, Cyrus; my life and liberty were 
 granted me but I was declared a dishonored man. Life in 
 Persia became impossible with disgrace lying heavily on my 
 soul; I took ship from Smyrna for Cyprus, entered the army 
 there, fought against Amasis and was brought hither by Phanes 
 as a prisoner of war. Having always served as a horse-soldier, 
 I was placed among those slaves who had charge of the king's 
 horses and in six years became an overseer. Never have I 
 forgotten the debt of gratitude I owe to your father; and now 
 my turn has come to render him a service." 
 
 "The matter concerns my father? then speak tell me, I be- 
 seech you!" 
 
 "Immediately. Has Croesus offended the crown-prince?" 
 
 "Not that I am aware of." 
 
 "Your father is on a visit to Rhodopis this evening, at 
 Naukratis?" 
 
 *Achaemenidae was the name given to the kings of Persia de- 
 scended from Achaemenes and to the nobles related to them at birth. 
 In the cuneiform character inscription of "Behistan," i, 2, the name is 
 "Hakhamanis." 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 88.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. Ill 
 
 "How did you hear this?" 
 
 "From himself. I followed him to the boat this morning and 
 sought to cast myself at his feet." 
 
 "And did you succeed?" 
 
 "Certainly. He spoke a few gracious words with me, but 
 could not wait to hear what I would say, as his companions 
 were already on board when he arrived. His slave Sandon, 
 whom I know, told me that they were going to Naukratis, and 
 would visit the Greek woman whom they call Rhodopis." 
 
 "He spoke truly." 
 
 "Then you must speed to the rescue. At the time that the 
 market-place was full,* ten carriages and two boats full of 
 Ethiopian soldiers under the command of an Egyptian captain, 
 were sent off to Naukratis to surround the house of Rhodopis 
 and make captives of her guests." 
 
 "Ha, treachery!" exclaimed Gyges. 
 
 "But how can they wish to injure your father?" said Darius. 
 "They know that the vengeance of Cambyses " 
 
 "I only know," repeated Bubares, "that this night the house 
 of Rhodopis, in which your father is, will be surrounded by 
 Ethiopian soldiers. I myself saw the horses which transported 
 them thither and heard Pentaur, one of the crown-prince's fan- 
 bearers, call to them: 'Keep eyes and ears open, and let the 
 house of Rhodopis be surrounded lest he should escape by the 
 back door. If possible spare his life and kill him only if he 
 resist. Bring him alive to Sais and you shall receive twenty 
 rings of gold."f 
 
 *The forenoon among the Greeks was regulated by the business 
 of the market. irM/flovoa ayopd, irepi ir?J/6ovaav ayopat* n7j]6uprj ayopag. 
 "Herod.," ii, 173, vii, 223. didlvoif ayoaas ("Zenoph. Occon.," xii, 1). 
 "When the market-place begins to fill, when it is full, when it be- 
 comes empty." It would be impossible to define this division of 
 time exactly according to our modern methods of computation, but 
 it seems certain that the market was over by the afternoon. The 
 busiest hours were probably from ten to one. 
 
 fit is no longer a matter of question, that before the time of the 
 Persians, and therefore at this point of our history, no money had 
 been coined in Egypt. The precious metals were weighed out arid 
 used as money in the shape of rings, animals, etc. On many of the 
 monuments we see people purchasing goods and weighing out the 
 gold in payment; 'while others are paying their tribute in gold rings 
 These rings were in use as a medium of payment up to the time of
 
 U2 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "But could that allude to my father?" 
 
 "Certainly not," cried Darius. 
 
 "It is impossible to say," murmured Bubares. "In this coun- 
 try one can never know what may happen." 
 
 "How long does it take for a good horse to reach Naukratis?" 
 
 "Three hours if he can go so long and the Nile has not over- 
 flowed the road too much." 
 
 "I will be there in two." 
 
 "I shall ride with you," said Darius. 
 
 "No, you must remain here with Zopyrus for Bartja's protec- 
 tion. Tell the servants to get ready." 
 
 "But Gyges " 
 
 "Yes, you will stay here and excuse me to Amasis. Say I 
 could not come to the evening revel on account of headache, 
 toothache, sickness, anything you like. I shall ride Bartja's 
 Nicaean horse; and you, Bubares, will follow me on Darius' 
 horse. You will lend him, my brother?" 
 
 "If I had ten thousand you should have them all." 
 
 "Do you know the way to Naukratis, Bubares?" 
 
 "Blindfold." 
 
 "Then go, Darius, and tell them to get your horse and Bartja's 
 ready. To linger would be sin. Farewell, Darius, perhaps 
 forever! Protect Bartja! Once more, farewell!" 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It wanted two hours of midnight. Bright light was stream- 
 ing through the open windows of Rhodopis' house and sounds 
 of mirth and gayety fell on the ear. Her table had been adorned 
 with special care in Croesus' honor. 
 
 On the cushions around it lay the guests with whom we are 
 already acquainted: Theodorus, Ibykus, Phanes, Aristom- 
 achus, the merchant Theopompus of Miletus, Croesus and 
 others crowned with chaplets of poplar and roses. 
 
 the Ptolemies. Pliny xxxiii, 1, "Balances." "Wilkinson," ii, p. 10, 
 In which rings are being weighed with a weight in the form of an 
 animal.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 113 
 
 Theodorus, the sculptor, was speaking: "Egypt seems to 
 me," he said, "like a girl who persists in wearing a tight and 
 painful shoe only because it is of gold, while within her reach 
 lie beautiful and well-fitting slippers in which she could move 
 at ease if she only would." 
 
 "You refer to the Egyptians' pertinacity in retaining tradi- 
 tional forms and customs?" asked Croesus. 
 
 "Certainly I do," answered the sculptor. "Two centuries 
 ago Egypt was unquestionably the first of the nations. In art 
 and science she far excelled us; but we learned their methods 
 of working, improved on them, held firm to no prescribed 
 proportions, but to the natural types alone, gave freedom and 
 beauty to their unbending outlines,* and now have left our 
 masters far behind us. But how was this possible? Simply 
 because the Egyptians, bound by unalterable laws, could make 
 no progress; we, on the contrary, were free to pursue our 
 course in the wide arena of art as far as will and power would 
 allow." 
 
 "Bjit how can an artist be compelled to fashion statues alike 
 which are meant to differ from each other in what they repre- 
 sent?" 
 
 "In this case that can be easily explained. The entire human 
 body is divided by the Egyptians into twenty-four and one- 
 fourth parts,f in accordance with which division the proportion 
 of each separate limb is regulated. I, myself, have laid a wager 
 with Amasis, in presence of the first Egyptian sculptor (a priest 
 of Thebes), that, if I "send my brother Telekles, in Ephesus, 
 dimensions, proportion and attitude, according to the Egyp- 
 
 *See note p. 15. 
 
 tThese numbers and the story which immediately follows are 
 taken from "Diodorus," i, 98. Plato tells us that in his time a law 
 existed binding tne Egyptian artists to execute their works with 
 exactly the same amount of beauty or its reverse as those which had 
 been made more than a thousand years before. This statement is 
 confirmed by the monuments; but anyone well acquainted with 
 Egyptian art can discern a marked difference in the style of each 
 epoch. At the time of the ancient kingdom the forms were com- 
 pressed and stunted ; under Rameses beauty of proportion reached its 
 highest point. During and after the twentieth dynasty the style de- 
 clined in beauty; in the twenty-sixth, under the descendants of 
 Psammetichus, we meet with a last revival of art, but the ancient 
 purity of form was never again attained.
 
 114 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 tian method, he and I together can produce a statue which 
 shall look as if sculptured from one block and by one hand, 
 though Telekles is to carve the lower half at Ephesus, and I 
 the upper here in Sais and under the eye of Amasis." 
 
 "And shall you win your wager?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly. I am just going to begin this trick of art; 
 it will as little deserve the name of a work of art as an Egyptian 
 statue." 
 
 "And yet there are single sculptures here which are of ex- 
 quisite workmanship; such, for instance, as the one Amasis 
 sent to Samos as a present to Polykrates. In Memphis I saw 
 a statue said to be about three thousand years old and to 
 represent a king* who built the great pyramid, which excited 
 my admiration in every respect. With what certainty and 
 precision that unusually hard stone has been wrought! the 
 muscles, how carefully carved! especially in the breast, legs and 
 feet; the harmony of the features, too, and, above all, the polish 
 of the whole, leave nothing to be desired." 
 
 "Unquestionably. In all the mechanism of art, such a's pre- 
 cision and certainty in working even the hardest materials, the 
 Egyptians, though they have so long stood still in other points, 
 are still far before us; but to model form with freedom, to 
 breathe, like Prometheus, a soul into the stone, they will never 
 learn until their old notions on this subject have been entirely 
 abandoned. Even the pleasing varieties of corporeal life can- 
 not be represented by a system of mere proportions, much less 
 those which are inner and spiritual. Look at the countless 
 statues which have been erected during the last three thousand 
 years, in all the temples and palaces from Naukratis up to the 
 cataracts. They are all of one type, and represent men of 
 middle age, with grave but benevolent countenances. Yet they 
 are intended, some as statues of aged monarchs, others to per- 
 petuate the memory of young princes. The warrior and the 
 lawgiver, the blood-thirsty tyrant and the philanthropist are 
 
 *These" wooden statues represented the king himself. "Herod.," 
 ii, 182. A considerable number of portrait-statues have come down 
 to us. As a proof of the height which art in Egypt had reached, 
 even at so early a period as the time of the pyramids, we need only 
 allude to the statue of Chefren now in the museum at Boolak, ex- 
 quisitely wrought in very hard material. At the Paris exhibition of 
 1867 it excited the admiration of every beholder.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 115 
 
 only distinguished from each other by a difference in size, by 
 which the Egyptian sculptor expresses the idea of power and 
 strength. Amasis orders a statue just as I should a sword. 
 Breadth and length being specified, we both of us know quite 
 well, before the master has begun his work, what we shall 
 receive when it is finished. How could I possibly fashion an 
 infirm old man like an eager youth? a pugilist like a runner 
 in the foot-race? a poet like a warrior? Put Ibykus and our 
 Spartan friend side by side and tell me what you would say, 
 were I to give to the. stern warrior the gentle features and 
 gestures of our heart-ensnaring poet." 
 
 "Well, and how does Amasis answer your remarks on this 
 stagnation in art?" 
 
 "He deplores it; but does not feel himself strong enough 
 to abolish the restrictive laws of the priests." 
 
 "And yet," said the Delphian, "he has given a large sum 
 toward the embellishment of our new temple, expressly (I use 
 his own words) for the promotion of Hellenic art!" 
 
 "That is admirable in him," exclaimed Croesus. "Will the 
 Alkmaeonidae soon have collected the three hundred talents 
 (about $337,500) necessary for the completion of the temple?* 
 Were I as rich as formerly I would gladly undertake the entire 
 cost; notwithstanding that your malicious god so cruelly de- 
 ceived me after all my offerings at his shrine. For when I 
 sent to ask whether I should begin the war with Cyrus he 
 returned his answer: I should destroy a mighty kingdom by 
 crossing the river Halys.f I trusted the god, secured the 
 friendship of Sparta according to his commands, crossed the 
 boundary stream, and, in so doing, did indeed destroy a mighty 
 kingdom; not, however, that of the Medes and Persians, but 
 my own poor Lydia, which, as a satrapy of Cambyses, finds its 
 loss of independence a hard and uncongenial yoke." 
 
 "You blame the god unjustly," answered Phryxus. "It can- 
 not be his fault that you, in your human conceit, should have 
 
 *The noble Attic family of the Alkmaeonidae, after having been 
 driven from Athens by Pisistratus, undertook to rebuild the temple 
 Delphi. A fourth of the money required for the work was to be 
 procured by the Delphians themselves, who also made collections in 
 Egypt, and are said to have obtained a considerable sum there. 
 "Herod.," ii, 180. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 53. "Xenoph. Cyrop.," vii, 2.
 
 116 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 misinterpreted his oracle. The answer did not say 'the king- 
 dom of Persia/ but 'a kingdom' should be destroyed through 
 your desire for war. Why did you not inquire what kingdom 
 was meant? Was not your son's fate truly prophesied by the 
 oracle? and also that on the day of misfortune he would regain 
 his speech? And when, after the fall of Sardis, Cyrus granted 
 your wish to inquire at Delphi whether the Greek gods made a 
 rule of requiting their benefactors by ingratitude, Loxias an- 
 swered that he had willed the best for you, but was controlled 
 by a mightier power than himself, by that inexorable fate which 
 had foretold to thy great ancestor* that his fifth successor was 
 doomed to destruction." 
 
 "In the first days of my adversity I needed these words far 
 more than now," interrupted Croesus. "There was a time when 
 I cursed your god and his oracles; but later, when with my 
 riches my flatterers had left me, and I became accustomed to 
 pronounce judgment on my own actions, I saw clearly that not 
 Apollo, but my own vanity, had been the cause of my ruin. 
 How could 'the kingdom to be destroyed' possibly mean mine, 
 the mighty realm of the powerful Croesus, the friend of the 
 gods, the hitherto unconquered leader? Had a friend hinted 
 at this interpretation of the ambiguous oracle I should have 
 derided, nay, probably caused him to be punished. For a 
 despotic ruler is like a fiery steed ; the latter endeavors to kick 
 him who touches his wounds with intent to heal; the former 
 punishes him who lays a hand on the weak or failing points of 
 his diseased mind. Thus I missed what, if my eyes had not 
 been dazzled, I might easily have seen ; and now that my vision 
 is clearer, though I have nothing to lose, I am far more often 
 anxious than in the days when none could possibly lose more 
 than I. In comparison with those days, Phryxus, I may be 
 called a poor man now, but Cambyses does not leave me to 
 famish, and I can still raise a talentf for your temple." 
 
 *Kaudaules, who received the answer mentioned in the text from 
 the oracle, had murdered Gyges, king of Lydia, and thus obtained 
 possession of the throne. "Herod.," i, 8, 91. 
 
 tThe ancient Attic talent of silver was worth two hundred and 
 twenty-five pounds sterling, according to Bockh, "Staatshaushaltung 
 der Athener," i, 25. The Mina was worth three pounds fifteen pence, 
 the drachma about seven pence, and the obolus a little more than one 
 pence.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 117 
 
 - 
 
 Phryxus expressed his thanks, and Phanes remarked: "The 
 Alkmaeonidae will be sure to erect a beautiful edifice, for they 
 are rich and ambitious, and desirous of gaining favor with the 
 Amphiktyons, in order, by their aid, to overthrow the tyrants, 
 secure to themselves a higher position than that of the family 
 to which I belong, and, with this, the guidance of state affairs." 
 
 "Is it true, as people say," asked Ibykus, "that next to Agar- 
 ista,* with whom Megakles received so rich a dowry, you, 
 Croesus, have been the largest contributor to the wealth of the 
 Alkmaeonidae?" 
 
 "True enough," answered Croesus, laughing. 
 
 "Tell us the story, I beg," said Rhodopis. 
 
 "Well," answered Croesus, "Alkmaeon of Athens once ap- 
 peared at my court ;f his cheerfulness and cultivation pleased 
 me well, and I retained him near me for some time. One day 
 I showed him my treasure-chambers, at the sight of which he 
 fell into despair, called himself a common beggar and declared 
 that one good handful of these precious things would make him 
 a happy man. I at once allowed him to take as much gold 
 away as- he could carry. What think you he, Alkmaeon, did on 
 this? Sent for high Lydian riding-boots, an apron and a 
 basket, had the one secured behind him, put the others on, and 1 
 filled them all with gold, till they could hold no more. Not 
 content with this, he strewed gold-dust in his hair and beard 
 and filled his mouth to that extent that he appeared in the act 
 of choking. In each hand he grasped a golden dish, and thus 
 laden dragged himself out of the treasure-house, falling ex- 
 hausted as he crossed the threshold. Never have I laughed so 
 heartily as at this sight." 
 
 "But did you grant him all these treasures?" said Rhodopis. 
 
 "Yes, yes, my friend; and did not think even then that I had 
 paid too dearly for the experience that gold can make fools even 
 of clever men." 
 
 "You were the most generous of monarchs," cried Phanes. 
 
 "And make a tolerably contented beggar," answered Croesus. 
 "But tell me, Phryxus, how much has Amasis contributed to 
 your collection?" 
 
 *Agarista was the wealthy heiress of Klisthenes of Sicyon and wife 
 of Megakles, one of the Alkmaeonidae. "Herod.," vi, 126-130. "Diod.," 
 vii, 19. "Pherecydes fr.," 20. Miiller. 
 
 f'Herod.," vi, 125.
 
 118 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "He gave fifty tons of alum."* 
 
 "A royal gift!" 
 
 "And the Prince Psamtik?" 
 
 "On my appealing to him by his father's munificence he 
 turned his back on me and answered, with a bitter laugh: 
 'Collect money for the destruction of your temple and I am 
 ready to double my father's donation!'" 
 
 "The wretch!" 
 
 "Say, rather, the true Egyptian! To Psamtik everything 
 foreign is an abomination." 
 
 "How much have the Greeks in Naukratis contributed?'' 
 
 "Besides munificent private donations each community has 
 given twenty minae."f 
 
 "That is much." 
 
 "Philoinus the Sybarite alone sent me a thousand drachmae, 
 and accompanied his gift with a most singular epistle. May I 
 read it aloud, Rhodopis?" 
 
 "Certainly," answered she. "It will show you that the drunk- 
 ard has repented of his late behavior." 
 
 The Delphian began: "Philoinus to Phryxus: It grieves me 
 that at Rhodopis' house the other night I did not drink more; 
 for, had I done so, I should have lost consciousness entirely, 
 and so have been unable to offend even the smallest insect. My 
 confounded abstemiousness is therefore to blame that I can no 
 longer enjoy a place at the best table in all Egypt. I am thank- 
 ful, however, to Rhodopis for past enjoyment, and in memory 
 of her glorious roast beef (which has bred in me the wish to buy 
 her cook at any price) I send twelve large spits for roasting 
 oxen,$ and beg they may be placed in some treasure-house at 
 Delphi as an offering from Rhodopis. As for myself, being a 
 rich man, I sign my name for a thousand drachmae and beg 
 that my gift may be publicly announced at the next Pythian 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 180. 
 
 f'Herod.," ii, 180. It might be understood from this passage that 
 the sum of twenty minae, or seventy-five pounds sterling, had been 
 contributed by the entire Greek colony in Naukratis. But as this 
 would have been far too small a sum for so considerable a place, and 
 yet (in Valla's opinion) too much for each individual citizen, we can 
 only assume that Herodotus is speaking of the different communities 
 of which the colony was composed. 
 
 JRhodopis is said to have sent such a gift to Delphi. "Herod.," ii, 
 135.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 119 
 
 games. To that rude fellow, Aristomachus of Sparta, express 
 my thanks for the effectual manner in which he fulfilled my 
 intention in coming to Egypt. I came hither for the purpose 
 of having a tooth extracted by an Egyptian dentist,* said to 
 take out teeth without causing much pain. Aristomachus, 
 however, knocked out the defective tooth and so saved me from 
 an operation, the thought of which had often made me tremble. 
 On recovering consciousness I found that three teeth had been 
 knocked into my mouth, the diseased one and two others, 
 which, though healthy, would probably at some future time 
 have caused me pain. Salute Rhodopis and the handsome 
 Phanes from me. You, I invite to an entertainment at my 
 house in Sybaris, this day year.f We are accustomed to issue 
 invitations somewhat early on account of many necessary 
 preparations. I have caused this epistle to be written by my 
 slave Sophotatus, in an adjoining chamber, as merely to behold 
 the labor of writing causes cramp in my fingers." 
 
 A burst of laughter arose at these words, but Rhodopis said: 
 "This letter gives me pleasure ; it proves that Philoinus is not 
 bad at heart. Brought up a Sybarite." 
 
 She was suddenly interrupted by the voice of a stranger, who 
 had entered unperceived, and, after apologizing to the venerable 
 hostess and her guests for appearing without invitation among 
 them, continued thus: "I am Gyges the son of Croesus, and it 
 has not been merely for pastime that I have ridden out from 
 Sais in two hours lest I should arrive too late!" 
 
 "Menon, a cushion for our guest!'- cried Rhodopis. "Be 
 welcome to my house and take some repose after your wild, 
 thoroughly Lydian, ride." 
 
 "By the dog,| Gyges!" exclaimed Croesus, "what brings thee 
 here at this hour? I begged thee not to quit Bartja's side. 
 But how thou look'st! what is the matter? has aught happened? 
 speak! speak!" 
 
 *The Egyptian dentists must have been very skilled. Artificial 
 teeth have been discovered in the jaws of mummies. See Blumen- 
 bach on "The Teeth of the Ancient Egyptians and on Mummies." 
 "Gottinger Magazin," 1780, i, 115. 
 
 f'Athen.," xii, 20. "Plut. Sept. Sap.," p. 147. 
 
 j" vi) TOV %{>va ." An oath of Rhadamanthus used in. order to 
 avoid mentioning the names of the gods. "Schol. Aristoph. Avez.," 
 520.
 
 120 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 In the first moment Gyges could not answer a word. To 
 see his beloved father, for whose very life he had been in such 
 anxiety, a safe and happy guest at this rich banquet, seemed to 
 rob him of his speech a second time. At last, however, he was 
 able to say : "The gods be praised, my father, that I see thee safe 
 once more! Think not I forsook my post thoughtlessly. Alas! 
 I am forced to appear as a bird of evil omen in this cheerful 
 assembly. Know at once, ye guests, for I dare not lose time in 
 preparing my words, that a treacherous assault awaits ye !" 
 
 They all sprang up as if struck by lightning. Aristomachus 
 silently loosened his sword in its scabbard; Phanes extended 
 his arms as if to discern whether the old athletic elasticity still 
 dwelt there. 
 
 "What can it be? What is their design?" echoed from all 
 sides. 
 
 "This house is surrounded by Ethiopian soldiers!" answered 
 Gyges. "A faithful fellow confided to me that the crown-prince 
 had designs on one of your number; he was to be taken alive, 
 if possible, but killed if he resisted. Dreading lest thou shoulclst 
 be this victim, my father, I sped hither. The fellow had not lied. 
 This house is surrounded. My horse shied on reaching your 
 garden gate, Rhodopis, jaded as he was. I dismounted and 
 could discern behind every bush the glitter of weapons and the 
 eager eyes of men lying in ambush. They allowed us, however, 
 to enter unmolested." 
 
 At this moment Knakias rushed in, crying: "Important news! 
 On my way to the Nile to fetch water with which to prepare 
 the wine-cup* I have just met a man who, in his haste, nearly 
 ran over me. It was an Ethiopian, one of Phanes' boatmen, 
 and he tells that just as he sprang out of the boat to bathe a 
 royal bark came alongside and a soldier asked the rest of the 
 crew in whose service they were. On the helmsman answering, 
 'in Phanes' service,' the royal boat passed on slowly. He, 
 however (the rower, who was bathing), seated himself in fun on 
 the rudder of the royal boat and heard the Ethiopian soldier on 
 
 *The water of the Nile has a very agreeable flavor. It is called by 
 
 traveler the champagne among the waters. The ladies of the 
 
 :an s harem send for this water even from Constantinople, and the 
 
 Arabs say that if Mahomet have drunk thereof he would have desired 
 
 to live forever.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 121 
 
 board say to another: 'Keep that craft well in sight; now we 
 know where the bird sits, and it will be easy to catch him. 
 Remember, Psamtik has promised us fifty gold rings if we 
 bring the Athenian to Sais, dead or alive.' This is the report 
 of Sebek, who has been in your service seven years, O Phanes." 
 
 To both these accounts Phanes listened calmly. 
 
 Rhodopis trembled. Aristomachus exclaimed: "Not a hair 
 of your head shall be touched, if Egypt perish for it!" Croesus 
 advised prudence. A tremendous excitement had mastered 
 the whole party. 
 
 At last Phanes broke silence, saying: "Reflection is never 
 more necessary than in a time of danger. I have thought the 
 matter over, and see clearly that escape will be difficult. The 
 Egyptians will try to get rid of me quietly. They know that I 
 intend going on board a Phocoean trireme, which sets sail for 
 Sigeum at a very early hour to-morrow morning, 'and have 
 therefore no time to lose, if they will seize me. Your garden, 
 Rhodopis, is entirely surrounded, and, were I to remain here, 
 your house would no longer be respected as a sanctuary; it 
 would be searched and I taken in it. There can be no doubt 
 that a watch has been set over the Phocoean ship also. Blood 
 shall not be shed in vain on my account." 
 
 "But you dare not surrender!" cried Aristomachus. 
 
 "No, no; I have a plan," shouted Theopompus, the Milesian 
 merchant. "At sunrise to-morrow a ship sails for Miletus 
 laden with Egyptian corn, but not from Naukratis, from Kano- 
 pus. Take the noble Persian's horse and ride thither. We will 
 cut a way for you through the garden." 
 
 "But," said Gyges, "our little band is not strong enough to 
 carry out such an attempt. We number in all ten men, and of 
 these only three have swords; our enemies, on the other hand, 
 number at least a hundred, and are armed to the teeth." 
 
 "Lydian!" cried Aristomachus, "were thou ten times more 
 faint-hearted than thou art, and were our enemies double their 
 number, I, at least, would fight them!" 
 
 Phanes grasped his friend's hand. Gyges turned pale. 
 This brave warrior had called him faint-hearted; and again 
 he could find no words to answer, for at every stirring emotion 
 his tongue failed him. Suddenly the blood mounted to his 
 face; his words came quickly and with decision: "Athenian, 
 follow me! and thou, Spartan, who art not wont to use words
 
 122 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 heedlessly, call no man faint-hearted again before thou knowest 
 him. Friends, Phanesr is safe. Farewell, father!'' 
 
 The remaining guests surveyed these two departing men 
 in silent wonder. As they stood there, silently listening, the 
 sound of two horses galloping swiftly away fell on their ear, 
 and after a longer interval a prolonged whistle from the Nile 
 and a cry of distress. 
 
 "Where is Knakias?" said Rhodopis to one of her slaves. 
 
 "He went into the garden with Phanes and the Persian," 
 was the answer, and as- it was being spoken the old slave re- 
 entered, pale and trembling. 
 
 "Have you seen my son?" cried Croesus. 
 
 "Where is Phanes?" 
 
 "I was to bid you farewell from them both." 
 
 "Then they are gone whither? How was it possible?" 
 
 "The Athenian and the Persian," began the slave, "had a 
 slight dispute in the ante-room. This over, I was told to divest 
 both of their robes. Phanes then put on the stranger's 
 trousers, coat, and girdle; on his own curls he placed the 
 pointed Persian cap. The stranger wrapped himself in the 
 Athenian's chiton and mantle, placed the golden circlet above 
 his brow, caused the hair to be shaved from his upper lip, and 
 ordered me -to follow him into the garden. Phanes, whom 
 in his present dress none could imagine to be other than a 
 Persian, mounted one of the horses still waiting before the 
 gate; the stranger called after him: 'Farewell, Gyges, farewell, 
 beloved Persian! a pleasant journey to thee, Gyges!' The 
 servant who had been waiting followed on the other horse. I 
 could hear the clatter of arms among the bushes, but the 
 Athenian was allowed to depart unmolested, the soldiers 1 , with- 
 out doubt, believing him to be a Persian. 
 
 "On returning to the house the stranger's orders were: 
 'Accompany me to Phanes' bark, and cease not to call me by 
 the Athenian's name.' 'But the boatmen will betray you,' I 
 said. 'Then go alone to them,' he answered, 'and command 
 them to receive me as their master, Phanes.' Then I prayed 
 him to allow me to take the dress of the fugitive and become 
 a prey to the pursuers-; but he would by no means allow this, 
 and said my gait and carriage would betray me. There alas ! 
 he spoke truly, for only the free man can walk erect; the neck 
 of the slave is bent; the schools in which the noble and the free-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 123 
 
 born learn grace and beauty of movement are not for him. 
 And so it must remain, the children must be even as the 
 fathers; can the unclean onion-root produce a rose, or the un- 
 sightly radish a hyacinth?* Constant bondage bows the neck 
 of the slave, but the consciousness of freedom gives dignity to 
 the stature." 
 
 "But what has become of my son?" interrupted Croesus. 
 
 "He would not accept my poor offer, and took his seat in 
 the bark, sending a thousand greetings unto thee, O king! I 
 cried after him: 'Farewell, Phanes! I wish thee a prosperous 
 journey, Phanes!' At that moment a cloud crossed the moon; 
 and from out the thick darkness 1 1 heard screams and cries for 
 help; they did not, however, last long; a shrill whistle fol- 
 lowed, then all was silent; and the measured strokes of the 
 oars were the only sounds that fell on my ear. I was on the 
 point of returning to relate what I had seen, when the boatman 
 Sebek swam up once more and told as follows : The Egyptians 
 had caused a leak to be made in Phanes' boat, and at a short 
 distance from land it had filled and begun to sink. On the boat- 
 men crying for help the royal bark, which was following, had 
 come up and taken the supposed Phanes on board, but had 
 prevented the rowers from leaving their benches. They all 
 went down with the leaking boat, the daring Sebek alone ex- 
 cepted. Gyges is on board the royal boat; Phanes has 
 escaped, for the whistle must have been intended for the 
 soldiers in ambush at the garden gate. I searched the bushes; 
 the soldiers were gone, and I could hear the sound of their 
 voices and weapons on their way back to Sais." 
 
 The guests listened with eager attention to this tale. At 
 its close a mingled feeling of relief and anxiety was felt by all ; 
 relief that their favorite companion had escaped so fearful a 
 danger, anxiety for the brave young Lydian who had risked 
 his life to save him. They praised his generosity, congratu- 
 lated Croesus on possessing such a son, and finally agreed in 
 the conclusion that, when the crown-prince discovered the error 
 into which his emissaries had fallen, he must certainly release 
 Gyges and even make him compensation for what he had suf- 
 fered at their hands. 
 
 The friendship already shown by Amasis, and the fear in 
 
 *From some verses by Theognis of Megara, iv, 62; died 480 B. C.
 
 124 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 which he evidently stood of the Persian power, were the 
 thoughts which had power to calm Croesus, who soon left, in 
 order to pass 1 the night at the house of Theopompus, the 
 Milesian merchant. At parting, Aristomachus said: "Salute 
 Gyges in my name; tell him I ask his forgiveness, and hope 
 one day either to enjoy his friendship, or, if that cannot be, to 
 meet him as a fair foe on the field of battle." 
 
 "Who~knows what the future may bring?" answered Croesus, 
 giving his hand to the Spartan. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The sun of a new day had risen over Egypt, but was still 
 low in the east; the copious dew, which, on the Nile, supplies 
 the place of rain, lay sparkling like jewels on the leaves and 
 blossoms, and the morning air, freshened by a northwest wind, 
 invited those to v enjoy it who could not bear the heat of midday. 
 
 Through the door of the country-house, now so well known 
 to us, two female figures have just passed; Melitta, the old 
 slave, and Sappho, the grandchild of Rhodopis. 
 
 The latter is not less lovely now than when we saw her last, 
 asleep. She moves through the garden with a light, quick 
 step, her white morning robe, with its wide sleeves falling in 
 graceful drapery over her lithe limbs, the thick brown hair 
 straying from beneath the purple kerchief over her head, and 
 a merry, roguish smile lurking round her rosy mouth and in 
 the dimples of her cheeks and chin. 
 
 She stooped to pick a rose, dashed the dew from it into the 
 face of her old nurse, laughing at her naughty trick till the clear, 
 bell-like tones rang through the garden; fixed the flower in her 
 dress and began to sing in a wonderfully rich and sweet voice: 
 
 "Cupid once upon a bed 
 Of roses laid his weary head; 
 Luckless urchin! not to see 
 Within the leaves a slumbering bee. 
 The bee awak'd with anger wild 
 The bee awak'd and stung the child.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 128 
 
 Loud and piteous are his cries; 
 To Venus quick he runs, he flies; 
 'Oh, mother! I am wounded through 
 I die with pain in sooth I do! 
 Stung by some little angry thing, 
 Some serpent on a tiny wing. 
 A bee it was for once, I know, 
 I heard a rustic call it so.' " 
 
 "Isn't that a very pretty song?" asked the laughing girl. 
 "How stupid of little Eros to mistake a bee for a winged 
 snake ! Grandmother says that the great poet Anacreon wrote 
 another verse to this song, but she will not teach it me. Tell 
 me, Melitta, what can there be in that verse?* There, you are 
 smiling; dear, darling Melitta, do sing me that -one verse. 
 Perhaps, though, you don't know it yourself? No? then cer- 
 tainly you can't teach it me." 
 
 "That is a new song,"answered the old woman, evading her 
 darling's question. "I only know the songs of the good old 
 times. But, hark! did not you hear a knock at the gate?" 
 
 "Yes, of course I did, and' I think the sound of horses' hoofs, 
 too. Go and see who seeks admission so early. Perhaps, after 
 all, our kind Phanes did not go away yesterday, and has come 
 to bid us farewell once more." 
 
 "Phanes is gone," said Melitta, becoming serious, "and 
 Rhodopis has ordered me to send you in when visitors arrive. 
 Go, child, that I may open the gate. There, they have knocked 
 again." 
 
 Sappho pretended to run in, but, instead of obeying her 
 nurse's* orders, stopped and hid herself behind a rose-bush, 
 hoping to catch sight of these early guests. In the fear of 
 
 *The last lines, which contain the point of this song, are: 
 
 "Thus he spoke, and she, the while, 
 Heard him with a soothing smile; 
 Then said: 'My infant, if so much 
 Thou feel the little wild bee's touch, 
 How must the heart, ah! Cupid, be 
 The hapless heart that's stung by thee?' "f 
 
 {Translation from one of Anacreon's songs, the authenticity of 
 which has, we think, erroneously, been questioned. Anacreon ed. 
 Melhorn.
 
 126 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 needlessly distressing her she had not been told of the events 
 of the previous evening, and at this early hour could only 
 expect to see some very intimate friend of her grandmother's. 
 Melitta opened the gate and admitted a youth splendidly ap- 
 'pareled and with fair, curling hair. 
 
 It was Bartja, and Sappho was so lost in wonder at his 
 beauty and the Persian dress, to her so strange, that she 
 remained motionless in her hiding-place, her eyes fixed on his 
 face. Just so had she pictured to herself Apollo with the beau- 
 tiful locks, guiding the sun-chariot 
 
 As Melitta and the stranger came nearer she thrust her little 
 head through the roses to hear what the handsome youth was 
 saying so kindly in his broken Greek. 
 
 She heard him ask hurriedly after Croesus and his son ; and 
 then, from Melitta's answer, she gathered all that had passed 
 the evening before, trembled for Thanes', felt so thankful to the 
 generous Gyges, and again wondered who this youth in royal 
 apparel could possibly be. Rhodopis had told her about 
 Cyrus' heroic deeds, the fall of Croesus and the power and 
 wealth of the Persians, but still she had always fancied them 
 a wild, uncultivated people. Now, however, her interest in 
 Persia increased with every look at the handsome Bartja. At 
 last Melitta went in to wake her grandmother and announce 
 the guest, and Sappho tried to follow her, but Eros, the foolish 
 boy whose ignorance she had been mocking a moment before, 
 had other intentions. Her dress caught in the thorns, and be- 
 fore she could disengage it the beautiful Bartja was standing 
 before her, helping her to get free from the treacherous bush. 
 
 Sappho could not speak a word even of thanks ; she blushed 
 deeply, and stood, smiling and ashamed, with downcast eyes. 
 
 Bartja, too, generally so full of fun and spirit, looked down 
 at her without speaking, the color mounting to his cheeks. 
 , The silence, however, did not last long, for Sappho, recover- 
 ing from her fright, burst into a laugh of childish delight at the 
 silent stranger and the odd scene, and fled toward the house 
 like a timid fawn. 
 
 In a moment Bartja was himself again; in two strides he 
 reached the young girl; quick as thought he seized her hand 
 and held it fast, notwithstanding all her struggles. 
 
 "Let me go!" she cried, half in earnest and half laughing, 
 raising her dark eyes appealingly to him.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 127 
 
 "Why should I?" he answered. "I took you from the rose- 
 bush and shall hold you fast until you give me your sister there, 
 the other rose, from your bosom, to take home with me as a 
 keepsake." 
 
 "Please let me go," repeated Sappho. "I will promise noth- 
 ing unless- you let my hand go." 
 9 "But if I do you will not run away again?" 
 
 0$ "Certainly not." 
 
 V / 
 
 "Well, then, I will give you your liberty, but now you must 
 ^7 give me your rose." 
 
 "There. are plenty on the bush yonder, and more beautiful 
 ones; choose whichever you like. Why do you want just this 
 one?" 
 
 "To keep it carefully in remembrance of the most beautiful 
 maiden I ever saw." 
 
 "Then I shall certainly not give it to you ; for those are not 
 my real friends who tell me I am beautiful, only those who tell 
 \ me I am good." 
 
 "Where did you learn that?" 
 
 "From my grandmother Rhodopis." 
 
 "Very well, then, I will tell you you are better than any other 
 maiden in the whole world." 
 
 "How can you say such things, when you don't know me 
 at all? Oh, sometimes I am very naughty and disobedient. 
 If I were really good I should be in-door now instead of talk- 
 ing to you here. My grandmother has forbidden me ever to 
 stay in the garden when visitors are here, and indeed I don't 
 care for all those strange men who always talk about things I 
 cannot understand." 
 
 "Then perhaps you would like me to go away, too?" 
 
 "Oh, no, I can understand you quite well; though you can- 
 'not speak half so beautifully as our poor Phanes, for example, 
 who was obliged to escape so miserably yesterday evening, as 
 I heard Melitta saying just this minute." 
 
 "Did you love Phanes?" 
 
 "Love him? Oh, yes, I was very fond of him. When I was 
 little he always brought me balls, dolls, and ninepins* from 
 -Memphis to Sais; and now that I am older he teaches me 
 
 *Jointed dolls for children. "Wilkinson," ii, 427. In the Leyden 
 Museum one of these jointed toys is to be seen in very good preserva- 
 tion.
 
 128 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 beautiful new songs. As a parting gift he brought me a tiny 
 Sicilian lap-dog,* which I am going to call Argus,f because he 
 is so white and swift-footed. But in a few days we are to have 
 another present from the good Phanes, for there, now you 
 can see what I am ; I was just going to let out a great secret. 
 My grandmother has strictly forbidden me to tell anyone what 
 dear little visitors we are expecting; but I feel as if I had 
 known you a long time already, and you have such kind eyes 
 that I could tell you everything. You see, when I am very 
 happy I have no one in the whole world to talk to about it, 
 except old Melitta and my grandmother, and, I don't know 
 how it is, that, though they love me so much, they 'sometimes 
 cannot understand how trifles make me so happy.'' 
 
 "That is because they are old, and have forgotten what made 
 them happy in their youth. But have you no companions of 
 your own age that you are fond of?" 
 
 "Not one. Of course there are many other young girls 
 besides me in Naukratis, but my grandmother says I am not to 
 seek their acquaintance, and if they will not come to us I am 
 not to go to them." 
 
 "Poor child! if you were in Persia I could soon find you 
 a friend. I have a sister called Atossa, who is young and good, 
 like you." 
 
 "Oh, what a pity that she did not come here with you ! But 
 now you must tell me your name." 
 
 "My name is Bartja." 
 
 "Bartja! that is a strange name! Bartja Bartja. Do you 
 know I like it? How was the son of Croesus called, vho saved 
 our Phanes so generously?" 
 
 "Gyges. Darius, Zopyrus and he are my best friends. We 
 have sworn never to part, and to give up our lives for one 
 another,! and that is why I came to-day, so early and quite in 
 secret, to help my friend Gyges, in case he should need me." 
 
 "Then you rode here for nothing." 
 
 *Sicilian lap-dogs were much boasted of among the ancients; they 
 appear to have been first kept by the luxurious Sybarites. 
 This was the name of the faithful dog in the Odyssey. 
 
 JThe Persians, even in our day, form solemn contracts of friend- 
 ship. Two Persians who wish to bind themselves as friends for the 
 term of their lives, go together to the Mollah, declare their intention, 
 and are then solemnly blessed by him as "brader ha," or "brothers." 
 Brugsch, "Reise nach Persien," i, p. 260.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 129 
 
 "No, by Mithra, that indeed I did not, for this ride brought 
 me to you. But now you must tell me your name." 
 
 "I am called Sappho." 
 
 "That is a pretty name, and Gyges sings me sometimes 
 beautiful songs by a poetess called Sappho. Are you related 
 to her?" 
 
 "Of course. She was the sister* of my grandfather Charaxus, 
 and is called the tenth muse, or the Lesbian swan. I suppose, 
 then, your friend Gyges speaks Greek better than you do?" 
 
 "Yes; he learned Greek and Lydian together as a little 
 child, and speaks them both equally well. He can speak 
 Persian, too, perfectly ; and, what is more, he knows and prac- 
 tices all the Persian virtues." 
 
 "Which are the highest virtues, then, according to you 
 Persians?" 
 
 "Truth* is the first of all ; courage the second, and the third 
 is obedience; these three, joined with veneration for the gods, 
 have made us Persians great." 
 
 "But I thought you worshiped no gods?" 
 
 "Foolish child! Who could live without a God, without a 
 higher ruler? True, they do not dwell in houses and pictures 
 like the gods of the Egyptians, for the whole creation is their 
 dwelling. The Divinity, who must be in every place, and 
 must see and hear everything, cannot be confined within 
 walls."f 
 
 *See note p. 84. 
 
 tFrom "Herodotus" (i, 131 and 132), and from many other sources 
 we see clearly that at the time of the Achaemenidae the Persians had 
 neither temples nor images of their gods. Auramazda and Angra- 
 mainjus, the principles of good and evil, were invisible existences, 
 filling all creation with their countless train of good and evil spirits. 
 Eternity created fire and water. From these Ormuzd (Auramazda), 
 the good spirit, took his origin. He was brilliant as the light, pure and 
 good. After having, in the course of twelve thousand years, created 
 heaven, paradise and the stars, he became aware of the existence of 
 an evil spirit, Ahriman (Angramainjus), black, unclean, malicious and 
 emitting an evil odor. Ormuzd determined on his destruction and a 
 fierce strife began, in which Ormuzd was the victor,and the evil spirit 
 lay three thousand years unconscious from the effects of terror. Dur- 
 ing this interval Ormuzd created the sky, the waters, the earth, all 
 useful plants, trees and herbs, the ox and the first pair of human beings 
 in one year. Ahriman, after this, broke loose and was overcome, but 
 not slain. As, after death, the four elements of which all things are 
 composed, earth, air, fire and water, become reunited with their prim-
 
 130 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Where do you pray, then, and offer sacrifice if you have no 
 temples?" 
 
 "On the grandest of all altars, nature herself; our favorite 
 altar is the summit of a mountain.* There we are nearest 
 to our own god, Mithra, the mighty sun, and to Auramazda, 
 the pure creative light; for there the light lingers latest and 
 returns earliest Light alone is pure and good; darkness is 
 unclean and evil. Yet, maiden, believe me, God is nearest to 
 us on the mountains; they are His favorite resting-place. 
 Have you never stood on the wooded summit of a high moun- 
 tain and felt, amid the solemn silence of nature, the still and 
 soft, but awful, breath of Divinity hovering around you?. Have 
 you prostrated yourself in the green forest, by a pure spring, 
 or beneath the open sky, and listened for the voice of God 
 speaking from among the leaves and waters? Have you 
 beheld the flame leaping up to its parent, the sun, and bearing 
 with it, in the rising column of smoke, our prayers to the 
 radiant Creator? You listen now in wonder, but I tell you, 
 you would kneel and worship, too, with me, could I but take 
 you to one of our mountain-altars." 
 
 "Oh ! if I could only go there with you ! if I might only once 
 look down from some high mountain over all the woods and 
 meadows, rivers and valleys. I think, up there, where nothing- 
 could be hidden from my eyes, I should feel an all-seeing 
 Divinity myself. But, hark, my grandmother is calling. I 
 must go." 
 
 itive elements; and, as, at the resurrection day, everything that has 
 been severed combines once more, and nothing returns into oblivion, 
 all is reunited to its primitive elements.Ahriman could only have been 
 slain if his impurity could have been transmuted into purity, his 
 darkness into light. And so evil continued to exist and to produce 
 impurity and evil wherever and whenever the good spirit created the 
 pure and good. This strife must continue until the last day; but then 
 Ahriman, too, will become pure and holy; the Diws or Daewa (evil 
 spirits) will have absorbed his evil and themselves have ceased to 
 exist. For the evil spirits which dwell in every human being, and are 
 emanations from Ahriman, will be destroyed in the punishment in- 
 flicted on men after death. From Vuller's "Ulmai Islam" and the 
 "Zend-Avesta." 
 
 To this day the fire-altars of the Parsees are to be seen on the 
 mountains. They are allowed to pray whenever fire and water are 
 near at hand. Spiegel, "Avesta, Einleitung," ii. "Herodotus" (i, 132) 
 mentions also that the Persians worshiped in the open air.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 131 
 
 "Oh, do not leave me yet!" 
 
 "Is not obedience one of the Persian virtues?" 
 
 "But my rose?" 
 
 "Here it is." 
 
 "Shall you remember me?" 
 
 "Why should I not?" 
 
 "Sweet maiden, forgive me, if I ask one more favor." 
 
 "Yes, but ask it quickly, for my grandmother has just called 
 again." 
 
 "Take my diamond star as a remembrance of this hour." 
 
 \J7"No, I dare not" 
 
 "Oh, do, do take it. My father gave it to me as a reward 
 the first time that I killed a bear with my own hand,* and it 
 has been my dearest treasure till to-day; but now you shall 
 have it, for you are dearer to me than anything else in the 
 world." 
 
 Saying this, he took the chain and star from his breast 
 and tried to hang it around Sappho's neck. She resisted, but 
 Bartja threw his arm around her, kissed her forehead, called 
 
 her his only love, and, looking down deep into the eyes of 
 the trembling child, placed it round her neck by gentle force. 
 
 Rhodopis called a third time. Sappho broke from the young 
 prince's embrace and was running away, but turned once more 
 at his earnest entreaty and the question, "When may I see 
 you again?" and answered, softly: "To-morrow morning at 
 this- rose-bush." 
 
 "Which held you fast to be my friend." 
 
 Sappho sped toward the house. Rhodopis received Bartja 
 and communicated to him all she knew of his friend's fate, 
 after which the young Persian departed for Sais. 
 
 When Rhodopis visited her grandchild's bed that evening 
 she did not find her sleeping peacefully as usual; her lips 
 moved and she sighed deeply as 1 if disturbed by vexing dreams. 
 
 On his way back Bartja met Darius and Zopyrus, who had 
 followed at once on hearing of their friend's secret departure. 
 They little guess-ed that instead of encountering an enemy 
 Bartja had met his first love. 
 
 Croesus reached Sais a short time before the three friends. 
 
 *Kings were accustomed to reward noble deeds with such gifts. 
 "Herod.," iii, 130, viii, 118. Plutarch "Artaxerxes," 10, 14. "Xenoph. 
 Anab.," i, 2. Robe of honor. Xenoph. "Cyrop.," viii, 3.
 
 132 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 He went at once to the king and informed him without reserve 
 of the events of the preceding evening. Amasis pretended 
 much surprise at his son's conduct, assured his friend that 
 Gyges should be released at once and indulged in some 
 ironical jokes at the discomfiture of Psamtik's attempt to re- 
 venge himself. 
 
 Croesus had no sooner quitted the king than the crown- 
 prince was announced. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Amasis received his son with a burst of laughter, and with- 
 out noticing Psamtik's pale and troubled countenance shouted : 
 "Did not I tell thee that a simple Egyptian would find it no 
 easy task to catch such a Greek fox? I would have given 
 ten cities to have been by when thy captive proved to be the 
 stammering Lydian instead of the voluble Athenian." 
 
 Psamtik grew paler and paler, and trembling with rage 
 answered, in a suppressed voice: "Is it well, my father, thus 
 to rejoice at an affront offered to thy son? I swear by the 
 eternal gods that but for Croesus' sake that shameless Lydian 
 had not seen the light of another day. But what is it to thee 
 ..that thy son becomes a laughing-stock to these beggarly 
 Greeks!" 
 
 "Abuse not those who have outwitted thee." 
 
 "Outwitted! My plan was- so subtly laid that 
 
 "The finer the web the sooner broken." 
 
 "That that intriguing Greek could not possibly have escaped, 
 if, in violation of all established precedents, the envoy of a 
 foreign power had not taken it upon himself to rescue a man 
 whom we had condemned." 
 
 "There thou art in error, my son. We are not speaking of 
 the execution of a judicial sentence, but of the success or 
 failure of an attempt at personal revenge." 
 
 "The agents employed were, however, commissioned by the 
 king, and therefore the smallest satisfaction that I can demand
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 133 
 
 of thee is to solicit from Cambyses the punishment of him 
 who has interfered in the execution of the royal decrees. In 
 Persia, where men bow to the king's will as to the will of a 
 god, this crime will be seen in all its heinousness. The pun- 
 ishment of Gyges is a debt which Cambysres owes to us." 
 
 "But I have no intention of demanding the payment of this 
 debt," answered Amasis. "On the contrary, I am thankful 
 that Phanes has escaped. Gyges has saved my soul from the 
 guilt of shedding innocent blood, and thine from the reproach 
 of having revenged thyself meanly on a man to whom thy 
 father is indebted." 
 
 "Wilt thou, then, concea] the whole affair from Cambyses?" 
 
 "No; I s-hall mention it jestingly in a letter, as my manner 
 is, and at the same time caution him against Phanes. I shall 
 tell him that he has barely escaped my vengeance, and 
 will, therefore, certainly endeavor to stir up the power of Persia 
 against Egypt; and shall entreat my future son-in-law to close 
 his ears to this false accuser. Croesus and Gyges can 
 help us by their friendship more than Phanes can injure by 
 his hatred." 
 
 "Is this 1 , then, thy final resolve? Can I expect no satisfac- 
 tion?" 
 
 "None. I abide by what I have said." 
 
 "Then tremble, not alone before Phanes, but before another 
 before one who holds thee in his power, and who himself 
 is in ours 1 ." 
 
 "Thou thinkest to alarm me; thou wouldst rend the bond 
 formed only yesterday? Psamtik, Psamtik, I counsel thee to 
 remember that thou standest before thy father and thy king." 
 
 "And thou, forget not that I am thy son! If thou compelFst 
 me to forget that the gods appointed thee to be my father 
 if I can hope from no help from thee then I will resort to my 
 own weapons." 
 
 "I am curious to learn what these may be." 
 
 "And I need not conceal them. Know, then, that the oculist 
 Nebenchari is in our power." 
 
 Amasis turned pale. 
 
 "Before thou couldst possibly imagine that Cambyses would 
 sue for the hand of thy daughter, thou sentest this man to the 
 distant realm of Persia, in order to rid thyself of one who shared 
 thy knowledge of the descent of my so-called sister Nitetis.
 
 134 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 He is still there, and at a hint from the priests will disclose to 
 Cambyses that he has been deceived, and that thou hast 
 ventured to send him, instead of thine own, the child of thy 
 dethroned predecessor, Hophra. All Nebenchari's papers are 
 in our possession, the most important being the letter in thine 
 own hand promising his father, who assisted at Nitetis' birth,* 
 a thousand gold rings as an inducement to secrecy even from 
 the priests." 
 
 "In whose hands are these papers?" asked Amasis, in a 
 freezing tone. 
 
 "In the hands of the priesthood." 
 
 "Who speak by thy mouth?" 
 
 "Thou hast said it" 
 
 "Repeat then thy requests." 
 
 "Entreat Cambys-es to punish Gyges, and grant me free 
 powers to pursue the escaped Phanes as it shall seem good 
 in mine eyes." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Bind thyself by a solemn oath to the priests that the 
 Greeks shall be prevented from erecting any more temples 
 to their false gods in Egypt, and that the building of the temple 
 to Apollo in Memphis shall be discontinued." 
 
 "I expected these demands. The priests have discovered a 
 sharp weapon to wield against me. Well, I am prepared to 
 yield to the wishes of my enemies, with whom thou has leagued 
 thyself, but only on two conditions. First, I insist that the 
 letter which I confess to have written to the father of Neben- 
 chari in a moment of inconsrideration, be restored to me. If 
 left in the hands of thy party it could reduce me from a king to 
 the contemptible slave of priestly intrigue." 
 
 "That wish is reasonable. The letter shall be returned to 
 thee, if " 
 
 "Not another if! on the contrary, know that I consider thy 
 petition for the punishment of Gyges so imprudent that I refuse 
 to grant it. Now, leave me and appear not again before mine 
 eyes until I summon thee! Yesterday I gained a son, only 
 to lose him to-day. Rise ! I demand no tokens of a love and 
 
 *In ancient, as now in modern Egypt, midwives seem to have as- 
 sisted at the birth of children. Two are named in "Exodus," i 15. 
 Shiphrah and Puah. If the mother were a queen, good fairies and 
 goddesses were also present with their aid, generally a Hathor.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 135 
 
 humility which thou hast never felt Go to the priests when 
 thou needest comfort and counsel, and see if they can supply 
 a fathers place. Tell Neithotep, in whose hands thou art as 
 wax, that he has found the best means of forcing me to grant 
 demands which otherwise I should have refused. Hitherto I 
 have been willing to make every sacrifice for the sake of up- 
 holding Egypt's greatness; but now, when I see that, to attain 
 their own ends, the priests can strive to move me by the 
 threat of treachery to their own country, I feel inclined to 
 regard this privileged caste as a more dangerous enemy to 
 Egypt then even the Persians. Beware, beware! This once, 
 having brought danger upon Egypt through my own fatherly 
 weakness, I give way to the intrigues of my enemies; 
 but, for the future, I swear by the great, goddess Neith that men 
 shall see and feel I am king; the entire priesthood shall be 
 sacrificed rather than the smallest fraction of my royal will! 
 Silence depart !" 
 
 The prince left, but this time a longer interval was necessary 
 before the king could regain even outward cheerfulness suffi- 
 cient to enable him to appear before his guests. 
 
 Psamtik went at once to the commander of the native troops, 
 ordered him to banish the Egyptian captain who had failed 
 in executing his revengeful plans to the quarries of Thebais,* 
 and to send the Ethiopians back to their native country. He 
 then hurried to the high-priest of Neith to inform him how 
 much he had been able to extort from the king. 
 
 Neithotep shook his head doubtfully on hearing of Amasis' 
 threats, and dismissed the prince with a few words of exhorta- 
 tion, a practice he never omitted. 
 
 Psamtik returned home, his heart oppressed and his mind 
 clouded with a sense of unsatisfied revenge, of a new and un- 
 happy rupture with his father, a fear of foreign derision, a 
 feeling of his subjection to the will of the priests, and of a 
 gloomy fate which had hung over his head since birth. 
 
 His once beautiful wife was dead; and, of -five blooming 
 children, only one daughter remained to him, and a little son, 
 whom he loved tenderly and to whom in this sad moment he 
 felt drawn. For the blue eyes- and laughing mouth of his 
 child were the only objects that ever thawed this man's icy 
 
 *A usual, but fearful punishment for great crimes, "Diod.," i, 78, iii, 
 12, 14.
 
 136 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 heart, and from these he now hoped for consolation and cour- 
 age on his weary road through life. 
 
 "Where is my son?" he asked of the first attendant who 
 crossed his path. 
 
 "The king has just sent for the Prince Necho and his nurse," 
 answered the man. 
 
 At this moment the high steward of the prince's household 
 approached, and with a low obeisance delivered to Psamtik a 
 sealed papyrus letter with the words: "From your father, the 
 king." 
 
 In angry haste he broke the yellow wax of the seal bearing 
 the king's name,* and read: "I have sent for thy son, that he 
 may not become, like his father, a blind instrument in the 
 hands of the priesthood, forgetful of what is due to himself and 
 his country. His education shall be my care, for the im- 
 pressions of childhood affect the whole of a man's later life. 
 Thou canst see him if thou wilt, but I must be acquainted with 
 thy intention beforehand." 
 
 Psamtik concealed his indignation from the surrounding 
 attendants with difficulty. The mere wish of a royal father 
 had, according to Egyptian custom, as much weight as the 
 strictest command. After reflecting a few moments he called 
 for huntsmen, dogs, bows and lances, sprang into a light 
 chariotf and commanded the charioteer to drive him to the 
 western marshes, where, in pursuing the wild beasts of the 
 
 *Signet rings were worn by the Egyptians at a very early period. 
 Thus, in "Genesis," 41, 42, Pharaoh puts his ring on Joseph's hand. 
 In the Berlin museum and all other collections of Egyptian antiquities 
 numbers of these rings are to be found, many of which are more than 
 four thousand years old. Wilkinson gives drawings of a series of such 
 rings, iii, p. 374. See, also, a drawing of the Ferlini discoveries made 
 in Nubia and now in the Berlin museum. Lepsius, "Denkmaler," x, pi. 
 42. At the spot where this treasure was discovered in 1830 a tradition 
 has already arisen with respect to it. Rings have been found on the 
 hands of many mummies. 
 
 tField sports seem to have been much favored by the kings of Egypt 
 and their nobles. Not only dogs of different breeds, but wild animals, 
 such as leopards and lions, were trained to the chase. "Wilkinson," 
 iii, 16. A good drawing of a lion-hunt is to be found in Rosellini, 
 "Mon. Stor.," ii, pi. 129. A lion shot by the Pharaoh lies dying near 
 him, the arrows; quivering in his body; and another wounded lion is 
 escaping into the rushes by the water. Hunting-dogs of different 
 kinds, see "Wilkinson," iii, 32, and also iii, 22, where wild goats, ga- 
 zelles and other graminivorous animals are being hunted. Rosellini,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 137 
 
 desert, he could forget the weight of his own cares and wreak 
 on innocent creatures his hitherto baffled vengeance. 
 
 Gyges was released immediately after the conversation be- 
 tween his father and Amasis, and welcomed with acclamations 
 of joy by his companions. The Pharaoh seemed desirous of 
 atoning for his imprisonment of his friend's son by doubling 
 his favors, for on the same day Gyges received from the king 
 a magnificent chariot drawn by two noble brown steeds,* and 
 was begged to take back with him to Persia a curiously 
 wrought set of draughts, as a remembrance of Sais. The 
 separate pieces were made of ebony and ivory, some being 
 curiously inlaid with sentences, in hieroglyphics of gold and 
 silver. 
 
 Amasis laughed heartily with his friends at Gyges' artifice, 
 allowed the young heroes to mix freely with his family, and 
 behaved toward them himself as a jcvial father toward his 
 merry sons. That the ancient Egyptian was not quite ex- 
 tinguished in him could only be discerned at meal times, when 
 a separate table was allotted to the Persians. The religion 
 of his ancestors would have pronounced him defiled had he 
 eaten at the same table with men of another nation.f 
 
 When Amasis, at last, three days after the release of rGyges, 
 declared that his daughter Nitetis would be prepared to depart 
 for Asia in the course of two more weeks, all the Persians 
 regretted that their stay in Egypt was- so near its close. 
 
 Croesus had enjoyed the society of the Samian poet and 
 sculptors. Gyges had shared his father's preference for Greek 
 art and artists. Darius, who had formerly studied astronomy 
 
 "Mon. Civ.," pi. 15, 18. Birds are being caught with nets and the 
 boomerang. "Wilkinson," iii, 38, 39, 41, 42. Lepsius, "Denkmaler, 
 Abth.," ii, pi. 131, 132. Hunting-scenes from Benihassan. 
 
 *Some especially fine paintings of horses in rich trappings, evident- 
 ly by an artist's hand, are to be found on the monuments at Thebes. 
 See Rosellini, "Mon. Stor.," i, plate 78. Lepsius, "Denkmaler," iii, 
 126 and following, and the "Description de 1'Egypte Ant," ii and iii. 
 (Thebes). 
 
 f'Herodotus," ii, 41, says that the Egyptians neither kissed nor ate 
 out of the same dish with foreigners, nay, indeed, that they refused 
 to touch meat in the cutting up of which the knife of a Greek had been 
 used. Nor were the lesser dynasties of the delta allowed according 
 to the Stela of Pianchf, to cross the threshold of the Pharaohs, because 
 they were unclean and ate fish. In the book of Genesis, the brethren 
 of Joseph were not allowed to eat bread with the Egyptians,
 
 138 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 in Babylon,* was one evening observing the heavens, when 
 to his surprise, he was addressed by the aged Neithotep and 
 invited to follow him onto the temple roof. Darius, ever eager 
 to acquire knowledge, did not wait to be asked twice, and was 
 to be found there every night in earnest attention to the old 
 priest's lesson. 
 
 On one occasion Psamtik met him thus with his master and 
 asked the latter what could have induced him to initiate a 
 Persian in the Egyptian mysteries. 
 
 "I am only teaching him," answered the high-priest, "what 
 is as well known to every learned Chaldee in Babylon as to 
 ourselves, and am thereby gaining the friendship of a man 
 whose stars as far outshine those of Cambys-es as the sun out- 
 shines the moon. This Darius, I tell thee, will be a mighty 
 ruler. I have even seen the beams of his planet shining over 
 Egypt. The truly wise man extends his gaze into the future and 
 regards the objects lying on either side of his road as well as 
 the road itself. Thou canst not know in which of the many 
 houses by which thou passest daily a future benefactor may 
 not have been reared for thee. Leave naught unnoticed that 
 lies in thy path, but above all direct thy gaze upward to the 
 stars. As the faithful dog lies in wait night after night for 
 thieves, so have I watched these pilgrims of the heavens fifty 
 years long these foretellers of the fates of men, burning in 
 ethereal space, and announcing, not only the return of summer 
 and winter, but the arrival of good and bad fortune, honor 
 and disgrace. These are the unerring guides who have pointed 
 out to me in Darius a plant that will one day wax into a mighty 
 tree." 
 
 To Bartja, Darius' nightly studies were especially welcome; 
 they necessitated more sleep in the morning, and so rendered 
 Bartja^s stolen early rides to Naukratis (on which Zopyrus, to 
 whom he had confided his- secret, accompanied him) easier of 
 accomplishment. During the interviews with Sappho, Zopyrus- 
 and the attendants used all their endeavors to kill a few snipes, 
 
 *The Chaldeans of Babylon were the next best astronomers to the 
 Egyptians. Aristoteles "De Caelo," ii, 12. Chasles maintains that 
 they made use of astronomical tables. "Comptes Rendus de 1'Acade- 
 mie des Sciences," T. xxiii, 1846, pp. 852-854. According to Herodotus, 
 Darius was well affected by the Egyptians and held their wisdom in 
 high estimation,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 139 
 
 jackals or jerboas. They could then, on their return, maintain 
 to their Mentor Croesus that they had been pursuing field- 
 sports, the favorite occupation of the Persian nobility. 
 
 The change which the power of a first love had wrought 
 in the innermost character of Bartja passed unnoticed by all 
 but Tachot, the daughter of Amasis. From the first day on 
 which they had spoken together she had loved him, and her 
 quick feeling told her at once that something had happened 
 to estrange him from herself. Formerly his behavior had been 
 that of a brother, and he had sought her companionship, but 
 now he carefully avoided every approach to intimacy, for he 
 had guessed her secret and felt as if even a kind look would 
 have been an offense against his loyalty to Sappho. 
 
 In her distress at this change Tachot confided her sorrows 
 to Nitetis. The latter bade her take courage, and the two girls 
 built many a castle in the air, picturing to themselves the hap- 
 piness of being always together at one court, and married to 
 t\vo royal brothers. But, as the days went by, the visits of the 
 handsome prince became more and more rare, and, when he 
 did come, his behavior to Tachot was- cold and distant. 
 
 Yet the poor girl could not but confess that Bartja had grown 
 handsomer and more manly during his stay in Egypt. An 
 expression of proud and yet gentle consciousness lay beaming 
 in his large eyes, and a strange, dreamy air of rest often to'ok 
 the place of his former gay spirits. His* cheeks had lost their 
 brilliant color, but that added to his beauty, while it lessened 
 hers, who, like him, became paler from day to day. 
 
 Melitta, the old slave, had taken the lovers under her pro- 
 tection. She had surprised them one morning, but the prince 
 had given her such presents and her darling had begged, 
 flattered and coaxed so sweetly, that at last Melitta promised 
 to keep their secret, and later, yielding to that natural impulse 
 which moves all old women to favor lovers, had even given 
 them every assistance in her power. She already saw her 
 "sweet child" mistress of a hemisphere, often addressed her as 
 "my princess'' and "my queen" when none was by to hear, and 
 in many a weak moment imagined a brilliant future for herself 
 in some high office at the Persian court.
 
 140 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Three days before the time fixed 'for the departure of Nitetis, 
 Rhodopis had invited a large number of guests to her house 
 at Naukratis, among whom Croesus and Gyges were included. 
 
 The two lovers had agreed to meet in the garden, protected 
 by the darkness and the old slave, while the guests were occu- 
 pied at the banquet. Melitta, therefore, having convinced her- 
 self that the guests were thoroughly absorbed in conversation, 
 opened the garden gate, admitted the prince, brought Sappho 
 to him, and then retired, promising to warn them of any in- 
 truder by clapping her hands. 
 
 "I shall only have you near me three days longer," whispered 
 Sappho. "Do you know, sometimes it seems to me as if I 
 had only seen you yesterday for the first time; but generally 
 I feel as if you had belonged to me for a whole eternity, and I 
 had loved you all my life." 
 
 "To me, too, it seems as if you had always been miue, for I 
 cannot imagine how I could ever have existed without you. 
 If only the parting were over and we were together again!'' 
 
 "Oh, believe me that will pass more quickly than you fancy. 
 Of course it will seem long to wait very long; but when it 
 is over, and we are together again, I think it will s-eem as if 
 we had never been parted. So it has been with me every day. 
 How I have longed for the morning to come an^l bring you 
 with it! but when it came and you were sitting by my side I 
 felt as if I had had you all the time and your hand had never 
 left my head." 
 
 "And yet a strange feeling of fear comes over me when I 
 think of our parting hour." 
 
 "Ido not fear it so very much. I know my heart w-ill bleed 
 when you say farewell, but I am sure you will come back and 
 will not have forgotten me. Melitta wanted to inquire of the 
 oracle whether you would remain faithful; and to question an 
 old woman who" has just come from Phrygia and can conjure 
 by night from drawn cords, with incense, styrax, moon-shaped
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. l4l 
 
 cakes and wild-briar leaves;* but I would have none of this, 
 for my heart knows better than the Pythia, the cords, or the 
 smoke of sacrifice that you will be true to me and love me 
 always." 
 
 "And your heart speaks the truth." 
 
 "But I have sometimes been afraid; and have blown into 
 a poppy-leaf, and struck it, as the young girls here do. If it 
 broke with a loud crack I was very happy, and cried: 'Ah! he 
 will not forget !' but if the leaf tore without a sound I felt sad. 
 I dare say, I did this a hundred times 1 , but generally the leaf 
 gave the wished-for sound and I had much oftener reason to 
 be joyful than sad."f 
 
 "May it ever be thus!" 
 
 "It must be! but, dearest, do not speak so loudly; I see 
 Knakias going down to the Nile for water and he will hear us." 
 
 "Well, I will speak low. There, I will stroke back your 
 silky hair and whisper in your ear 'I love you.' Could you 
 understand?" 
 
 "My grandmother says that it is easy to understand what 
 we like to hear; but if you had just whispered, 'I hate you,' 
 your eyes would have told me with a thousand glad voices that 
 you loved me. Silent eyes are much more eloquent than all 
 the tops of the palm-trees in the Nile and the moon's reflec- 
 
 "If I could only speak the beautiful Greek language as you 
 do, I would 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad you cannot, for if you could tell me all 
 you feel I think you would not look into my eyes so lovingly. 
 Words are nothing. Listen to the nightingale yonder! She 
 never had the gift of speech and yet I think I can understand 
 her." 
 
 "Will you confide her secret to me? I should like to know 
 what Gulgul, as we Persians, call the nightingale, has to talk 
 
 "These are the spells which "Glycera desired to consult, when her 
 lover, the tragic poet Menander, was called to Egypt by King Ptolemy. 
 Her letter is as clever as it is charming. "Alciphr.," ii, Ep. 4. I 
 would mention also the beautiful poem by Theokritus on the love- 
 sick girl and her spells. 
 
 fThis questioning of flowers reminds us of the way 'in which chil- 
 dren and girls nowadays pull the leaves of the acacia and the petals 
 of the daisy, and was not unusual among the ancients. "Pollux," ix, 
 27. Becker, "Charikles," i, 327. In modern Greece the young girls 
 are said to still consult the same oracles.
 
 142 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 about to Jier mate in the rose-bush. May you betray her 
 secret?" 
 
 "I will whisper it softly. Philomel sings to her mate 'I love 
 thee,' and he answers (don't you hear him?), 'Itys, ito, itys.'" 
 
 "And what does that mean, 'ito, ito?'" 
 
 "I accept it." 
 
 "And itys?" 
 
 "Oh, that must be explained, to be rightly understood. Itys 
 is a circle ; and a circle, I was always taught, is the symbol of 
 eternity, having neither beginning nor end; so the nightingale 
 sings, 'I accept it for eternity.' " 
 
 "And if I say to you, 'I love thee?'" 
 
 "Then I shall answer gladly, like the sweet nightingale, 
 'I accept it for to-day, to-morrow, for all eternity !' " 
 
 "What a wonderful night it is! everything so still and silent; 
 I do not even hear the nightingale now; she is sitting in the 
 
 Thus Aeschylus renders the sweet song of the nightingale. The 
 ingenious interpretation of the words ITVS, ITU, is a playful idea 
 which we can venture to put into the mouth of our child-like Sappho. 
 The Itys-call of the nightingale had, however, originally a very dif- 
 ferent signification. Philomela is bemoaning the boy Itys, who had 
 been slain to revenge her wrongs on his father. Prokne, the sister of 
 Philomela and daughter of the Athenian, Pandion, was the wife of 
 Tereus of Daulis in Thrace. Itys was their son. Tereus, having to 
 conduct Philomela to her sister, used violence toward the maiden on 
 the way thither, cut out her tongue to prevent her from revealing his 
 conduct, and left her in the wood. Philomela, however, wove the story 
 of her wrongs into a garment, by means of which she informed her sis- 
 ter Prokne of Tereus' baseness. On discovering this, Prokne killed her 
 own child, Itys, and caused his flesh to be served up as a dish for her 
 husband. The sisters then fled and were pursued by Tereus on his 
 discovering that he had eaten his own son. They prayed to the gods, 
 who granted their petition, and transformed them, together with 
 Tereus, into birds. According to the original myth, Prokne fled into 
 the forest in the form of a nightingale and bewailed her sacrificed 
 Itys. Philomela was turned into a swallow, who, from th'e loss of her 
 tongue, could only twitter and cry "Tereu." Tereus became a hoopoe, 
 whose perpetual call (referring to his lost son) was "pou?" "where?" 
 The punishments of entire and of semi-sleeplessness were imposed on 
 the nightingale and the swallow. The accounts differ as to which 
 sister became the nightingale. Ovid, who gives the whole story in a 
 most charming form ("Metamorphoses," vi, 425 seq.) leaves the ques- 
 tion undecided. But he, too ("Amores," ii, 6, 7-10), assumes that Phil- 
 omela became a nightingale, and this has since become the universal 
 belief.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 143 
 
 acacia-tree among the bunches of sweet blossoms. I can see 
 the tops of the palm-trees in the Nile and the moon's reflec- 
 tion between them glistening like a white swan." 
 
 "Yes, her rays are over every living thing like silver fetters, 
 and the whole world lies motionless beneath them like a captive 
 woman. Happy as I feel now, yet I could not even laugh, and 
 still less- speak in a loud voice." 
 
 "Then whisper, or sing!" 
 
 "Yes, that is the best. Give me my lyre. Thank you. 
 Now I will lean my head on your breast and sing you a little, 
 quiet, peaceful song. It was written by Alkman,* the Lydian, 
 who lived in Sparta, in praise of night and her stillness. You 
 must listen though, for this low, sweet slumber-song must only 
 leave the lips like a gentle wind. Do not kiss me any more, 
 please, till I have finished; then I will ask you to thank me 
 with a kiss: 
 
 " 'Now o'er the drowsy earth still night prevails, 
 Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales, 
 The rugged cliffs and hollow glens; 
 The wild beasts slumber in their dens; 
 The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea 
 
 The countless finny race and monster brood 
 Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee * 
 
 Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood 
 No more with noisy hum of insect rings; 
 
 And all the feathered tribe, by gentle sleep subdued, 
 Roost in the glade and hang their drooping -wings.' 
 
 Translation by Col. Mure. 
 
 "Now, dearest, where is my kiss?" 
 
 "I had forgotten it in listening, just as before I forgot to 
 listen in kissing." 
 
 "You are too bad. But tell me, is not my song lovely?" 
 
 "Yes, beautiful, like everything else you sing." 
 
 "And the Greek poets write." 
 
 "Yes, there you are right, too, I admit." 
 
 "Are there no poets in Persia?" 
 
 "How can you ask such a question? How could a nation 
 who despised song pretend to any nobility of feeling?" 
 
 "But you have some very bad customs." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 *See note p. 4.
 
 144 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "You take so many wives." 
 
 "My Sappho 
 
 "Do not misunderstand me. I love you so much, that I 
 have no other wish than to see you happy and be allowed to be 
 always with you. If, by taking me for your only wife, you 
 would outrage the laws of your country, if you would thereby 
 expose yourself to contempt, or even blame (for who could 
 dare to despise my Bartja) then take other wives; but let me 
 have you, for myself alone, at least two, or perhaps even three 
 years. Will you promise this, Bartja?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 "And then, when my time has passed and you must yield 
 to the customs of your country (for it will not be love that leads 
 you to bring home a second wife), let me be the first among 
 your slaves. Oh ! I have pictured that so delightfully to myself. 
 When you go to war I shall set the tiara on your head, gird on 
 the sword, and place the lance in your hand; and when you 
 return, a conqueror, I shall be the first to crown you with the 
 wreath of victory. When you ride out to the chase mine will 
 be the duty of buckling on your spurs, and, when you go to the 
 banquet, of adorning and anointing you, winding the garlands 
 of poplar and ros-es and twining them around your forehead 
 and shoulders. If wounded I will be your nurse; will never 
 stir from your side if you are ill, and when I see you happy will 
 retire and feast my eyes from afar on your glory and happiness. 
 Then, perchance, you will call me to your side, and your kiss 
 will say: 'I am content with my Sappho, I love her still.'" 
 
 "O Sappho, wert thou only my wife now to-day! The 
 man who possesses* such a treasure as I have in thee will guard 
 it carefully, but never care to seek for others which, by its side, 
 can only show their miserable poverty. He who has once 
 loved thee can never love another; I know it is the custom in 
 my country to have many wives, but this is only allowed; there 
 is no law to enjoin it. My father had, it is true, a hundred 
 female slaves-, but only one real, true wife, our mother Kass- 
 andane." 
 
 "And I will be your Kassandane." 
 
 "No, my Sappho, for what you will be to me no woman ever 
 yet was to her husband." 
 
 "When shall you come to fetch me?" 
 
 "As soon as I can, and am permitted to do so."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 145 
 
 "Then I ought to be able to wait patiently." 
 
 "And I shall ever hear from you?" 
 
 "Oh, I shall write long, long letters and charge every wind 
 with love messages for you." 
 
 "Yes, do so, my darling, and as to the letters 1 , give them to 
 the messenger who will bring Nitetis tidings from Egypt from 
 time to time." 
 
 "Where shall I find him?" 
 
 "I will see that a man is stationed at Naukratis to take charge 
 of everything you send to him. All this I will settle with 
 Melitta." 
 
 "Yes, we can trust her, she is prudent and faithful; but I 
 have another friend, who is dearer to me than anyone else 
 excepting you, and who loves me, too, better than anyone 
 else does but you " 
 
 "You mean your grandmother Rhodopis?" 
 
 "Yes, my faithful guardian and teacher." 
 
 "Ah! she is a noble woman. Croesus considers her the 
 most excellent among women, and he has studied mankind 
 as the physicians do plants and herbs. He knows that rank 
 poison lies hidden in some, in others healing cordials, and often 
 says that Rhodopis is like a rose, which, while fading away her- 
 self and dropping leaf after leaf, continues to shed perfume and 
 quickening balsam for the sick and weak and awaits in patience 
 the wind which at last shall waft her from us." 
 
 "The gods grant that she may be with us for a long time 
 yet! Dearest, will you grant me one great favor?" 
 
 "It is granted before I hear it." 
 
 "When you take me home do not leave Rhodopis here. 
 She must come with us. She is so kind and loves me so 
 fervently that what makes me happy will make her so, too, 
 and whatever is dear to me will seem to her worthy of being 
 loved.'' 
 
 "She shall be the first among our guests." 
 
 "Now I am quite happy and satisfied, for I am necessary 
 to my grandmother; she could not live without her child. I 
 laugh her cares and sorrows away, and when she is singing 
 to me, or teaching me how to guide the style or strike the lute, 
 a clearer light beams from her brow, the furrows plowed by 
 grief disappear, her gentle eyes laugh, and she seems to forget 
 the evil past in the happy present."
 
 146 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Before we part I will ask her whether she will follow us 
 home." 
 
 "Oh, how glad that makes me ! And do you know the first 
 days of our abse\ice from each other do not seem so very 
 dreadful to me? Now you are to be my husband, I may 
 surely tell you everything that pains or pleases- me, even when 
 I dare not tell anyone else, and so you must know that when 
 you leave we expect two little visitors. They are the children 
 of the kind Phanes whom your friend Gyges saved so nobly. 
 I mean to be like a mother to the little creatures, and when 
 they have been good I shall sing them a story of a prince, a 
 brave hero, who took a simple maiden to be his wife; and 
 when I describe the prince I shall have you in my mind, and, 
 though my little listeners will not guess it, I shall be describing 
 you from head to foot. My prince shall be tall like you, shall 
 have your golden curls and blue eyes, and your rich, royal 
 dress shall adorn his noble figure. Your generous heart, your 
 love of truth, and your beautiful reverence for the gods, vour 
 courage and heroism; in short, everything that I love and 
 honor in you I shall give to the hero of my tale. How the 
 children will listen! and when they cry, 'Oh, how we love the 
 prince, how good and beautiful he must be, if we could only 
 see him!' then I shall press them close to my heart and kiss 
 them as I kiss you now, and so they will have gained their wish, 
 for as you are enthroned in my heart you must be living 
 within me and therefore near to them, and when they embrace 
 me they will embrace you, too." 
 
 "And I shall go to my little sister Atossa and tell her all 
 I have seen on my journey, and when I speak of the Greeks, 
 their grace, their glorious works of art, and their beautiful 
 women, I shall describe the golden Aphrodite in your lovely 
 likeness. I shall tell her of your virtue, your beauty and 
 modesty, of your singing, which is so sweet that even the 
 nightingale is silent in order to listen to it, of your love and 
 tenderness. But all this I shall tell her belongs to the divine 
 Cypris, and when she cries, 'O Aphrodite, could I but see 
 thee !' I, too, shall kiss my sister." 
 
 "Hark! what was that? Melitta surely clapped her hands. 
 Farewell, we must not stay! but we shall soon see each other 
 again." 
 
 "One more kiss!"
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 147 
 
 "Farewell!" 
 
 ' Melitta had fallen asleep at her post, overcome by age and 
 weariness. Her dreams were suddenly disturbed by a loud 
 noise, and she clapped her hands directly to warn the lovers 
 and call Sappho, as she perceived by the stars that the dawn 
 was not far off. 
 
 As the two approached the house they discovered that the 
 noise which had awakened the old slave proceeded from the 
 guests, who were preparing for departure. 
 
 Urging her to make the greatest haste, Melitta pushed the 
 frightened girl into the house, took her at once to her sieeping- 
 room, and was beginning to undress her when Rhodopis en- 
 tered. 
 
 "You are still up, Sappho?" she asked. "What is this, m'y 
 child?" 
 
 Melitta trembled, and had a falsehood ready on her lips, 
 but Sappho, throwing herself into her grandmother's arms, 
 embraced her tenderly and told the whole story of her love. 
 
 Rhodopis turned pale, ordered Melitta to leave the cham- 
 ber, and, placing herself in front of her grandchild, laid both 
 hands on her shoulders and said, earnestly: "Look into my 
 eyes, Sappho. Canst thou look at me as happily and as 
 innocently as thou couldst before this Persian came to us?" 
 
 The girl raised her eyes at once with a joyful smile; then 
 Rhodopis clasped her to her*bosom, kissed her and continued: 
 "Since thou wert a little child my constant effort has been to 
 train thee to a noble maidenhood and guard thee from the 
 approach of love. I had intended, in accordance with the 
 customs of our country,* to choose a fitting husband for thee 
 shortly myself, to whose care I should have committed thee; 
 but the gods willed differently. Eros mocks all human efforts 
 to resist or confine him; warm Aeolianf blood runs in thy 
 veins and demands love; the passionate heart of thy Lesbian 
 forefathers beats in thy breast.. What has happened cannot 
 now be undone. Treasure these happy hours of a first, pure 
 
 *The Spartans married for love, but the Athenians were accustomed 
 to negotiate their marriages with the parents of the bride alone. This 
 custom was either the cause or the result of the very secluded life led 
 by the Athenian girls. 
 
 tCharaxus, the grandfather of our heroine and brother of the 
 poetess Sappho, was, as a Lesbian, an Aeolian Greek.
 
 148 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 love; hold them fast in the chambers of memory, for to every 
 human being there must come, sooner or later, a so sad and 
 desolate present that the beautiful past is- all they have to live 
 upon. Remember this handsome prince in silence, bid him 
 farewell when he departs to his native country, but beware of 
 hoping to see him again. The Persians are fickle and incon- 
 stant, lovers of everything new and foreign.* The prince has 
 been fascinated by thy sweetness and grace. He loves thee 
 ardently now, but, remember, he, is young and handsome, 
 courted by everyone, and a Persian. Give him up that he may 
 not abandon thee." 
 
 "But how can I, grandmother? I have sworn to be faithful 
 to him forever." 
 
 "Oh, children! Ye play with eternity as if it were but a 
 passing moment! I could blame thee for thus plighting thy 
 troth, but I rejoice that thou regardest the oath as binding. I 
 detest the blasphemous proverb: 'Zeus pays no heed to lovers' 
 oaths.' Why should an oath touching the best and holiest feel- 
 ings of humanity be regarded by the Deity as inferior in im- 
 portance to asseverations respecting the trifling questions of 
 mine and thine? Keep thy promise, then hold fast thy love, 
 but prepare to renounce thy lover." 
 
 "Never, grandmother! could I ever have loved Bartja, if I 
 had not trusted him? Just because he is a Persian and holds 
 truth to be the highest virtue, I ynay venture to hope that he 
 will remember his oath, and, notwithstanding those evil cus- 
 toms of the Asiatics, will take and keep me as his only wife." 
 
 "But if he should forget, thy youth will be passed in mourn- 
 ing and with an embittered heart " 
 
 "Oh, dear^kind grandmother, pray do not speak of such 
 dreadful things-. If you knew him as well as I do, you would 
 rejoice with me and would tell me I was right to believe that 
 the Nile may dry up and the pyramids crumble into ruins, be- 
 fore my Bartja can ever deceive me !" 
 
 The girl spoke these words with such a joyful, perfect con- 
 fidence, and her eyes, though filled with tears, were so bril- 
 liant with happiness and warmth of feeling that Rhodopis' face 
 grew cheerful too. 
 
 "In this, -as in other points, the Persians prove themselves of the 
 Germanic race. They have the same admiration fcr everything new 
 and strange now, as in the days of Herodotus. "Herod " i 135
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 149 
 
 Sappho threw her arms again round her grandmother, told 
 her every word that Bartja had said to her, and ended the long 
 account by exclaiming: "Oh, grandmother, I am so happy, so 
 very happy, and if you will come with us to Persia I shall have 
 nothing more to wish from the immortals." 
 
 "That will not last long," said Rhodopis. "The gods cast 
 envious glances at the happiness of mortals; they measure our 
 portion of evil with lavish hands, and give us but a scanty al- 
 lowance of good. But now go to bed, my child, and let us 
 .pray together that all may end happily. I met thee this morn- 
 ing as a child, I part from thee to-night a woman ; and, when 
 thou art a wife, may thy kiss be as joyful as the one thou givest 
 me now. To-morrow I will talk the matter over with Croesus. 
 He must decide whether I dare allow thee to await the return of 
 the Persian prince, or whether I must entreat thee to forget 
 him and become the domestic wife of a Greek husband. Sleep 
 well, my darling, thy grandmother will wake and watch for 
 thee." 
 
 Sappho's happy fancies soon cradled her to sleep; but Rho- 
 dopis remained awake watching the day dawn and the sun 
 rise, her mind occupied with thoughts which brought smiles 
 and frowns across her countenance in rapid succession. 
 
 The next morning she sent to Croesus, begging him to graftt 
 her an hour's interview, acquainted him with every particular 
 she had heard from Sappho and concluded her tale with these 
 words: "I know not what demands may be made on the con- 
 sort of a Persian king, but I can truly say that I believe Sappho 
 to be worthy of the first monarch of the world. Her father was 
 free and of noble birth, and I have heard that, by Persian law, 
 the descent of a child is determined by the rank of the father 
 only. In Egypt, too, the descendants of a female slave enjoy 
 the same rights as those of a princess, if they owe their exist- 
 ence to the same father."* 
 
 "I have listened to you in silence," answered Croesus, "and 
 must confess that, like yourself, I do not know in this moment 
 whether to be glad or sorry for this attachment. Cambyses and 
 Kassandane (the king's and Bartja's mother) wished to see the 
 prince married before we left Persia, for the king has 1 no chil- 
 dren, and, should he remain childless, the only hope for the fam- 
 
 *"Diod.," i, 81.
 
 150 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 : Jy cf Cyrus rests on Bartja, as the great founder of the Persian 
 empire left but two sons Cambyses, and him who is now the 
 suitor of your granddaughter. Bartja is the hope and pride of 
 the entire Persian nation, high and low; the darling of the 
 people; generous and noble, handsome, virtuous and worthy 
 of their love. It is, indeed, expected that the princes shall 
 marry in their own family, the Achaemenidae ; but the Persians 
 have an abounded predilection for everything foreign. En- 
 chanted with the beauty of your granddaughter, and rendered 
 indulgent by their partiality for Bartja, they would easily for- 
 give this breach of an ancient custom. Indeed, if the king gives 
 his approval no objection on the part of his subjects can be 
 entertained. The history of Iran, too, offers a sufficient num- 
 ber of examples in which even slaves became the mothers of 
 kings.* The queen mother, whose position, in the eyes of the 
 people, is nearly as high as that of the monarch himself, will 
 do nothing to thwart the happiness of her youngest and favorite 
 son. When she sees that he will not give up Sappho that his 
 smiling face, in which she adores the image of her great hus- 
 band Cyrus, becomes clouded I verily believe she would be 
 ready to sanction his taking even a Scythian woman to wife, if 
 it could restore him to cheerfulness. Neither will Cambyses 
 Wmself refuse his consent if his mother press the point at a 
 right moment." 
 
 "In that case every difficulty is set aside," cried Rhodopis, 
 joyfully. 
 
 "It is not the marriage itself, but the time that must follow, 
 which causes me uneasiness," answered Croesus, 
 
 "Do you think, then, that Bartja 
 
 "From him I fear nothing. He has a pure heart, and has 
 been so long proof against love, that, now he has once yielded, 
 he will love long and ardently." 
 
 "What, then, do you fear?" 
 
 "You must remember that, though the charming wife of 
 their favorite will be warmly received by all his friends of his 
 own sex, there are thousands of idle women in the harems of 
 the Persian nobles who will endeavor, by every artifice and in- 
 trigue in their power, to injure the newly risen star, and whose 
 greatest joy it will be to ruin such an inexperienced child and 
 make her unhappy." 
 
 *Firdu8i, "Book of the Kings." "Sons of Feridun."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 151 
 
 "You have a very bad opinion of the Persian women." 
 
 "They are but women, and will naturally envy her who has 
 gained the husband they all desired either for themselves or 
 for their daughters. In their monotonous life, devoid of occu- 
 pation, envy easily becomes hatred, and the gratification of 
 these evil passions is the only compensation which' the poor 
 creatures can obtain for the total absence of love and loss of 
 freedom. I repeat, the more beautiful Sappho is, the more 
 malicious 1 they will feel toward her, and, even if Bartja should 
 love her so fervently as" not to take a second wife for two or 
 three years, she will still have such heavy hours to encounter 
 that I really do not know whether I dare congratulate you on 
 her apparently brilliant future." 
 
 "That is quite my own feeling. A simple Greek would be 
 more welcome to me than this son of a mighty monarch." 
 
 At this moment Knakias brought Bartja into the room. He 
 went to Rhodopis at once, besought her not to refuse him the 
 hand of her granddaughter, spoke of his ardent love and as- 
 sured her that his happiness would be doubled. if she would con- 
 sent to accompany them to Persia. Then, turning to Croesus, 
 he seized his hand and entreated forgiveness for having so long 
 concealed his great happiness from one who had been like a 
 father to him, at the same-time begging him to second his suit 
 with Rhodopis. 
 
 The old man listened to the youth's passionate language with 
 a smile, and said: . "Ah, Bartja, how often have I warned thee 
 against love ! It is a scorching fire." 
 
 "But its flame is bright and beautiful." 
 
 "It causes pain." 
 
 "But such pain is sweet." 
 
 "It leads the mind astray." 
 
 "But it strengthens the heart." 
 
 "Oh, this love !" cried Rhodopis. "Inspired by Eros, the boy 
 speaks as if he had been all his life studying under an Attic 
 orator!" 
 
 "And yet," answered Croesus, "these lovers are the most un- 
 teachable of pupils. Convince them" as clearly as you will that 
 their passion is only another word for poison, fire, folly, death, 
 they still cry: "Tis sweet,' and will not be hindered in their 
 course." 
 
 As he was speaking Sapph.j came in. A white festal robe,
 
 152 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 with wide sleeves, and borders of purple embroidery, fell in 
 graceful folds round her delicate figure, and was confined at 
 the waist by a golden girdle. Her hair was adorned with fresh 
 roses, and on her bosom lay her lover's first gift, the flashing- 
 diamond star. 
 
 She came up modestly and gracefully and made a low obei- 
 sance to the aged Croesus. His eyes rested long on the maid- 
 enly and lovely countenance, and the longer he gazed the 
 kindlier became his gaze. For a moment he seemed to grow 
 young again in the visions conjured up by memory, and invol- 
 untarily he went up to the young girl, kissed her affectionately 
 on the forehead, and, taking her by the hand, led her to Bartja 
 with the words: "Take her, thy wife she must be, if the entire 
 race of the Achaemenidae were to conspire against us." 
 
 "Have I no voice in the matter?" said Rhodopis, smiling 
 through her tears. 
 
 On hearing these words, Bartja and Sappho each took one 
 of her hands, and gazed entreatingly into her face. She rose 
 to her full stature, and like a prophetess exclaimed: "Eros, who 
 brought you to each other, Zeus and Apollo defend and protect 
 you. I see you now like two fair roses on one stem, loving 
 and happy in the spring of life. What summer, autumn and 
 winter may have in store for you lies hidden with the gods. 
 May the shades of departed parents, my Sappho, smile approv- 
 ingly when these tidings of their child shall reach them in the 
 nether world !" 
 
 Three days later a densely packed crowd was once more 
 surging round the Sais landing-place. This time they had as- 
 sembled to bid a last farewell to their king's daughter, and in 
 this hour the people gave clear tokens that, in spite of all the 
 efforts of the priestly caste, their hearts remained loyal to their 
 monarch and his house. 
 
 For when Amasis and Ladice embraced Nitetis for the last 
 time with tears when Tachot, in presence of all the inhabit- 
 ants of Sais, following her sister down the broad flight of steps 
 that led to the river, threw her arms round her neck once more 
 and burst into sobs when at last the wind filled the sails of the
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 153 
 
 royal boat and bore the princess, destined to be the great king's 
 bride, from their sight, few eyes among that vast crowd re- 
 mained dry. 
 
 The priests alone looked on at this sad scene with unmoved 
 gravity and coldness; but when the south wind at last bore 
 away the strangers who had robbed them of their princess, 
 many a curse and execration followed from the Egyptians on 
 the shore; Tachot alone stood weeping there and waving her 
 veil to them. For whom were these tears? for the play-fellow 
 of her youth or for the handsome, beloved prince? 
 
 Amasis embraced his wife and daughter in the eyes of all his 
 people; and held up his little grandson, Prince Necho, to their 
 gaze, the sight eliciting cries of joy on all sides. But Psamtik, 
 the child's own father, stood by the while, tearless and mo- 
 tionless. The king appeared not to observe him, until Neitho- 
 tep approached and leading him to his father joined their 
 hands and called down the blessing of the gods upon the royal 
 house. 
 
 At this the Egyptians fell on their knees with uplifted hands. 
 Amasis clasped his son to his heart, and, when the high-priest 
 had concluded his prayer, the following colloquy between the 
 latter and Amasis took place in low tones: 
 
 "Let peace be between us for our own and Egypt's sake!" 
 
 "Hast thou received Nebenchari's letter?" 
 
 "A Samian pirate-vessel is in pursuit of Phanes' trireme." 
 
 "Behold the child of thy predecessor Hophra, the rightful 
 heiress of the Egyptian throne, departing unhindered to a dis- 
 tant land!" 
 
 "The works of the Greek temple now building in Memphis 
 shall be discontinued." 
 
 "May Isis grant us peace, and may prosperity and happiness 
 increase in our land!" 
 
 The Greek colonists in Naukratis* had prepared a feast to 
 celebrate the departure of their protector's daughter. 
 
 Numerous animals had been slaughtered in sacrifice on the 
 altars of the Greek divinities, and the Nile boats were greeted 
 with a loud cry of "Ailinos" on their arrival in the harbor,
 
 154 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 A bridal wreath composed of a hoop of gold wound round 
 with scented violets* was presented to Nitetis by a troop of 
 young girls in holiday dresses, the act of presentation being 
 performed by Sappho, as the most beautiful among the maidens 
 of Naukratis. 
 
 On accepting the gift Nitetis kissed her forehead in token of 
 gratitude. The triremes were already waiting; she went 
 on board, the rowers took their oars and began the Ke- 
 leusma.fj The south wind filled the sails, and again the Aili- 
 nos rang across the water from a thousand voices. Bartja stood 
 "on the deck, and waved a last loving farewell to his betrothed, 
 while Sappho prayed in silence to Aphrodite Euploia, the pro- 
 tectress of those who go down to the sea in ships. The tears 
 rolled down her cheeks, but around her lips played a smile of 
 love and hope, though her old slave Melitta, who accompanied 
 her to carry her parasol, was weeping as if her heart would 
 break.. On seeing, however, a few leaves fall from her darling's 
 wreath she forgot her tears for a moment and whispered, 
 softly: "Yes, dear heart, it is easy to see that you are in love; 
 when the leaves fall from a maiden's wreath 'tis a sure sign that 
 her heart has been touched by Eros." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Seven weeks after Nitetis had quitted her native country a 
 long train of equipages and horsemen was to be seen on the 
 king's high way 1 1 from the west to Babylon, moving steadily 
 
 *The Greek bridal wreath usually consisted of violets and myrtle. 
 
 tThe melody to the measure of which the Greek boatmen usually 
 timed their strokes. 
 
 tThe measure of the Keleusma was generally given by a flute- 
 player, the Trieraules. Aeschylus, "Persians," 403. "Laert. Diog.," 
 iv, 22. Becker, "Charikles," i, p. 213. In the "Frogs of Aristophanes" 
 the inhabitants of the marshes are made to sing the Keleusma, v, 
 205. 
 
 See Kallimachus' epigram, 45, "Athenaeus," xv., p. (?69. 
 
 1 1 The great road called the "king's road," of which we shall have 
 tnore to say, was made by Cyrus and carefully kept up by Darius.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 155 
 
 toward that gigantic city, whose towers might already be 
 descried in the far distance. 
 
 The principal object in this caravan was a richly guided, four- 
 wheeled carriage, closed in at the sides by curtains, and above 
 by a roof supported on wooden pillars. In this vehicle, called 
 the Harmamaxa,* resting on rich cushions of gold brocade, 
 sat our Egyptian princess. 
 
 On either side rode her escort, viz., the Persian princes and 
 nobles whom we have already learned to know during their 
 visit to Egypt, Croesus and his son. 
 
 Behind these, a long train, consisting of fifty vehicles of dif- 
 ferent kinds and six hundred beasts of burden, stretched away 
 into the distance, and the royal carriage was preceded by a 
 troop of splendidly mounted Persian cavalry. 
 
 The highroad followed the course of the Euphrates, passing 
 through luxuriant fields of wheat, barley and sesamef yield- 
 ing fruit, two and sometimes 1 even three hundredfold. Slender 
 date-palms, covered with golden fruit, were scattered in every 
 direction over the fields, which were thoroughly irrigated by 
 means of canals and ditches.t 
 
 It was winter, but the sun shone warm and bright from a 
 cloudless sky. The mighty river sw r armed with craft of all 
 sizes, either transporting the products of Upper Armenia to the 
 plains of Mesopotamia, or the wares of Greece and Asia Minor 
 from Thapsakus to Babylon. Pumps and water-wheels 
 poured refreshing streams over the thirsty land, and pretty vil- 
 lages ornamented the shores of the river. Indeed, every ob- 
 ject gave evidence that our caravan w r as approaching the me- 
 tropolis of a carefully governed and civilized state. 
 
 Nitetis and her retinue now halted at a long brick house, 
 
 *An Asiatic traveling carriage. The first mention of these is in 
 Xenophon's "Aanabasis," where we find a queen traveling in such a 
 vehicle. They were later adopted by the Romans and used for the 
 same object. 
 
 tA species of corn which grows luxuriantly in the neighborhood 
 of Babylon, and from which oil is extracted. 
 
 f'Herodotus," i, 193. The ancient aqueduct discovered by Layard. 
 "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 215. Bas-reliefs representing this well- 
 watered and cultivated region e. 1. p. 262. 
 
 An important commercial town on the Euphrates, and the point of 
 observation from which Eratosthenes took his measurements of the 
 earth,
 
 156 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 roofed with asphalt,* and surrounded by a grove of plane- 
 trees. Here Croesus was lifted from his horse and approach- 
 ing the carriage, exclaimed: "Here we are at length at the 
 last station ! That high tower which you see on the horizon is 
 the celebrated temple of Bel, next to the pyramids, one of the 
 most gigantic works ever constructed by human hands. Before 
 sunset we shall have readied the brazen gates of Babylon. And 
 now I would ask you to alight and let me send your maidens 
 into the house; for here you must put on Persian apparel to 
 appear well-pleasing in the eyes of Cambyses. In a few hours 
 you will stand before your future husband. But you are pale ! 
 Permit your maidens to adorn your cheeks with a color that 
 shall look like the excitement of joy. A first impression is 
 often a final one, and this is especially true with regard to Cam- 
 byses. If, which I doubt not, you are pleasing in his eyes at 
 first, then you have won his love forever; but if you should 
 displease him to-day he will never look kindly on you again, 
 for he is rough and harsh. But take courage, my daughter, 
 and, above all, do not forget the advice I have given you." 
 Nitetis dried her tears as .she answered: "How can I ever thank 
 you, O Croesus, my second father, my protector and adviser, 
 for all your goodness? Oh, forsake me not in the days to 
 come ! and if the path of my life should lead through grief and 
 care be near to help and guide me as you were on the moun- 
 tain-passes of this long and dangerous journey. A thousand 
 times I thank thee, O my father!" 
 
 And, as she said these words, the young girl threw her 
 arms around the old man's neck and kissed him tenderly. 
 
 On entering the court-yard, a tall, stout man followed by a 
 train of Asiatic serving-maidens came forward to meet them. 
 This was Boges, the chief of the eunuchs, f an important official 
 
 *Nearly all authorities, ancient as well as modern, report that bitu- 
 men, which is still plentifully found in the neighborhood of Babylon, 
 was used by the Babylonians as mortar. See, besides the accounts of 
 ancient writers, W. Baur, "Nineveh and Persepolis; an Historical 
 Sketch of Assyria and Persia," p. 136. "Layard," 1, 1, p. 262 and pp. 
 529, 530. Burned bitumen as used by Assyrians for cement in building. 
 
 tSee Ebers, "Aegypten und die Biicher Mose's," p. 296 and following, 
 on this unfortunate class of human beings, who far more probably 
 owed their origin to the jealousy of the easterns and their desire to 
 perpetuate their race or family in its original purity, than to Semi-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 15? 
 
 at the Persian court. His beardless face wore a smile of ful- 
 some sweetness; in his ears hung costly jeweled pendants; his 
 neck, arms, legs and his effeminately long garments glittered all 
 over with gold chains and rings, and his- crisp, stiff curls, bound 
 round by a purple fillet, streamed with powerful and penetrat- 
 ing perfumes. 
 
 Making a low and reverential obeisance before Nitetis, and 
 holding, the while, his fat hands overloaded with rings before 
 his mouth, he thus addressed her: "Cambyses, lord of the 
 world, hath sent me to thee, O queen, that I may refresh thy 
 heart with the dew of his salutations. He sendeth thee like- 
 wise by me, even by me the_ lowest of his servants, Persian rai- 
 ment, that them, as befittetli the consort of the mightiest of all 
 rulers, mayest approach the gates of the Achaemenidae in 
 Median garments. These women whom thou seest are thy 
 handmaidens, and only await thy bidding to transform thee 
 from an Egyptian jewel into a Persian pearl." 
 
 The master of the caravansary then appeared, bearing, in 
 token of welcome, a basket of fruits arranged with great taste. 
 
 Nitetis returned her thanks to both these men in kind and 
 friendly words; then entering the house laid aside the dress 
 and ornaments of her native land, weeping as she did so, al- 
 lowed the strangers to unloose the plait of hair which hung 
 down at the left side of her head, and was the distinctive mark 
 of an Egyptian princess,* and -to array her in Median gar- 
 ments. 
 
 In the meantime a repast had been commanded by the 
 princes who accompanied her. Eager and agile attendants 
 rushed to the baggage- wagons, fetching thence, in a few mo- 
 ments, seats, tables, and golden utensils of all kinds. The cooks 
 vied with them and with each other, and, as if by magic, in a 
 short space of time a richly adorned banquet for the hungry 
 guests appeared, at which even the flowers were >not wanting. 
 
 During the entire journey our travelers had lived in a similar 
 
 ramis' wish to be surrounded only by men who, like herself, were 
 beardless and had high-toned voices. 
 
 *In almost all the Egyptian pictures the daughters of the Pharaohs 
 are represented with these lopks of hair, plaited and reaching from the 
 forehead to the neck. Rosellini, "Mon. Stor.," ii, 123. Lepsius, 
 "Denkmaler." The daughter of Rameses II is drawn thus, and we 
 have examples of the same in many other pictures.
 
 15 g AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 luxury, as their beasts of burden carried every imaginable con- 
 venience, from tents of water-proof materials inwrought with 
 g-old, down to silver footstools; and in the vehicles which com- 
 posed their train were not only bakers, cooks, cup-bearers and 
 carvers, but perfumers 1 , hair-dressers, and weavers of garlands. 
 Besides these conveniences, a well-fitted up caravansary, or inn, 
 was to be found about every eighteen miles along the whole 
 route, where disabled horses could be replaced, the plantations 
 around which afforded a refreshing shelter from the noonday 
 heat, or their hearths a refuge from the snow and cold on the 
 mountain-passes. 
 
 The kingdom of Persia was indebted for these inns (similar 
 to the post-stations of modern days) to Cyrus, who had en- 
 deavored to connect the widely distant provinces of his im- 
 mense dominions by a system of well-kept roads and a regular 
 postal service. At each of these stations the horseman carry- 
 ing the letter-bag was relieved by a fresh man on a fresh steed, 
 to whom the letters were transferred, and who, in his turn, 
 darted off like the wind, to be again replaced at a similar dis- 
 tance by another rider. These couriers, called Angari, were 
 considered the swiftest horsemen in the world.* 
 
 Just as the banqueters, among whom Boges had taken his 
 seat, were rising from the table, the door opened, and a vision 
 appeared, which drew prolonged exclamations of surprise from 
 all the Persians present. Nitetis, clad in the glorious apparel of 
 a Median princess, proud in the consciousness of her tri- 
 umphant beauty, and yet blushing like a young girl at the won- 
 dering admiration of her friends, stood before them. 
 
 The attendants involuntarily fell on their faces before her, 
 according to the custom of the Asiatics, and the noble Achae- 
 menidae bowed low and reverentially; for it seemed as if 
 Nitetis had laid aside all her former bashfulness and timidity 
 with her simple Egyptian dress, and with the splendid silken 
 garments of a Persian princess, flashing as they were with gold 
 and jewels, had clothed herself in the majesty of a queen. 
 
 The deep reverence paid by all present seemed agreeable to 
 
 ""Herodotus," v, 14, 49-52. Xenoph, "Cyrop.," viii, 69. Plutarch, 
 "Artaxerxes," 25. Persian milestones ar still to be found among the 
 ruins of the old king's road which led from Nineveh to Ekbatana. 
 The Kurds call them keli-shin (blue pillars). W. Baur, "Nineveh and 
 Persepolis," p. 330.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 159 
 
 her, and thanking her admiring friends by a gracious wave of 
 the hand she turned to the cmef of the eunuchs* and said, in a 
 kind tone but mingled with a touch of pride : "Thou hast per- 
 formed thy mission well ; I am content with the raiment and the 
 slaves that thou hast provided and shall commend thy circum- 
 spection to the king, my husband. Receive this gold chain in 
 the meanwhile as a token of my gratitude." 
 
 The eunuch kissed the hem of her garment and accepted the 
 gift in silence. This man, hitherto omnipotent in his office, 
 had never before encountered such pride in any of the womejj 
 committed to his charge. Up to the, present time all Cambyses' 
 wives had been Asiatics, and, well aware of the unlimited power 
 of the chief of the eunuchs, had used every means within their 
 reach to secure his favor by flattery and submission. 
 
 Boges now made a second obeisance'before Nitetis, of which, 
 however, she took no notice, and turning to Croesus said: 
 "Neither words nor gifts could ever suffice to express my grati- 
 tude to you, kindest of friends, for, if my future life at the court 
 of Persia prove, I will not venture to say a happy, but even a 
 peaceful one, it is to you alone that I shall owe it. Still, take this 
 ring. It has never left my finger since I quitted Egypt, and 
 it has a significance far beyond its outward worth. Pythagoras, 
 the noblest of the Greeks, gave it to my mother when he was 
 tarrying in Egypt to learn the wisdom of our priests, and it 
 was her parting gift to me. The number seven is engraved 
 upon the simple stone. This indivisible number represents per- 
 fect health, both of soul and body,f for health is likewise one 
 and indivisible. The sickness of one member is the sickness of 
 all; one evil thought, allowed to take up its abode within our 
 heart, destroys the entire harmony of the soul. When you see 
 this seven, therefore, let it recall my heart's wish that you may 
 ever enjoy undisturbed bodily health and long retain that lov- 
 ing gentleness which has made you the most virtuous, and 
 therefore the healthiest, of mem No thanks, my father, for even 
 if 1 could restore to Croesus all the treasures that he once pos- 
 
 *In the book of Esther, ii, 12, 15, a chief of the eunuchs for the king's 
 wives is spoken of, and another for the concubines. But in the reign 
 of Cambyses, which was so much earlier, we have allowed Boges to 
 fill both these offices. 
 
 tSeven, the "motherless" number which has no factor below ten. 
 Zeller, "Geschichte der Philosophie der Griechen," pp. 232 and 298,
 
 160 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 sessed I should still remain his debtor. Gyges, to you I give 
 this Lydian lyre ; let its tones recall the giver to your memory. 
 For you, 'Zopyrus, I have a gold chain; I have witnessed that 
 you are the most fakhful of friends ; and we Egyptians are ac- 
 customed to place cords and bands in the hands of our lovely 
 Hathor, the goddess of love and friendship, as symbols of her 
 captivating and enchaining attributes.* As Darius has studied 
 the wisdom of Egypt and the signs of the starry heavens, I beg 
 him to take this circlet of gold, on which a skillful hand has 
 traced the signs of the zodiac.f And lastly, to my dear brother- 
 in-law Bartja I commit the most precious jewel in my posses- 
 sion this amulet of blue stone.J My sister Tachot hung it 
 round my neck as I kissed her on the last night before 'we 
 parted; she told me it could bring to its wearer the sweet bliss 
 of love. And then, Bartja, she wept! I do not know of whom 
 she was thinking in that moment, but I hope I am acting ac- 
 cording to her wishes in giving you her precious jewel. Take 
 it as a gift from Tachot, and sometimes call to mind our games 
 in the Sais gardens." 
 
 Thus far she had been speaking Greek, but now, addressing 
 the attendants who remained standing in an attitude of deep 
 reverence, she began in broken Persian: "Accept my thanks 
 also. In Babylon you shall receive a thousand gold staters." 
 
 *See note 2, p. 29. 
 
 tDiodorus tells that in the tomb of Osymandyas (palace of Rameses 
 II at Thebes) there lay a circle of gold, one ell thick and three hundred 
 and sixty-five ells in circumference, containing a complete astronom- 
 ical calendar. The circle of the zodiac from Dendera, which is now at 
 Paris, an astronomical ceiling painting, which was believed at the 
 time of its discovery to be of great age, is not nearly so ancient as was 
 supposed, dating only from the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Le- 
 tronne was the first to estimate it correctly. See Lepsius, "Chron.," 
 p. 63, and Lauth, "Les Zodiaques de Dendera," Munich, 1865. 
 
 JLapis lazuli was a favorite stone among the ancient Egyptians. 
 Turquoises have been found in the present day by an Englishman 
 named Macdonald in the old mines on the Sinaitic peninsula. See 
 Brughsch, "Wanderungen zu den Turkisminen." 
 
 These staters were the earliest stamped coins according to "Herod- 
 otus," i, 94. But Bockh and Brandis have proved that the Assyrians 
 had fixed weights and measures much earlier. The Persian Daricus 
 was probably first coined in the reign of Darius, though Suidas main- 
 tains that they took their name from a former Darius. It may have 
 been derived from the word "Zara," gold. The Daricus was worth a 
 little more than twenty-four shillings. Bockh, "Metrologie," pp. 46,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 161 
 
 Then turning: to Boges she added : "Let this sum be distributed 
 among the attendants at latest by the day after to-morrow. 
 Take me to my carriage, Croesus." 
 
 The old king hastened to do her bidding, and as he was 
 leading her thither she pressed his arm and whispered gently: 
 'Are you pleased with me, my father?" 
 
 "I tell you, girl," the old man answered, "that no one but the 
 king's mother can ever be your equal at this court, for a true 
 and queenly pride reigns on your brow, and you have the power 
 of using small means to effect great ends. Believe me, the 
 smallest gifts, chosen and bestowed as you can choose and be- 
 stow, give more pleasure to a noble mind than heaps of treas- 
 ure merely cast down at his feet. The Persians are accustomed 
 to present and to receive costly gifts. They understand already 
 how to enrich their friends, but you can teach them -to impart 
 a joy with every gift. How beautiful you are to-day ! Are your 
 cushions to your mind, or would you like a higher seat? But 
 what is that? There are clouds of dust in the direction of the 
 city. Cambyses is surely coming to meet you! Courage, my 
 daughter. Above all, try to meet his gaze and respond to it. 
 Very few can bear the lightning glance of those eyes, but if you 
 can return it freely and fearlessly you have conquered. Fear 
 nothing, my child, and may Aphrodite adorn you with her 
 most glorious beauty! My friends, we must start; I think the 
 king himself is coming." Nitetis sat erect in her splendid, 
 gilded carriage; her hands were pressed on her throbbing 
 heart. The clouds of dust came nearer and nearer, her eye 
 caught the flash of weapons like lightning across a stormy sky. 
 The clouds parted, she could see single figures for a moment, 
 but soon lost them as the road wound behind some thickets and 
 shrubs. Suddenly the troop of horsemen appeared in full gal- 
 lop only a hundred paces before her and distinctly visible. 
 
 Her first impression was of a motley mass of steeds and men, 
 glittering in purple, gold, silver and jewels. It consisted in 
 reality of a troop of more than two hundred horsemen mounted 
 on pure-white Nicaean horses, whose bridles and saddle-cloths 
 were covered with bells and bosses, feathers, fringes and em- 
 
 51, 121 and following. Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," ii, p. 
 642. We are indebted to Brandis for the latest and most successful 
 researches on this subject of eastern measures of every kind.
 
 162 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 broidery.* Their leader rode a powerful coal-black charger, 
 which even the strong will and hand of his rider could not al- 
 ways curb, though in the end his enormous strength proved 
 " him the man to tame even this fiery animal. The rider, beneath 
 whose weight the powerful steed trembled and panted, wore a 
 vesture of scarlet and white, thickly embroidered with eagles 
 and falcons in silver.f The lower part of his dress was purple 
 and his boots of yellow leather. He wore a golden girdle; in 
 this hung a short, dagger-like sword, the hilt and scabbard of 
 which were thickly studded with jewels. The remaining orna- 
 ments of his dress resembled those we have described as worn 
 by Bartja, and the blue and white fillet of the Achaemenidae 
 was bound around the tiara, which surmounted a mass of thick 
 curls, black as ebony. The lower part of his face was concealed 
 by an immense beard. His features were pale and immovable, 
 but the eyes (more intensely black, if possible, than either hair 
 or beard) glowed with a fire that was rather scorching than 
 warming. A deep, fiery-red scar given by the sword of a 
 Massagetan warrior crossed his high forehead, arched nose and 
 thin upper lip. His whole demeanor expressed great power and 
 unbounded pride. 
 
 Nitetis' gaze was at once riveted by this man. She had never 
 seen anyone like him before, and he exercised a strange fasci- 
 nation over her. The expression of indomitable pride worn by 
 his features seemed to her to represent a manly nature which 
 the whole world, but she herself above all others, was created to 
 serve. She felt afraid and yet her true woman's heart longed to 
 lean upon his strength as the vine upon the elm. She could not 
 be quite sure whether she had thus pictured to herself the father 
 of all evil, the fearful Seth,$ or the great god Ammon, the giver 
 of light. 
 
 The deepest pallor and the brightest color flitted by turns 
 across her lovely face, like the light and shadow when clouds 
 pass swiftly over a sunny noonday sky. She had quite forgot- 
 
 *From the pictures in H. Gosse's "Assyria," p. 238, and Layard's 
 "Nineveh and Babylon," pp. 178, 340, 450. 
 
 f'Curtius," iii, 3. Xenoph., "Cyrop.," viii, 3, 7. Aeschylus, "Per- 
 sians,", 835, 836. The king's dress and ornaments were worth twelve 
 thousand talents, or two million two hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds sterling, according to Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," 24. 
 note pp. 89-90.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 163 
 
 ten the advice of her fatherly old frfend, and yet, when Cam- 
 byses brought his unruly, charing steed to a stand by the side 
 of her carriage, she gazed breathlessly into the fiery eyes of this 
 man and felt at once that he was the king, though no one had 
 told her so. 
 
 The stern face of this ruler of half the known world relaxed 
 as Xitetis, moved by an unaccountable impulse, continued to 
 bear his piercing gaze. At last he waved his hand to her in 
 token of -welcome, and then rode on to her escort, who had 
 alighted from their horses and were awaiting 7 him, some having 
 cast themselves down in the dust, and others, after the Persian 
 manner, standing in an attitude of deep reverence, their hands 
 concealed in the wide sleeves of their robes. 
 
 He sprang from his horse, an example which was followed 
 at once by his entire suite. The attendants, with the speed of 
 thought, spread a rich purple carpet on .the highway, lest the 
 foot of the king should come in contact with the dust of the 
 earth, and then Cambyses proceeded to salute his friends and 
 relations by offering them his mouth to kiss. 
 
 He shook Croesus by the right hand, commanding him to 
 remount and accompany him to the carriage, as interpreter be- 
 tween himself and Nitetis. 
 
 In an instant his highest office-bearers were at hand to lift 
 the king once more onto his horse, and at a single nod from 
 their lord the train was again in motion. 
 
 Cambyses and Croesus rode by the side of the carriage. 
 
 "She is beautiful, and pleases me well," began the king. "In- 
 terpret faithfully all 'her answers, for I understand only the 
 Persian, Assyrian and Median tongues." 
 
 Nitetis caught and understood these words. A feeling of in- 
 tense joy stole into her heart, and before Croesus could answer, 
 she began softly in broken Persian and blushing deeply: 
 "Blessed be the gods, who have caused me to find favor in thine 
 eyes. I am not ignorant of the speech of my lord, for the 
 noble Croesus has instructed me in the Persian language dur- 
 ing our long journey. Forgive, if my sentences be broken and 
 imperfect; the time was short, and my capacity only that of a 
 poor and simple maiden."* 
 
 *Diodorus tells us that Themistocles learned the Persian language 
 during the journey to Susa. We are not, therefore, requiring an im- 
 possibility of Nitetis.
 
 164 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 A smile passed over the usually serious mouth of Cambyses. 
 His vanity was flattered by Nitetis' desire to win his approba- 
 tion, and, accustomed as he was to see women grow up in 
 idleness and ignorance, thinking of nothing but finery and in- 
 trigue, her persevering industry seemed to him both wonderful 
 and praiseworthy. So he answered, with evident satisfaction : 
 "I rejoice that we can speak without an interpreter. Persevere 
 in learning the beautiful language of my forefathers. Croesus, 
 who sits at my table, shall still remain your instructor." 
 
 "Your command confers happiness!" exclaimed the old man. 
 "No more eager or thankful pupil could be" found than the 
 daughter of Amasis." 
 
 "She justifies the ancient report of the wisdom of Egypt," 
 answered the king, "and I can believe that she will quickly 
 understand and receive into her soul the religious instructions 
 of our Magi." 
 
 Nitetis dropped her earnest gaze. Her fears were being real- 
 ized. She would be compelled to serve strange gods. 
 
 But her emotion passed unnoticed by Cambyses, who went 
 on speaking: "My mother, Kassandane, will tell you the duties 
 expected from my wives. To-morrow I myself will lead you to 
 her. The words which you innocently chanced to hear I now 
 repeat; you please me well. Do nothing to alienate my af- 
 fection. We will try to make our country agreeable, and, as 
 your friend, I counsel you to treat Boges, whom I sent as my 
 forerunner, in a kind and friendly manner. As head over the 
 house of the women, you will have to conform to his will in 
 many things." 
 
 "Though he be head over the women," answered Nitetis, 
 "surely your wife is bound to obey no other earthly will than 
 yours. Your slightest look shall be for me a command; but 
 remember that I am a king's daughter, that in my native land 
 the weaker and the stronger sex have equal rights, and that the 
 same pride reigns in my breast which I see kindling in your 
 eyes, my lord and king! My obedience to you, my husband 
 and my ruler, shall be that of a slave, but I can never stoop to 
 sue for favor or obey the orders of a venal servant, the most 
 unmanly of his kind!" 
 
 Cambyses' wonder and satisfaction increased. He had never 
 heard any woman speak in this way before, except his mother; 
 the clever way in which Nitetis acknowledged, and laid stress
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 165 
 
 on his right to command her every act, was very flattering to 
 his self-love, and her pride found an echo in his own haughty 
 disposition. He nodded approvingly and answered: "You 
 have spoken well. A separate dwelling shall be appointed you. 
 I, and no one else, will prescribe your rules of life and con- 
 duct. This day the pleasant palace on the hanging gardens 
 shall be prepared for your reception." 
 
 "A thousand, thousand thanks," cried Nitetis. "You little 
 know the blessing you are bestowing in this permission. Again 
 and again I have begged your brother Bartja to repeat the 
 story of these gardens, and the love of the king who raised that 
 verdant and blooming hill pleased us better than all the other 
 glories of your vast domains." 
 
 "To-morrow," answered the king, "you can enter your new 
 abode. But tell me, now, how my messengers pleased you and 
 your countrymen?" 
 
 "How can you ask? Who could know the noble Croesus 
 without loving him? Who could fail to admire the beauty 
 of the young heroes, your friends? They have all become 
 dear to us, but your handsome brother Bartja, especially, won 
 all" hearts. The Egyptians have no love for strangers, and yet 
 the gaping crowd would burst into a murmur of admiration 
 when his beautiful face appeared among them." 
 
 At these words the king's brow darkened; he struck his 
 horse so sharply that the creature reared, and then turning 
 it quickly round he galloped to the front and soon reached the 
 walls of Babylon. 
 
 Though Nitetis had been brought up among the huge tem- 
 ples and palaces of Egypt, she was still astonished at the size 
 and grandeur of this gigantic city. 
 
 Its walls seemed impregnable; they measured more than 
 seventy-five feet* in height and their breadth was so great that 
 two chariots could conveniently drive abreast upon them. 
 These mighty defenses were crowned and strengthened by two 
 hundred and fifty high towers, and even these would have been 
 insufficient if Babylon had not been protected on one side by 
 impassable morasses. The gigantic city lay on both shores of 
 the Euphrates. It was more than forty miles in circumference, 
 
 *Fifty ells. The Greek ell (m/xvc) ts equal to one foot and a half 
 English.
 
 166 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 and its walls inclosed buildings surpassing in size and grandeur 
 even the pyramids and the temples of Thebes.* 
 
 The mighty gates of brass through which the royal train 
 entered the city had opened wide to receive this noble com- 
 pany. This entrance was defended on each side by a strong 
 tower, and before each of these towers lay, as warder, a gigan- 
 tic winged bull carved in stone, with a human head, bearded 
 and solemn.f Nitetis gazed at these gates in astonishment, 
 and then a joyful smile lighted up her face as she looked up the 
 long broad street so brightly and beautifully decorated to wel- 
 come her. 
 
 The moment they beheld the king and the gilded carriage 
 the multitude burst into loud shouts of joy, but when Bartja, 
 the people's darling, came in sight, the shouts rose to thunder- 
 peals and shrieks of delight, which seemed as if they would 
 never end. It was long since the populace had seen Cambyses, 
 for in accordance with Median customs the king seldom ap- 
 peared in public. Like the deity, he was to govern invisibly, 
 and his occasional appearance before the nation to be looked 
 upon as a festival and occasion of rejoicing. Thus all Babylon 
 had come out to-day to look upon their awful ruler and to wel- 
 come their favorite Bartja on his return. The windows were 
 crowded with eager, curious women who threw flowers before 
 the approaching train, or poured sweet perfumes from above 
 as they passed by. The pavement was thickly strewn with myr- 
 tle and palm branches, trees of different kinds had been placed 
 before the house doors, carpets and gay cloths hung from the 
 windows, garlands of flowers were wreathed from house to 
 
 These numbers and measurements are taken partly from Herodo- 
 tus, partly from Diodorus, Strabo and Arrian. And even the ruins of 
 this giant city, writes Layard, are such as to allow a very fair conclu- 
 sion of its enormous size. "Layard," i, 1. Gosse, "Assyria." Ritter, 
 "Erdkunde," xi, p. 900, and many others. Aristotle ("Polit.," iii, 1) 
 says Babylon's dimensions were not those of a city, but of a nation. 
 
 tJ. Bonomi, "Nineveh and Its Palaces," fig. 33, and many pictures in 
 Layard's works. Originals and casts of ancient Assyrian works of 
 art in the British Museum, the Louvre in Paris, and (more especially 
 casts) in the New Museum, Berlin. The Assyrian sphinxes were prob- 
 ably intended as symbols of the omnipotence of the deity. The highest 
 degree of strength was symbolized by the body of a bull, the highest 
 intelligence by the head of a man, and the greatest swiftness by the 
 eagle's wings.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 167 
 
 house, fragrant odors of incense and sandal-wood perfumed the 
 air, and the way was 1 lined with thousands of gaping Babylo- 
 nians dressed in white linen shirts, gayly colored woolen petti- 
 coats and short cloaks, and carrying long staves headed with 
 pomegranates, birds, or roses, of gold or silver.* 
 
 The streets through which the procession moved were broad 
 and straight, the houses on either side, built of brick, tall and 
 handsome. f Towering above everything else, and visible 
 from all points, rose the gigantic temple of Bel. Its colossal 
 staircase, like a huge serpent, wound round and round the 
 ever-diminishing series of stories composing the tower, until 
 it reached the summit, crowned by the sanctuary itself.J 
 
 The procession approached the royal palace. This cor- 
 responded in its enormous size to the rest of the vast city. The 
 
 *"Herodotus," i, 195. "Ezekiel," 23, 15. This dress, too, agrees 
 well with the pictures of Assyrians represented on the Egyptian 
 monuments among the foreign nations. Printed in colors in Rosel- 
 lini's "Mon. Stor. de 1'Egitto," ii, pi. 157 and 158, and in Lepsius' 
 "Denkmaler." In the celebrated enumeration of the campaigns of 
 Thotmes III (in Lepsius), mention is made of Assuri and Babel, per- 
 haps Assyria and Babylon. It runs thus: "In the year 40 the tribute 
 of the kings of Assuri (Assyria?) was a great stone of lapis lazuli 
 weighing twenty minae and nine aces, of beautiful lapis lazuli from 
 Babel (Babylon?), vases from Assuri," etc. 
 
 f'Kerodotus," i, 180. 
 
 JThis temple of Bel, which many consider may have been the tower 
 of Babel of "Genesis," xi, is mentioned by "Herodotus," i, 181, 182, 183. 
 "Diodorus," ii, 8, 9 (Ktesias), "Strabo," 738 and many other ancient 
 writers. The people living in its neighborhood now call the ruins 
 "Birs Nimrud," the castle of Nimrod. In the text we have recon- 
 structed it as far as possible from the accounts of classical writers. 
 The first story, which is still standing, in the midst of a heap of ruins, 
 is two hundred and sixty feet high. The walls surrounding the tower 
 are said to be still clearly recognizable and were four thousand feet 
 long and three thousand feet broad. Ritter, "Erdkunde," xi, 877. 
 "Layard," pp. 494-499. Rich, "Collected Memoirs, First Memoir," 
 p. 37. The immense building must have been in its greatest splendor 
 at the time of our tale, as we know from "Josephus" (Ant. x, 11, 1), 
 that Nebuchadnezzar added to and finished it in a magnificent man- 
 ner; and Josephus' report is confirmed by a cuneiform inscription 
 translated by Rawlinson, "Journal of Royal Ast. Society," xii, 2, p. 
 476. The foundation of the temple seems to have been square. 
 
 This palace or castle is said to have been built by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 too. At least the bricks which have been found among its ruins at 
 Hillah bear his name in cuneiform characters. Many fragments of 
 glazed reliefs have been found there also.
 
 168 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 walls surrounding it were covered with gayly colored and 
 glazed representations of strange figures made up of human 
 beings, birds, quadrupeds, and fishes; hunting-scenes, battles 
 and solemn processions. By the side of the river toward the 
 north rose the hanging gardens,* and the smaller palace lay 
 toward the east on the other bank of the Euphrates, connected 
 with the larger one by the wondrous erection, a firm bridge of 
 stone. 
 
 Our train passed on through the brazen gates of three of 
 the walls surrounding the palace and then halted. Nitetis was 
 lifted from her carriage by bearers; she was at last in her new 
 home, and soon after in the apartments of the women's house 
 assigned to her temporary use. 
 
 Cambyses, Bartja and their friends already known to us, were 
 still standing in the gayly carpeted court of the palace, sur- 
 rounded by at least a hundred splendid dignitaries in magnif- 
 icent dresses, when suddenly a sound of loud female voices was 
 heard, and a lovely Persian girl, richly dressed, her thick, fair 
 hair profusely wreathed with pearls, rushed into the court, pur- 
 sued by several women older than herself. She ran up to the 
 group of men; Cambyses, with a smile, placed himself in her 
 path, but the impetuous girl slipped adroitly past him, and in 
 another moment was hanging on Bartja's neck, crying and 
 laughing by turns. 
 
 The attendants in pursuit prostrated themselves at a respect- 
 ful distance, but Cambyses, on seeing the caresses lavished" by 
 the young girl on her newly returned brother, cried: "For 
 shame, Atossa! remember that since you began to wear ear- 
 rings you have ceased to be a child !f It is right that you 
 should rejoice to see your brother again, but a king's daughter 
 
 *A heap of debris, twenty-four hundred feet long and eighteen 
 hundred broad, now called el kasr, "the palace," stretches along the 
 bank of the Euphrates. "On the north side of this artificial hill, on 
 one of the highest points, stands a lonely tamarisk looking down on 
 the river beneath. The tree is very old and large, and the Arabs say 
 is the only one now remaining from the hanging gardens of Semira- 
 mis." Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," i, p. 572. "Diodorus" 
 (ii, 10) says the hanging gardens were in terraces like the seats in a 
 theater. Layard found a tablet with bas-reliefs of a garden supported 
 on columns. "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 233, pi. xi, B, in Zenker's 
 translation. 
 
 tEar-rings were given to the Persian girls in their fifteenth year, 
 the marriageable age. "Vendid. Fargard," xiv, 66. At this age, too,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 169 
 
 must never forget what is due to her rank even in her greatest 
 joy. Go back to our mother directly. I see your attendants 
 waiting yonder. Go and tell them that, as this is a day of re- 
 joicing, I will allow your heedless conduct to pass unpunished, 
 but the next time you appear unbidden in these apartments, 
 which none may enter without permission, I shall tell Boges 
 to keep you twelve days in confinement. Remember this, 
 thoughtless child, and tell our mother Bartja and I are coming 
 to visit her. Now give me a kiss. You will not? We shall 
 see, capricious little one!" And so saying the king sprang 
 toward his refractory little sister, and, seizing both her hands 
 in one of his own, bent back her charming head with the other 
 and kissed her in spite of her resistance. She screamed from 
 the violence of his grasp, and ran away crying to her attendants, 
 who took her back to her apartments. 
 
 When Atossa had disappeared Bartja said: "You were too 
 rough with the little one, Cambyses. She screamed with 
 pain!" 
 
 Once more the king's face clouded, but, suppressing the harsh 
 words which trembled on his lips, he only answered, turning 
 toward the house: "Let us come to our mother now; she 
 begged me to bring you as soon as you arrived. The women, 
 as usual, are all impatience. Nitetis told me your rosy cheeks 
 and fair curls had bewitched the Egyptian women, too. I 
 would advise you to pray betimes to Mithras* for eternal youth, 
 and for his protection against the wrinkles of age!" 
 
 "Do you mean to imply by these words that I have no virtue? 
 which could make an old age beautiful?" asked Bartja. 
 
 "I explain my words to no one. Come." 
 
 "But I ask for an opportunity of proving that I am inferior 
 to none of my nation in many qualities." 
 
 "For that matter, the shouts of the Babylonians to-day will 
 have been proof enough that deeds are not wanted from you, 
 in order to win their admiration." 
 
 "Cambyses !" 
 
 boys as well as girls were obliged to wear the sacred cord kucti kosti 
 as a girdle, and were only allowed to loosen it in the night. The 
 making of this cord is attended with many ceremonies even among 
 the Persians of our own day. Seventy-two threads must be employed, 
 but black wool is prohibited. Spiegel, "Avesta," ii, Einleitung, xxiii, 
 *God of the sun and of light among the Persians.
 
 170 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Now, come! We are just on the eve of a war with the 
 Massagetae ; there you will have a good opportunity of proving 
 what you are worth." 
 
 A few minutes later, and Bartja was in the arms of his blind 
 mother. She had been waiting for her darling's arrival with a 
 bleeding heart, and in the joy of hearing his voice once more, 
 and of being able to lay her hands again on that beloved head, 
 she forgot everything else even her first-born son who stood 
 by smiling bitterly, as he watched the rich and boundless 
 stream of a mother's love flowing out to his younger brother. 
 
 Cambyses had been spoiled from his earliest infancy. Every 
 wish had been fulfilled, every look regarded as a command; 
 and thus he grew up totally unable to brook contradiction, 
 giving way to the most violent anger if any of his subjects (and 
 he knew no human beings who were not his subjects) dared to 
 oppose him. 
 
 His father, Cyrus, conqueror of half the world the man 
 whose genius had raised Persia from a small nation to the 
 summit of earthly greatness who had secured for himself the 
 reverence and admiration of countless subjugated tribes this 
 great king was incapable of carrying out in his own small family 
 circle the system of education he had so successfully adopted 
 toward entire countries.* He could see naught else in 
 Cambyses but the future king of Persia, and commanded his 
 subjects to pay him an unquestioning obedience, entirely for- 
 getful of the fact that he who is to govern well must begin by 
 learning to obey. 
 
 Cambyses had been the first-born son of Kassandane, the wife 
 whom Cyrus had loved and married young; three daughters 
 followed, and at last, fifteen years later, Bartja had come into 
 the world. Their eldest son had already outgrown his parents' 
 caresses when this little child appeared to engross all their care 
 and love. His gentle, affectionate and clinging nature made 
 him the darling of both father and mother; Cambyses was 
 treated with consideration by his parents, but their love was for 
 Bartja. Cambyses was brave; he distinguished himself often 
 in the field, but his disposition was haughty and imperious; 
 men served him with fear and trembling, while Bartja, ever 
 
 "The same remark is to be found in Seneca "De ira" and in Plato, 
 "Legg.," 691 and 695.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 171 
 
 sociable and sympathizing, converted all his companions into 
 loving friends. As to the mass of the people, they feared the 
 king and trembled when he drew near, notwithstanding the 
 lavish manner in which he showered rich gifts around him; 
 but they loved Bartja, and believe'd they saw in him the image 
 of the great Cyrus, the "father of his people." 
 
 Cambyses knew well that all this love, so freely given to 
 Bartja, was not to be bought. He did not hate his younger 
 brother, but he felt annoyed that a youth who had as yet done 
 nothing to distinguish himself should be honored and revered 
 as if he were already a hero and public benefactor. Whatever 
 annoyed or displeased him he considered must be wrong; where 
 he disapproved he did not spare his censures, and from his very 
 childhood Cambyses' reproofs had been dreaded even by the 
 mighty. 
 
 The enthusiastic shout of the populace, the overflowing love 
 of his mother and sister, and, above all, the warm encomiums 
 expressed by Nitetis had excited a jealousy which his pride had 
 never allowed hitherto. Nitetis had taken his fancy in a re- 
 markable degree. This daughter of a powerful monarch, like 
 himself disdaining everything mean and inferior, had yet 
 acknowledged him to be her superior, and to win his favor had 
 not shrunk from the laborious task of mastering his native 
 )anguage. These qualities, added to her peculiar style of 
 beauty, which excited his admiration from its rare novelty, half 
 Egyptian, half Greek (her mother having been a Greek), had 
 not failed to make a deep impression on him. But she had been 
 liberal in her praise of Bartja that was enough to disturb 
 'Cambyses' mind and prepare the way for jealousy. 
 
 As he and his brother were leaving the women's apartments 
 Cambyses adopted a hasty resolution and exclaimed: "You 
 p.sked me just now for an opportunity of proving your courage. 
 1. will not refuse. The Tapuri have risen ; I have sent troops to 
 the frontier. Go to Rhagae, take the command, and show 
 what you are worth." 
 
 "Thanks, brother," cried Bartja. "May I take my friends, 
 Darius, Gyges and Zopyrus, with me?" 
 
 "That favor shall be granted, too. I hope you will all do your 
 duty bravely and promptly, that you may be back in three 
 months to join the main army in the expedition of revenge on 
 the Massagetae. It will take place in spring."
 
 172 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "I will start to-morrow." 
 
 "Then farewell." 
 
 "If Auramazda should spare my life, and I should return 
 victorious, will you promise to grant me one favor?" 
 
 "Yes, I will." 
 
 "Now, then, I feel confident of .victory, even if I should have 
 to stand with a thousand men against ten thousand of the 
 enemy." Bartja's eyes sparkled ; he was thinking of Sappho. 
 
 "Well," answered his brother, "I shall be very glad if your 
 actions bear out these glowing words. But, stop; I have 
 something more to say. You are now twenty years of age; 
 you must marry; Roxana, daughter of the noble Hydarnes, is 
 marriageable, and is said to be beautiful. Her birth makes 
 her a fitting bride for you." 
 
 "Oh! brother, do not speak of marriage; I 
 
 "You must marry, for I have no children." 
 
 "But you are still young; you will not remain childless. 
 Besides, I do not say that I will never marry. Do not be 
 angry, but just now, when I am to prove my courage, I would 
 rather hear nothing about women." 
 
 "Well, then, you must marry Roxana when you return from 
 the north. But I should advise you to take her with you to the 
 field. A Persian generally fights better if he knows that, be- 
 sides his most precious treasures, he has a beautiful woman in 
 his tent to defend."* 
 
 "Spare me this one command, my brother. I conjure thee, 
 by the soul of our father, not to inflict on me a wife of whom I 
 know nothing and never wish to know. Give Roxana to 
 Zopyrus, who is so fond of women, or to Darius or Bessus, 
 who are related to her father, Hydarnes. I cannot love her, 
 and should be miserable " 
 
 Cambyses interrupted him with a laugh, exclaiming, "Did 
 you learn these notions in Egypt, where it is the custom to be 
 contented with one wife? In truth, I have long repented 
 having sent a boy like you abroad. I am not accustomed to 
 bear contradiction, and shall listen to no excuses after the war. 
 This once I will allow you to go to the field without a wife; J 
 will not force you to do what in your opinion might endanger 
 your valor. But it seems to me you have other and more 
 
 *"Herodotus," vii, 83, 187, "Xenoph. and Cyrop.," viii, 10.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 173 
 
 secret reasons for refusing my brotherly proposal. If that is 
 the case, I am sorry for you. However, for the present, you 
 can depart, but after the war I will hear no remonstrances. You 
 know me." 
 
 "Perhaps after the war I may ask for the very thing which I 
 am refusing now but never for Roxana! It is just as unwise 
 to try to make a man happy by force as it is wicked to compel- 
 him to be unhappy, and I thank you for granting my request." 
 
 "Don't try my powers of yielding too often. How happy 
 you look! I really believe you are in love with some one 
 woman by whose side all the others have lost their charms." 
 
 Bartja blushed to his temples, and seizing his brother's hand, 
 exclaimed: "Ask no further now, accept my thanks once more, 
 and farewell. May I bid Nitetis farewell, too, when I have 
 taken leave of our mother and Atossa?" 
 
 Cambyses bit his lip, looked searchingly into Bartja's face, 
 and rinding that the boy grew uneasy under his glance, ex- 
 claimed abruptly and angrily: "Your first business is to hasten 
 to the Tapuri. My wife needs your care no longer; she has 
 other protectors now." 
 
 So saying he turned his back on his brother and passed on 
 into the great hall, blazing with gold, purple and jewels, where 
 the chiefs of the army, satraps, judges, treasurers, secretaries, 
 counselors, eunuchs, door-keepers, introducers of strangers, 
 chamberlains, keepers of the wardrobe, dressers, cup-bearers, 
 equerries, masters of the chase, physicians, eyes and ears of the 
 king, ambassadors and plenipotentiaries of all descriptions* 
 were in waiting for him. 
 
 The king was preceded by heralds bearing staves and fol- 
 lowed by a host of fan, sedan and footstool-bearers, men carry- 
 ing carpets, and secretaries who the moment he uttered a com- 
 
 *The "eyes and ears" of the king may be compared to our police 
 ministers. Darius may have borrowed the name from Egypt where 
 such titles as the "two eyes of the king for Upper Egypt, the two ears 
 of the king for Lower Egypt" are to be found even on the earlier 
 monuments. And in "Herodotus," ii, 114, the boy Cyrus calls one of 
 his playfellows 600a?,u6v fiaenteue, "the eye of the king." "Herod." 
 (i, 100), makes the system of espionage by the police begin under 
 Dejoces, in whose time the country was full of spies and listeners. 
 The other court officials are mentioned by different ancient writers 
 and enumerated in detail by Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," 
 ii, pp. 606 and 614.
 
 174 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 mand, or even indicated a concession, a punishment or a 
 reward, hastened to note it down and at once hand it over to the 
 officials empowered to execute his decrees. 
 
 In the middle of the brilliantly lighted hall stood a gilded 
 table which looked as if it must give way beneath the mass of 
 gold and silver vessels, plates, cups and bowls, which were 
 arranged with great order upon it. The king's private table, 
 the service on which was of immense worth and beauty, was 
 placed in an apartment opening out of the large hall and sepa- 
 rated from it by purple hangings. These concealed him from 
 the gaze of the revelers, but did not prevent their every move- 
 ment from being watched by his eye.* It was an object of the 
 highest ambition to be one of those who ate at the king's table, 
 and even he to whom a portion was sent might deem himself a 
 highly favored man. 
 
 As Cambyses entered the hall nearly everyone present 
 prostrated themselves before him; his relations alone, dis- 
 tinguished by the blue-and-white fillet en the tiara, contented 
 themselves with a deferential obeisance. 
 
 After the king had seated himself in his private apartment 
 the rest of the company took their places, and then a tre- 
 mendous revel began. Animals, roasted whole, were placed on 
 the table, and, when hunger was appeased, several courses of 
 the rarest delicacies followed, celebrated in later times even 
 among the Greeks under the name of ''Persian dessert."f 
 
 Slaves then entered to remove the remains of the food. 
 Others brought in immense jugs of wine, the king left his own 
 apartment, took his seat at the head of the table, numerous cup- 
 bearers filled the golden drinking-cups in the most graceful 
 manner, first tasting the wine to prove that it was free from 
 poison, and soon one of those drinking bouts had begun under 
 the best auspices, at which, a century or two later, Alexander 
 the Great forgot not only moderation but even friendship itself. 
 
 Cambyses was unwontedly silent. The suspicion had en- 
 
 *Heracl., "Cum. Fragm.," i, Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," 5, tells that the 
 king's mother and his favorite wife had seats at his own table. 
 
 f'Herodotus" (i, 133) writes that the Persians fancied the Greeks' 
 hunger was never satisfied, because nothing special was brought to 
 table at the end of the meal. We read in modern books of travel that 
 the Persians are still very fond of delicacies. Brtigsch, "Reise nach 
 Persien," J., v. Hammer gives quotations from a poet named Abn, 
 Ishak who only wrote in praise of dainties.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 175 
 
 tered his mind that Bartja loved Nitetis. Why had he, con- 
 trary to all custom, so decidedly refused to marry a noble and 
 beautiful girl when his brother's childlessness rendered mar- 
 riage an evident and urgent duty for him? Why had he wished 
 to see the Egyptian princess again before leaving Babylon? 
 and blushed as he expressed that wish? and why had she, 
 almost without being asked, praised him so warmly? 
 
 "It is well that he is going," thought the king; "at least he 
 shall not rob me of her love. If he were not my brother I 
 would send him to a place from whence none can return !" 
 
 After midnight he broke up the banquet. Boges appeared to 
 conduct him to the harem, which he was accustomed to visit at 
 this hour, when sufficiently sober. 
 
 "Phaeditne awaits you with impatience," said the eunuch. 
 
 "Let her wait!" was the king's answer. "Have you given 
 orders that the palace on the hanging-gardens shall be set in 
 order?" 
 
 "It will be ready for occupation to-morrow." 
 
 "What apartments have been assigned to the Egyptian 
 princess?" 
 
 "Those formerly occupied by the sepond wife of your father, 
 Cyrus, the deceased Amytis." 
 
 "That is well. Nitetis is to be treated with the greatest 
 respect and to receive no commands even from yourself, but 
 such as I give you for her." 
 
 Boges bowed low. 
 
 "See that no one, not even Croesus, has admission to her 
 before my before I give further orders." 
 
 "Croesus was with her this evening." 
 
 "What may have been his business with my wife?" 
 
 "I do not know, for I do not understand the Greek language, 
 but I heard the name of Bartja several times, and it seemed to 
 me that the Egyptian had received sorrowful intelligence. She 
 was looking very sad when I came, after Croesus had left, to 
 inquire if she had any commands for me." 
 
 "May Ahriman blast thy tongue," muttered the king, and, 
 then, turning his back on the eunuch, he followed the torch- 
 bearers and attendants who were in waiting to disrobe him, to 
 his own private apartments. 
 
 At noon on the following day, Bartja, accompanied by his 
 friends and a troop of attendants, started on horseback for the
 
 176 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 frontier. Croesus went with the young warriors as far as the 
 city gates, and as their last farewells and embraces were being 
 exchanged, Bartja whispered to his old friend: "If the mes- 
 senger from Egypt should have a letter for me in his bag will 
 you send it on?" 
 
 "Shall you be able to decipher the Greek writing?" 
 
 "Gyges and love will help me!" 
 
 "When I told Nitetis of your departure she begged me to 
 wish you farewell and tell you not to forget Egypt." 
 
 "I am not likely to do that." 
 
 "The gods take thee into their care, my son. Be prudent, 
 do not risk your life heedlessly, but remember that it is no 
 longer only your own. Exercise the gentleness of a father 
 toward the rebels; they did not rise in mere self-will, but to 
 gain their freedom, the most precious possession of mankind. 
 Remember, too, that to show mercy is better than to shed blood; 
 the sword killeth, but the favor of the ruler bringeth joy and 
 happiness. Conclude the war as speedily as possible, for war 
 is a perversion of nature ; in peace the sons outlive the fathers, 
 but in war the fathers live to mourn for their slain sons. Fare- 
 well, my young heroes, go forward and conquer!" 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Cambyses passed a sleepless night. The feeling of jealousy, 
 so totally new to him, increased his desire to possess Nitetis, 
 but he dared not take her as his wife yet, as the Persian law 
 forbade the king to marry a foreign wife* until she had become 
 
 *In the book of Esther this year is said to have been specially de- 
 voted to initiating the women in the use of ointments, spices and per- 
 fumes. Surely for such a purpose a year was too long; may it not 
 probably have been used for instructing the foreign women in the 
 demands made upon them by the laws of Zoroaster? In confirmation 
 of this conjecture we quote the following passage: "Vendidad Fare " 
 xviii, 123, 124, literally translated:
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 177 
 
 familiar with the customs of Iran and confessed herself a dis- 
 ciple of Zoroaster.* 
 
 According to this law a whole year must pass before Nitetis 
 could become the wife of a Persian monarch ; but what was the 
 law to Cambyses? In his eyes the law was embodied in his own 
 person, and in his opinion three months would be amply suffi- 
 cient to initiate Nitetis in the Magian mysteries, after which 
 process she could become his bride. 
 
 "Who takes the greatest vengeance on thee, thou Ahura-Mazda? 
 who is thy worst torment?" 
 
 And Ahura-Mazda answers: 
 
 "He who mingles the seed of the righteous and the wicked, of those 
 who honor the Daevas and those who honor them not, the sinners 
 and the holy ones; those who take in marriage worshipers of Daevas 
 ought to be slain sooner than venomous serpents." "Vend.," xviii, 
 123. The privilege of becoming a Mazdayagnas was granted to for- 
 eigners, though the Mazdayagnas themselves did not make proselytes, 
 considering it a great distinction to have been born in the faith. 
 During the dynasty of the Sassanidae, indeed, the professors of other 
 religions were fiercely persecuted. 
 
 *Zoroaster, really Zarathustra or Zerethoschtro, was one of the 
 greatest among founders of new religions and law-givers. His name 
 signified "golden star" according to Anquetil du Perron. But this 
 interpretation is as doubtful as the many others which have been 
 attempted. An appropriate one is given in the essay by Kern quoted 
 below, from zara, golden, and thwistra, glittering; thus "the gold- 
 glittering" one xp v P<t>ane- It is uncertain whether he was born 
 in Bactria, Media or Persia. Anquetil thinks in Urmi, a town in 
 Aderbejan. His father's name was Poroschasp, his mother's Dogdo, 
 and his family boasted of royal descent. The time of his birth is 
 very Spiegel says, "hopelessly" dark. Anquetil and many other 
 scholars would place it in the reign of Darius, a view which has been 
 proved to be incorrect by Spiegel, Duncker and v. Schack, in his 
 introduction to the translation of "Firdusi." We cannot enter more 
 minutely into this difficult question here, but venture to assure our 
 readers that the religion of Zoroaster was in force at the time of our 
 tale. The different accounts given of the founder himself are so 
 uncertain that lately a young Dutchman, Prof. Kern, was able to 
 attempt to disprove the existence of Zoroaster entirely and reduce 
 him to the hero of a myth. This treatise, full of information and 
 written with great ability, is to be found in the "Verslagen en Mide- 
 deelingen der k, akad. v, Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde." 
 Amsterdam, 1867, p. 132. Justi, in his hand-book of the Zend lan- 
 guage, maintains an opposite view. The "Avesta" was not probably 
 completed till later about the time of Artaxerxes. It contained twen- 
 ty-one nosk, or parts. The "Vendidad" alone has come down to us 
 complete.
 
 178 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 To-day his other wives seemed hateful, even loathsome, to 
 him. From Cambyses' earliest youth his house had been care- 
 fully provided with women. Beautiful girls from all parts of 
 Asia, black-eyed Armenians, dazzlingly fair maidens from the 
 Caucasus, delicate girls from the shores of the Ganges, luxuri- 
 ous Babylonian women, golden-haired Persians and the effemi- 
 nate daughters of the Median plains; indeed, many of the 
 noblest Achaemenidae had given him their daughters in mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Phaedime, the daughter of Otanes, and niece of his own 
 mother Kassandane, had been Cambyses' favorite wife hitherto, 
 or at least the only one of whom it could be said that she was 
 more to him than a purchased slave would have been. But 
 even she, in his present sated and disgusted state of feeling, 
 seemed vulgar and contemptible, especially when he thought 
 of Nitetis. 
 
 The Egyptian seemed formed of nobler, better stuff than they 
 all. They were flattering, coaxing girls; Nitetis was a queen. 
 They humbled themselves in the dust at his feet; but when he 
 thought of Nitetis he beheld her erect, standing before him, on 
 the same proud level as himself. He determined that from 
 henceforth she should not only occupy Phaedime's place, but 
 should be to him what Kassandane had been to his father, 
 Cyrus. 
 
 She was the only one of his wives who could assist him by 
 her knowledge and advice; the others were all like children, 
 ignorant, and caring for nothing but dress and finery; living 
 only for petty intrigues and useless trifles. This Egyptian girl 
 would be obliged to love him, for he would be her protector, 
 her k>rd, her father and brother in this foreign land. 
 
 "She must," he said to himself, and to this despot to wish for 
 a thing and to possess it seemed one and the same. "Bartja 
 had better take care," he murmured, "or he shall know what 
 fate awaits the man who dares to cross my path." 
 
 Nitetis, too, had passed a restless night 
 
 The common apartment of the women was next to her own 
 and the noise and singing there had not ceased until nearly 
 midnight. She could often distinguish the shrill voice of Boges
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 179 
 
 joking and laughing- with these women, who were under his 
 charge. At last all was quiet in the wide palace halls and then 
 her thoughts turned to her distant home and her poor sister 
 Tachot, longing for her and for the beautiful Bartja, who, 
 Croesus had told her, was going to-morrow to the war and 
 possibly to death. At last she fell asleep, overcome by the 
 fatigue of the journey and dreaming of her future husband. 
 She saw him on his black charger. The foaming animal 
 shied at Bartja, who was lying in the road, threw his rider and 
 dragged him into the Nile, whose waves became blood-red. 
 In her terror she screamed for help: her cries were echoed back 
 from the pyramids in such loud and fearful tones that she 
 awoke. 
 
 But, hark! what could that be? That wailing, shrill cry 
 which she had heard in her dreams she could hear it still. 
 
 Hastily drawing aside the shutters from one of the openings 
 which served as windows, she looked out. A large and beau- 
 tiful garden, laid out with fountains and shady avenues, lay 
 before her, glittering with the early dew.* No sound was to be 
 heard except the one which had alarmed her, and this, too, died 
 away at last on the morning breeze. After a few minutes she 
 heard cries and noise in the distance, then the great city awak- 
 ing to its daily work, which soon settled down into a deep, dull 
 murmur like the roaring of the sea. 
 
 Nitetis was by this time so thoroughly awakened from the 
 effect of the fresh morning air that she did not care to lie down 
 again. She went once more to the window and perceived two 
 figures coming out of the house. One she recognized as the 
 eunuch Boges; he was talking to a beautiful Persian woman 
 
 "The Persian gardens were celebrated throughout the old world, 
 and seem to have been laid out much less stiffly than the Egyptian. 
 Even the kings of Persia did not consider horticulture beneath their 
 notice, and the highest among the Achaemenidae took an especial 
 pleasure in laying out parks, called in Persian Paradises. "Herod- 
 otus," v, 14, 49-52. ' Xenoph., "Cyrop.," viii, 6, 9. "Oecon.," 4. 
 "Diodor.," xvi, 41. Plutarch, "Alcibiades," 24. Their admiration 
 for well-grown trees went so far that Xerxes, finding on his way to 
 Greece a singularly beautiful tree, hung ornaments of gold upon its 
 branches. Firdusi, the great Persian epic poet, compares human 
 beauty to the growth of the cypress as the highest praise he can give. 
 Indeed, some trees were worshiped by the Persians; and as the tree 
 of life in the Hebrew and Egyptian, so we find sacred trees in their 
 paradises.
 
 180 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 carelessly dressed. They approached her window. Nitetis hid 
 herself behind the half-opened shutter and listened, for she fan- 
 cied she heard her own name. 
 
 "The Egyptian is still asleep," said Boges. "She must be 
 much fatigued by the journey. I see, too, that one of her win- 
 dows is still firmly closed." 
 
 "Then tell me quickly," said the Persian. "Do you really 
 think that this stranger's coming can injure me in any way?" 
 
 "Certainly, I do, my pretty one." 
 
 "But what leads you to suppose this?" 
 
 "She is only to obey the king's commands, not mine." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Xo, my treasure. I know the king. I can read his features 
 as the Magi read the sacred books." 
 
 "Then we must ruin her." 
 
 "More easily said than done, my little bird." 
 
 "Leave me alone! you are insolent." 
 
 "Well, but nobody can see us, and you know you can do 
 nothing without my help." 
 
 "Very well, then, I don't care. But tell me quickly what we 
 can do." 
 
 "Thanks, my sweet Phaedime. Well, for the present we must 
 be patient and wait our time. That detestable hypocrite, Croe- 
 sus, seems to have established himself as protector of the Egyp- 
 tian ; when he is away we must set our snares." 
 
 The speakers were by this time at such a distance that Nitetis 
 could not understand what they said. In silent indignation 
 she closed the shutter, and called her maidens to dress her. She 
 knew her enemies, now she knew that a thousand dangers 
 surrounded her, and yet she felt proud and happy, for was she 
 not chosen to be the real wife of Cambyses? Her own worth 
 seemed clearer to her than ever before, from a comparison 
 with these miserable creatures, and a wonderful certainty of 
 ultimate victory stole into her heart, for Nitetis was a firm be- 
 liever in the magic power of virtue. 
 
 "What was that dreadful sound I heard so early?" she asked 
 of her principal waiting-woman, who was arranging her hair. 
 
 "Do you mean the sounding brass, lady?" 
 
 "Scarcely two hours ago I was awakened by a strange and 
 frightful sound." 
 
 "That was the sounding brass, lady. It is used to awaken
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 181 
 
 the young sons of the Persian nobles, who are brought up at 
 the gate of the king.* You will soon become accustomed to 
 it. We have long ceased even to hear it, and indeed on great 
 festivals, when it is not sounded, we awake from the unaccus- 
 tomed stillness. From the hanging-gardens you will be able 
 to see how the boys are taken to bathe every morning, what- 
 ever the weather may be. The poor little ones are taken from 
 their mothers when they are six years old, .to be brought up with 
 the other boys of their own rank under the king's eye." 
 
 "Are they to begin learning the luxurious manners of the 
 court so early?" 
 
 "Oh, no ! the poor boys lead a terrible life. They are obliged 
 to sleep on the hard ground, to rise before the sun. Their food 
 is bread and water, with very little meat, and they are never 
 allowed to taste wine or vegetables. Indeed at times they are 
 deprived of food and drink for some days, simply to accustom 
 them to privations. When the court is at Ekbatana or Pasar- 
 gadaef and the weather is bitterly cold, they are sure to be 
 taken out to bathe, and here in Susa the hotter the sun the 
 longer and more difficult the marches they are compelled to 
 take." 
 
 "And these boys, so simply and severely brought up, become 
 in after life such luxurious men?" 
 
 "Yes, that is always the case. A meal that has been waited 
 for is all the more relished when it comes. These boys see 
 splendor and magnificence around them daily ; they know how 
 rich they are in reality, and yet have to suffer from hunger and 
 privation. Who can wonder if, when at last they gain their lib- 
 erty, they plunge into the pleasures of life with a tenfold eager- 
 ness? But, on the other hand, in time of war, or when going 
 to the chase, they never murmur at hunger or thirst, spring with 
 a laugh into the mud regardless of their thin boots and pur- 
 ple trousers, and sleep as soundly on a rock as on their beds 
 of delicate Arabian wool, You must see the feats these boys 
 perform, especially when the king is watching them! Cam- 
 byses will certainly take you if you ask 'him." 
 
 *From Xenophon, "Cyrop.," viii, 8, 7. "Anabasis," i, 9. 
 
 fThe summer residences of the kings of Persia, where it is some- 
 times very cold. Ekbatana lies at the foot of the high Elburs 
 (Orontes) range of mountains in the neighborhood of the modern 
 Hamadftn; Pasargadae not far from Rachmet, in the highlands of 
 Iran.
 
 182 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "I know those exercises already. In Egypt the girls as well 
 as the boys are kept to such gymnastic exercises. My limbs 
 were trained to flexibility by running, postures, and games 
 with hoops and balls."* 
 
 "How strange! Here we women grow up just as we please, 
 and are taught nothing but a little spinning and weaving. Is 
 it true that most of the Egyptian women can read and write?" 
 
 "Yes, nearly all." 
 
 "By Mithras, you must be a clever people! Scarcely any 
 of the Persians, except the Magi and the scribes, learn these 
 difficult arts. The sons of the nobles are taught to speak the 
 truth, to be courageous, obedient and to reverence the gods; 
 to hunt, to ride, plant trees and discern between herbs; but 
 whoever, like the noble Darius, wishes to learn the art of 
 writing must apply to the Magi. Women are forbidden to turn 
 their minds to such studies. Now your dress is complete. This 
 string of pearls, which the king sent this morning, looks mag- 
 nificent in your raven black hair, but it is easy to see that you 
 are not accustomed to the full silk trousers and high-heeled 
 boots. If, however, you walk two or three times up and down 
 the room you will surpass all the Persian ladies even in your 
 walk!" 
 
 At this moment a knock was heard and Boges entered. He 
 had come to conduct Nitetis to Kassandane's apartments, where 
 Cambyses was waiting for her. 
 
 The eunuch affected an abject humility and poured forth a 
 stream of flattering words, in which he likened the princess to 
 the sun, the starry heavens, a pure fount of happiness, and a 
 garden of roses. Nitetis deigned him not a word in reply, but 
 followed, with a beating heart, to the queen's apartment. 
 
 In order to keep out the noonday sun and produce a salu- 
 tary half-light for the blind queen's eyes, her windows were 
 shaded by curtains of green Indian silk. The floor was cov- 
 ered with a thick Babylonian carpet, soft as moss under the 
 foot. The walls were faced with a mosaic of ivory, tortoise- 
 shell, gold, silver, ebony and amber. The seats and couches 
 were of gold covered with lions' skins, and a table of solid sil- 
 ver stood by the side of the blind queen. Kassandane was 
 seated in a costly armchair. She wore a robe of violet blue, 
 
 *See note p. 99.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 183 
 
 embroidered with silver, and over her snow-white hair lay a 
 long veil of delicate lace woven in Egypt, the ends of which 
 were wound round her neck and tied in a large bow beneath 
 her chin.* She was between sixty and seventy years old; her 
 face, framed as it were into a picture by the lace veil, was ex- 
 quisitely symmetrical in its form, intellectual, kind and benevo- 
 lent in its expression. 
 
 The blind eyes were closed, but those who gazed on her felt 
 that, if open, they would shine with the gentle light of stars. 
 Even when sitting, her attitude and height showed a tall and 
 stately figure. Indeed, her entire appearance was worthy of 
 the widow of the great and good Cyrus. 
 
 On a low seat at her feet, drawing long threads from a golden 
 spindle, sat the queen's youngest child, Atos-sa, born to her late 
 in life. Cambyses was standing before her, and behind, hardly 
 visible in the dim light, Nebenchari, the Egyptian oculist. 
 
 As Nitetis entered Cambyses came toward her, and led her 
 to his mother. The daughter of Amasis fell on her knees before 
 this venerable woman and kissed her hand with real affection. 
 
 "Be welcome here!" exclaimed the blind queen, feeling her 
 way to the young girl's head, on which she laid her hand. "I 
 have heard much in your praise, and hope to gain in you a 
 dear and loving daughter." 
 
 Nitetis kissed the gentle, delicate hand again, saying, in a 
 low voice: "Oh, how I thank you for those words! Will you, 
 the wife of the great Cyrus, permit me to call you mother? My 
 tongue has been so long accustomed to this sweet word; and 
 now, after long weeks of silence, I tremble 'with joy at the 
 thought that I may say 'my mother' once more ! I will indeed 
 try to deserve your love and kindness, and you you will be to 
 me all that your loving countenance seems to promise? Advise 
 and teach me; let me find a refuge at your feet, if sometimes 
 the longing for home becomes too strong and my poor heart 
 
 *This description of the magnificence of the queen-mother's apart- 
 ment is in no way exaggerated. The details are taken from Aeschylus' 
 "Persians." Xenophon's "Cyropoedia" and "Anabasis," Arrian, Cur- 
 tius, Strabo and others. I have called the lace worn by Kassandane 
 "Egyptian," because at that time the finest known lace was woven 
 on the Nile, and c'assic writers maintain that the proof of this lies in 
 the many transparent robes which are to be seen in the paintings 
 on Egyptian monuments, Sir Gardner Wilkinson possesses a piece 
 of remarkably fine old Egyptian weaving.
 
 184 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 too weak to bear its grief or joy alone. Oh, be my mother! tha*. 
 one word includes all else!" 
 
 The blind queen felt the warm tears fall on her hand; she 
 pressed her lips kindly on the weeping girl's forehead and 
 answered: "I can understand your feelings. My apartments 
 shall be always open to you, my heart ready to welcome you 
 here. Come when you will, and call me your mother with the 
 same perfect confidence with which I, from my whole heart, 
 name you my daughter. In a few months you will be my son's 
 wife, and then the gods may grant you that gift which, by im- 
 planting within you the feelings of a mother, will prevent 
 you from feeling the need of one." 
 
 "May Ormuzd hear and give his blessing!" said Cambyses. 
 "I rejoice, mother, that my wife pleases you, and I know that 
 when once she becomes familiar with our manners and cus- 
 toms she will be happy here. If Nitetis pay due heed our mar- 
 riage can be celebrated in four months." 
 
 "But the law " began his mother. 
 
 "I command in four months, and should like to see him 
 who dare raise an objection. Farewell! Nebenchari, use your 
 best skill for the queen's eyes, and if my wife permit, you, as 
 her countryman, may visit her to-morrow. Farewell! Bartja 
 sends his parting greetings. He is on the road to the Tapuri." 
 
 Atossa wiped away a tear in silence, but Kassandane an- 
 swered: "You would have done well to allow the boy to remain 
 here a few months longer. Your commander, Megabyzus, 
 could have subdued that small nation alone." 
 
 "Of that I have no doubt," replied the king; "but Bartja 
 desired an opportunity to distinguish himself in the field ; and 
 for that reason I sent him." 
 
 "Would he not gladly have waited until the war with the 
 Massagetae, where more glory might be gained?" asked the 
 blind woman. 
 
 "Yes," said Atossa, "and if he should fail in this war, you will 
 have deprived him of the power of fulfilling his most sacred 
 duty of avenging the soul of our father!" 
 
 "Be silent!" cried Cambyses, in an overbearing tone, "or 'I 
 shall have to teach you what is becoming in women and chil- 
 dren. Bartja is on far too good terms with fortune to fall in 
 the war. He will live, I hope, to deserve the love which is now 
 so freely flung into his lap like alms."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 185 
 
 "How canst thou speak thus?" cried Kassandane. "In what 
 manly virtue is Bartja wanting? Is it his fault that he has had 
 no such opportunity of distinguishing himself in the field as 
 thou hast had? You are the king and I am bound to respect 
 your commands, but I blame my son for depriving his blind 
 mother of the greatest joy left to her in old age. Bartja would 
 have gladly remained here until the Massagetan war, if your 
 self-will had not determined otherwise." 
 
 "And what I will is good!" exclaimed Cambyses, interrupt- 
 ing his mother, and pale with anger. "I desire that this subject 
 be not mentioned again." 
 
 So saying, he left the room abruptly and went into the 
 reception hall, followed by the immense retinue which never 
 quitted him, whithersoever he might direct his: steps. 
 
 An hour passed and still Nitetis and the lovely Atossa were 
 sitting side by side at the feet of the queen. 
 
 The Persian women listened eagerly to all their new friend 
 could tell them about Egypt and its wonders. 
 
 "Oh! how I should like to visit your home!" exclaimed 
 Atossa. "It must be quite, quite different from Persia and 
 everything else that I have s-een yet. The fruitful shores of 
 your great river, larger even than the Euphrates, the temples 
 with their painted columns, those huge artificial mountains, 
 the pyramids, where the ancient kings lie buried it must be 
 wonderfully beautiful. But what pleases me best of all is your 
 description of the entertainments where men and women con- 
 verse together as they like. The only meals- we are allowed 
 to take in the society of men are on new year's day and the 
 king's birthday, and then we are forbidden to speak; indeed, 
 it is not thought right for us even to raise our eyes. How 
 different it is with you ! By Mithras, mother, I should like to 
 be an Egyptian, for we poor creatures are in reality nothing 
 but miserable slaves ; and yet I feel that the great Cyrus- was 
 my father, too, and that I am worth quite as much as most men. 
 Do I not speak the truth? can I not obey as well as com- 
 mand? have I not the same thirst and longing for glory? could 
 not I learn to *ide, to string a bow, to fight and swim if I were 
 taught and inured to such exercises?" 
 
 The girl had sprung from her seat while speaking, her eyes 
 flashed and she swung her spindle in the air, quite unconscious 
 that in so doing she was breaking the thread and entangling 
 the flax.
 
 186 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Remember what is fitting," reminded Kassandane. "A 
 woman must submit with humility to her quiet destiny, and 
 not aspire to imitate the deeds of men." 
 
 "But there are women who lead the same lives- as men," 
 cried Atossa. "There are the Amazons who live on the shores 
 of the Thermodon in Themiscyra and at Comana on the Iris; 
 they have waged great wars, and even to this day wear men's 
 armor." 
 
 "Who told you this?" 
 
 "My old nurse, Stephanion, whom my father brought a cap- 
 tive from Sinope to Pasargadae." 
 
 "But I can teach you better," said.Nitetis. "It is true that 
 in Themiscyra and Comana there are a number of women who 
 wear soldier's armor; but they are only priestesses, and clothe 
 themselves like the war-like goddess they serve, in order to 
 present to the worshipers a manifestation of the divinity in 
 human form. Croesus says that an army of Amazons has 
 never existed, but that the Greeks (always ready and able to 
 turn anything into a beautiful myth), having seen these priest- 
 esses, at once transformed the armed virgins dedicated to the 
 goddess into a nation of fighting women."* 
 
 "Then they are liars!" exclaimed the disappointed girl. 
 
 "It is true that the Greeks have not the same reverence for 
 truth as you have," answered Nitetis, "but they do not call the 
 men who invent these beautiful stories liars; they are called 
 poets." 
 
 "Just as it is with ourselves," said Kassandane. "The poets 
 who sing the praises of my husband have altered and adorned 
 his early life in a marvelous manner; yet no one calls them 
 liars. But tell me, my daughter, is it true that these Greeks 
 are more beautiful than other men, and understand art better 
 even than the Egyptians?" 
 
 "On that subject I should not venture to pronounce a judg- 
 ment. There is such a great difference between the Greek 
 and Egyptian works of art. When I went into our own 
 gigantic temples to pray I always felt as- if I must prostrate 
 
 
 
 *Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," pp. 231-238. It has been 
 proved that the Amazons belong to the regions of fable. Strange to 
 say the Chinese have a similar myth. In the ethnographical museum 
 at Jena, of which I am director, there is an interesting Chinese pict- 
 ure of an Amazon war.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 187 
 
 myself in the dust before the greatness of the gods, and entreat 
 them not to crush so insignificant a worm; but in the temple 
 of Hera at Samos- I could only raise my hands to heaven in 
 joyful thanksgiving that the gods had made the earth so beau- 
 tiful. In Egypt I always believed as I had been taught: 'Life 
 is a sleep; we shall not awake to our true existence in the king- 
 dom of Osiris till the hour of death;' but in Greece I thought: 
 'I am born to live and to enjoy this cheerful, bright and bloom- 
 ing world.' " 
 
 "Ah! tell us something more about Greece," cried Atossa; 
 ''but first Nebenchari must put a fresh bandage on my mother's 
 eyes." 
 
 The oculist, a tall grave man in the white robes of ah Egyp- 
 tian priest, came forward to perform the necessary operation, 
 and, after being kindly greeted by Nitetis, withdrew once more 
 silently into the background. At the same time a eunuch en- 
 tered to inquire whether Croesus might be allowed to pay his 
 respectful homage to the king's mother. 
 
 The aged king soon appeared, and was welcomed as the old 
 and tried friend of the Persian royal family. Atossa, with her 
 usual impetuosity, fell on the neck of the friend she had so 
 sorely missed during his absence; the queen gave him her 
 hand, and Nitetis met him like a loving daughter. 
 
 "I thank the gods that I am permitted to see you again," said 
 Croesus. "The young can look at life as a possession, as a 
 thing understood and sure, but at my age every year must be 
 accepted as an undeserved gift from the gods, for which a man 
 must be thankful." 
 
 "I could envy you for this happy view of life," sighed Kassan- 
 dane. "My years are fewer than yours, and yet every new day 
 seems to me a punishment sent by the immortals." 
 
 "Can I be listening to the wife of the great Cyrus?" asked 
 Croesus. "How long is it since courage and confidence left 
 that brave heart? I tell you you will recover sight, and once 
 more thank the gods for a good old age. The man who recov- 
 ers after a serious illness values health a hundredfold more than 
 before; and he who regains sight after blindness must be an 
 especial favorite of the gods. Imagine to yourself the delight 
 of that first moment when your eyes behold once more the 
 bright shining of the sun, the faces of your loved ones, the 
 beauty of all created things, and tell me, would not that out-
 
 188 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 weigh even a whole life of blindness and dark night?* In the 
 day of healing, even if that come in old age, a new life will 
 begin, and I shall hear you confess that my friend Solon was 
 right." 
 
 "In what respect?" asked Atossa. 
 
 "In wishing that Mimnermos, the Colophonianf poet, would 
 correct the poem in which he has assigned sixty years as the 
 limit of a happy life, and would change the sixty to eighty." 
 
 "Oh, no!" exclaimed Kassandane. "Even were Mithras to 
 restore my sight, such a long life would be dreadful. Without 
 my husband I seem to myself like a wanderer in the desert, 
 aimless and without a guide." 
 
 "Are your children, then, nothing to you, and this kingdom, 
 of which you have watched the rise and growth?" 
 
 "No, indeed! but my children need me no longer, and the 
 ruler of this kingdom is too proud to listen to a woman's 
 advice." 
 
 On hearing these words Atossa and Nitetis seized each one 
 of the queen's hands, and Nitetis cried: "You ought to desire 
 a long life for our sakes. What should we be without your 
 help and protection?" 
 
 Kassandane smiled again, murmuring in a scarcely audible 
 voice: "You are right, my children; you will stand in need of 
 your mother." 
 
 "Now you are speaking once more like the wife of the great 
 Cyrus," cried Croesus, kissing the robe of the blind woman. 
 "Your presence will, indeed, be needed, who can say how 
 soon? Cambyses is like hard steel; sparks fly wherever he 
 strikes. You can hinder these sparks from kindling a destroy- 
 ing fire among your loved ones, and this should be your duty. 
 You alone can dare to admonish the king in the violence of his 
 passion. He regards you as his equal, and, while despising the 
 opinion of others, feels wounded by his mother's disapproval. 
 Is it not, then, your duty to abide patiently as mediator be- 
 tween the kings, the kingdom and your loved ones, and so, by 
 your.own timely reproofs, to humble the pride of your son, that 
 
 These words cannot surely be called an anachronism. The same 
 feelings are expressed in the beautiful passage of Aristotle in Cicero's 
 "De Natura Deorum." 
 
 tMimnermos, "Frag. ed. Bergk.," 6. Solon, "Frag.," e. 1. 20.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 189 
 
 he may be spared that deeper humiliation which, if not thus 
 averted, the gods will surely inflict?" 
 
 "You are right," answered the blind woman, "but I feel only 
 too well that my influence over him is but small. He has been 
 so much accustomed to have his own will that he will follow no 
 advice, even if it come from his mother's lips." 
 
 "But he must at least hear it," answered Croesus, "and that 
 is much, for even if he refuse to obey, your counsels will, like 
 divine voices, continue to make themselves heard within him, 
 and will keep him back from many a sinful act. I will remain 
 your ally in this matter; for, as Cambyses' dying father ap- 
 pointed me the counselor of his son in word and deed, I ven- 
 ture, occasionally, a bold word to arrest his excesses. Ours is the 
 only blame from which he shrinks; we alone can dare to speak 
 our opinion to him. Let us courageously do our duty in this 
 our office; you, moved by love to Persia and your son, and I 
 by thankfulness to that great man to whom I owe life and free- 
 dom, and whose son Cambyses is. I know that you bemoan the 
 manner in which he has been brought up; but such late repent- 
 ance must be avoided like poison. For the errors of the wise 
 the remedy is reparation, not regret; regret consumes the heart, 
 but the effort to repair an error causes it to throb with a noble 
 pride." 
 
 "In Egypt," said Nitetis, "regret is numbered among the 
 forty-two deadly sins. One of our principal commandments 
 is, Thou shalt not consume thine heart.' "* 
 
 "There, you remind me," said Croesus, "that I have under- 
 taken to arrange for your instruction in the Persian customs, re- 
 ligion and language. I had intended to withdraw to Barene, 
 
 *In the ritual of the dead (indeed, in almost every papyrus of the 
 dead) we meet with a representation of the soul whose heart is being 
 weighed and judged. The speech made by the soul is called the 
 negative justification, in which she assures the forty-two judges of 
 the dead that she has not committed the forty-two deadly sins which 
 she enumerates. This justification is doubly interesting because it 
 contains nearly the entire moral law of Moses, which last, apart from 
 all national peculiarities and habits of mind, seems to contain the 
 quintessence of human morality and this we find ready paragraphed 
 in our negative justification. "Todtenbuch ed. Lepsius," 125. We can 
 not discusa thid question philosophically here, but the law of Pythag- 
 oras who borrowed so much from Egypt, and the contents of which 
 are the same, speaks for our view. It is similar in form to the 
 Egyptian.
 
 190 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the town which I received as a gift from Cyrus, and there, in 
 that most lovely mountain valley, to take my rest; but for your 
 sake and for the king's I will remain here and continue to give 
 you instruction in the Persian tongue. Kassandane herself will 
 initiate you in the customs peculiar to women at the Persian 
 court, and Oropastes, the high priest, has been ordered by the 
 king to make you acquainted with the religion of Iran. He 
 will be your spiritual and I your secular guardian."* 
 
 At these words Nitetis, who had been smiling happily, cast 
 down her eyes and asked, in a low voice: "Am I to become 
 unfaithful to the gods of my fathers, who have never failed to 
 hear my prayers? Can I, ought I to forget them?" 
 
 "Yes," said Kassandane, decidedly, "thou canst, and it is thy 
 bounden duty, for a wife ought to have no friends but those her 
 husband calls such. The gods are a man's earliest, mightiest 
 and most faithful friends, and it therefore becomes thy duty, as 
 a wife, to honor them, and to close thine heart against strange 
 gods and superstitions as thou wouldst close it against strange 
 lovers." 
 
 "And," added Croesus, "we will not rob you of your deities; 
 we will only give them to you under other names. As truth 
 remains eternally the same, whether called 'maa,' as by the 
 Egyptians, or 'Aletheia,' as by the Greeks, so the essence of the 
 deity continues unchanged in all places and times. Listen, my 
 daughter; I myself, while still king of Lydia, often sacrificed 
 in sincere devotion to the Apollo of the Greeks, without a fear 
 that in so doing I should offend the Lydian sun-god Sandon; 
 the lonians pay their worship to the Asiatic Cybele, and, now 
 that I have become a Persian, I raise my hands adoringly to 
 Mithras, Ormuzd and the lovely Anahita.f Pythagoras, too, 
 
 *When a Persian child begins to wear the girdle, "kosti," he or she 
 must choose a guardian from among the yazatas, and an adviser in 
 spiritual things from among the desturs or priests. This adviser is 
 the spiritual father of the child. Spiegel, "Avesta," ii, "Einleitung," 
 xxii. 
 
 tAnahita or Ardl-cura was the goddess of the water-springs, and 
 has been, not incorrectly, compared with the Greek Aphrodite. All 
 waters flowed from the spring Anahita and it possessed unlimited 
 power of cleansing. "Venidad," vii, 37-40. The supposition of our 
 Dutch translator that Anahita was originally a Semitic goddess who 
 later became merged into the Persian female genius of the waters, 
 has much in its favor; we have expressed the same opinion our-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 191 
 
 whose teaching is not new to you, worships one god only, 
 whom he calls Apollo; because, like the Greek sun-god, he is 
 the source of light and of those harmonies which Pythagoras 
 holds to be higher than all else. And, lastly, Xenophanes of 
 Colophon* laughs at the many and divers gods of Homer and 
 sets one single deity on high the ceaselessly creative might of 
 nature, whose essence consists of thought, reason and eternity. 
 In this power everything has its rise, and it alone remains un- 
 changed, while all created matter must be continually renewed 
 and perfected. The ardent longing for some being above us, 
 on whom we can lean when our own powers fail the won- 
 derful instinct which desires a faithful friend to whom we can 
 tell every joy and sorrow without fear of disclosure the 
 thankfulness with which we behold this beautiful world and 
 all the rich blessings we have received these are the feel- 
 ings which we call piety devotion. These you must hold 
 fast; remembering, however, at the same time, that the world 
 is ruled neither by the Egyptian, the Persian, nor the Greek di- 
 vinities apart from each other, but that all these are one ; and 
 that one indivisible deity, how different soever may be the 
 names and characters under which he is represented, guides the 
 fate of men and nations."f 
 
 The two Persian women listened to the old man in amaze- 
 ment. Their unpracticed powers were unable to follow the 
 course of his thoughts. Nitetis, 'however, had understood him 
 thoroughly, and answered: "My mother Ladice was the pupil 
 of Pythagoras and has told me something like this already; but 
 the Egyptian priests consider such views to be sacrilegious, and 
 
 selves elsewhere. It can be proved that she was not worshiped till the 
 reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Stickel, the celebrated promoter of 
 the study of oriental coins, is the most eager defender of the former 
 view. "De Dianae Pers. Monum. Gr.;" and Windischmann of the 
 latter: "Die Persishe Anahita." In the later tradition it is said 
 that Zoroaster intrusted her with the seed from which his son was to 
 spring tip at the last judgment. Anquetil, "Zend-Avesta," ii, p. 43. 
 
 *A celebrated freethinker who indulged in bold and independent 
 speculations and suffered much persecution for his ridicule of the 
 Homeric deities. He flourished at the time of our history and lived 
 to a great age, far on into the fifth century. We have quoted some 
 fragments of his writings above. He committed his speculations also 
 to verse. 
 
 fWhoever is acquainted with the aphorisms of Xenophanes will 
 not find an anachronism in this speech.
 
 192 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 call their originators despisers of the gods. So I tried to re- 
 press such thoughts; but now I will resist them no longer. 
 What the good and wise Croesus believes cannot possibly be 
 evil or impious! Let Oropastes come! I am ready to listen 
 to his teaching. The god of Thebes, our Ammon, shall be 
 transformed into Ormuzd Isis or Hathor, into Anahita, and 
 those among our gods for whom I can find no likeness in the 
 Persian religion I shall designate by the name of 'the deity.' " 
 
 Croesus smiled. He had fancied, knowing how obstinately 
 the Egyptians clung to all they had received from tradition and 
 education, that it would have been more difficult for Nitetis to 
 give up the gods of her native land. He had forgotten that her 
 mother was a Greek, and that the daughters of Amasis had 
 studied the doctrines of Pythagoras. Neither was he aware how 
 ardently Nitetis longed to please her proud lord and master. 
 Even Amasis, who so revered the Samian philosopher, who had 
 so often yielded to Hellenic influence, and who with good rea- 
 son might be called a free-thinking Egyptian, would sooner 
 have exchanged life for death than his multiform gods for the 
 one idea, "deity." 
 
 "You are a teachable pupil," said Croesus, laying his hand 
 on her head, "and as a reward you shall be allowed either to 
 visit Kassandane or to receive Atossa in the hanging-gardens 
 every morning and every afternoon until sunset." 
 
 This joyful news was received with loud rejoicings by Atossa 
 and with a grateful smile by the Egyptian girl. 
 
 "And lastly," said Croesus, "I have brought some balls and 
 hoops with me from Sais, that you may be able to amuse your- 
 selves in Egyptian fashion." 
 
 "Balls?" asked Atossa, in amazement; "what can we do with 
 the heavy wooden things?"* 
 
 ^"That need not trouble you," answered Croesus, laughing. 
 The balls I speak of are pretty little tilings made of the skins 
 of fish filled with air or of leather. A child of two years old can 
 throw these, but you would find it no easv matter even to lift 
 
 *In Persia games with balls are still reckoned among the amuse- 
 ments of the men. One player drives a wooden ball to the other, as 
 m the English game of cricket. Chardin ("Voyage en Perse," iii, p. 
 226) saw the game played by three hundred players. There is much 
 on this subject in Hyde. "De Ludis Orientalium."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 193 
 
 one of those wooden balls with which the Persian boys play. 
 Are you content with me, Nitetis?" 
 
 "How can I thank you enough, my father?" 
 
 "And now listen to my plan for the division of your time. 
 In the morning you will visit Kassandane, chat with Atossa 
 and listen to the teaching of your noble mother." 
 
 Here the blind woman bent her head in approval. 
 
 "Toward noon I shall come to teach you, and we can talk 
 sometimes about Egypt and your loved ones there, but always 
 in Persian. You would like this, would you not?'" 
 
 Nitetis smiled. 
 
 "Every second day Oropastes will be in attendance to initiate 
 you in the Persian religion." 
 
 "I will take the greatest pains to comprehend him quickly." 
 
 "In the afternoon you can be with Atossa as long as you like. 
 Does that please you, too?" 
 
 "O Croesus!" cried the young girl, and kissed the old man's 
 hand. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The next day Nitetis removed to the country house in the 
 hanging-gardens, and began a monotonous, but happy and in- 
 dustrious life there, according to the rules laid down by Croe- 
 sus. Every day she was carried to Kassandane and Atossa in 
 a closely shut-up litter. 
 
 Xitetis soon began to look upon the blind queen as a be- 
 loved and loving mother, and the merry, spirited Atossa nearly 
 made up to (her for the loss of her sister Tachot, so far away on 
 the distant Nile. She could not have desired a better compan- 
 ion than this gay, cheerful girl, whose wit and merriment ef- 
 fectually prevented homesickness or discontent from settling 
 in her friend's heart. The gravity and earnestness of Nitetis' 
 character were brightened by Atossa's gayety, and Atossa's ex- 
 uberant spirits calmed and regulated by the thoughtful nature 
 of Nitetis. 
 
 Both Croesus and Kassandane were pleased and satisfied 
 with their new daughter and pupil, and Oropastes extolled her 
 talents and industry daily to Cambyses. She learned the Per- 
 sian language unusually well and quickly; Cambyses only vis-
 
 194 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ited his mother when he hoped to find Nitetis there, and pre- 
 sented her continually with rich dresses and costly jewels. But 
 the highest proof of his favor consisted in his abstaining from 
 visiting her at her home" in the hanging-gardens, a line of con- 
 duct which proved that he meant to include Nitetis in the small 
 number of his real and lawful wives, a privilege of which many 
 a princess in his harem could not boast. 
 
 The grave, beautiful girl threw a strange spell over this 
 strong, turbulent man. Her presence alone seemed enough to 
 soften his stubborn will, and he would watch their games for 
 hours, his eyes fixed on her graceful movements. Once, when 
 the ball had fallen into the water, the king sprang in after it, re- 
 gardless of his costly apparel. Nitetis screamed on seeing his 
 intention, but Cambyses handed her the dripping toy with the 
 words: "Take care, or I shall be obliged to frighten you again." 
 At the same time he drew from his neck a gold chain set with 
 jewels and gave it to the blushing girl, who thanked him with 
 a look which fully revealed her feelings for her future husband. 
 
 Croesus-, Kassandane and Atossa soon noticed that Nitetis 
 loved the king. Her former fear of this proud and powerful 
 being had indeed changed into a passionate admiration. 
 She felt as if she must die if deprived of his presence. He 
 seemed to her like a glorious and omnipotent divinity, and her 
 wish to possess him presumptuous and sacrilegious; but its 
 fulfillment shone before her as an idea more beautiful even 
 than return to her native land and reunion with those who, till 
 now, had been her only loved ones. 
 
 Nitetis herself was hardly conscious of the strength of her 
 feelings, and believed that when she trembled before the king's 
 arrival it was from fear, and not from her longing to behold 
 him once more. Croesus, however, had soon discovered the 
 truth, and brought a deep blush to his- favorite's cheek by sing- 
 ing to her, old as he was, Anacreon's newest song, which he 
 had learned at Sais from Ibykus: 
 
 "We read the flying courser's name 
 Upon his side in marks of flame; 
 And by their turban'd brows alone 
 The warriors of the east are known. 
 But in the lover's glowing eyes, 
 The inlet to his bosom lies; 
 Through them we see the tiny mark, 
 Where love has dropp'd his burning spark!"* 
 *"Paegnion," 15.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 195 
 
 And thus, in work and amusement, jest, earnest and mutual 
 love, the weeks and months passed with Nitetis. Cambyses' 
 command that she was to be happy in his land had fulfilled 
 itself, and by the time the Mesopotamia!! spring-tide (January, 
 February and March), which succeeds the rainy month of 
 December, was over, and the principal festival of the Asiatics, 
 the new year, had been solemnized at the equinox, and the 
 May sun had begun to glow in the heavens, Nitetis felt quite 
 at home at Babylon, and all the Persians knew that the young 
 Egyptian princess had quite displaced Phaedime, the daughter 
 of Otanes, in the king's favor and would certainly become his 
 first and favorite wife. -. 
 
 Boges sank considerably in public estimation, for it was 
 known that Cambyses had ceased to visit the harem, and the 
 chief of the eunuchs had owed all his importance to the women, 
 who were compelled to coax from Cambyses whatever 
 Boges desired for himself or others. Not a day passed on 
 which the mortified official did not consult with the supplanted 
 favorite Phaedime as the best means of ruining Nitetis, but 
 their most finely spun intrigues and artifices were baffled by 
 the strength of the king's love and the blameless life of his 
 royal bride. 
 
 Phaedime, impatient, mortified and thirsting for vengeance, 
 was perpetually urging Boges to some decided act; he, on the 
 contrary, advised patience. 
 
 At last, however, after many weeks, he came to her full of 
 joy, exclaiming: "I have devised a little plan which must 
 ruin the Egyptian woman as surely asr my name is Boges. 
 When Bartja comes back, my treasure, our hour will have 
 arrived." 
 
 While saying this the creature rubbed his fat, soft hands, 
 and, with his perpetual fulsome smile, looked as if he was 
 feasting on some good deed performed. He did not, however, 
 give Phaedime the faintest idea of the nature of his "little plan," 
 and only answered her pressing questions with the words: 
 "Better lay your head in a lion's jaws than your secret in the 
 ears of a woman. I fully acknowledge your courage, but, at 
 the same time, advise you to remember that, though a man 
 proves his courage in action, a woman's is- shown in obedience. 
 Obey my words and await the issue in patience." 
 
 Nebenchari, the oculist, continued to attend the queen, but
 
 196 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 so carefully abstained from all intercourse with the Persians 
 that he became a proverb among them for his gloomy, silent 
 ways. During the day he was to be found in the queen's* 
 apartments, silently examining large rolls of papyri, which he 
 called the book of Athotes and the sacred Ambres;* at night, 
 by permission of the king and the satrapf of Babylon, he often 
 ascended one of the high towers on the walls, called Tritan- 
 taechmes, in order to observe the stars. 
 
 The Chaldean priests, the earliest astronomers, would have 
 allowed him to take his observations from the summit of the 
 great temple of Bel, their own observatory, but he refused this 
 offer decidedly, and persisted in his 1 haughty reserve. When 
 Oropastes attempted to explain to him the celebrated Babylo- 
 nian sun-dial, introduced by Anaximander of Miletus into 
 Greece, he turned from the Magian with a scornful laugh, 
 saying: "We knew all this before you knew the meaning of an 
 hour."$ 
 
 *The name "the holy Ambres" seems to have been corrupted from 
 the first words of the Ritual of the Dead. Horapollo (i, 58, ed. Lee- 
 mans) mentions the "Book of Diseases," and Manetho, in "Africanus 
 and Eusebius," tells that Athotes, whom all the chronographs and 
 monuments agree in calling the successor of Menes, the first king 
 of Egypt, had written books on anatomy. But all the scientific and 
 especially medical books were usually ascribed to the god Thoth, and 
 it may easily have arisen that from the likeness between these two 
 names the king gained the credit which was really due to the god. 
 There are said to have been six medical books among the Egyptian 
 sacred writings. Clem. Alex. "Strom, ed. Potter," p. 757 (vi, 4). 
 lamblichus "de Myst. Aeg.," viii, 4. 
 
 tSatraps were the governers of single provinces, and ruled with 
 pretty nearly absolute authority as representatives of the king. 
 Malcolm ("Persia," i, 41) was the first to propose an explanation of 
 the name, suggesting that it may have been taken from the word 
 chattra, a parasol, and pati, lord the lord of the parasol; but we are 
 glad to give this up in favor of a later one by Tielesch, who derives the 
 word satrap from khshatra, a government, and pavan, protector. It 
 is true that on the monuments we see the great men of the kingdom 
 performing the office of parasol-bearers behind the king with great 
 dignity (Niebuhr, Texier, Layard, etc.), but in Bactrian and in the 
 Zend-Avesta they are called shoitrapaita, "lord of a province," and 
 shoitrapan, "protector of a province." The Dutch translator of this 
 note, Dr. Rogge, takes the latter view. We will only remark that in 
 old Persian, as well as in German, the idea of covering and sheltering 
 as with a parasol is conveyed in the word used for the act of protecting 
 or defending. 
 
 ^Though the Chaldeans, as Aristotle was told, possessed astronom-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 197 
 
 Nitetis had shown Nebenchari much kindness, yet he took 
 no interest in her, .seemed, indeed, to avoid her purposely, and 
 on her asking whether she had displeased or offended him, 
 answered: "For me you are a stranger. How can I reckon 
 those my friends who can so gladly and so quickly forget 
 those they loved best, their gods, and the customs of their 
 native land?" 
 
 Boges quickly discovered this state of feeling on the part 
 of Xebenchari, and took much pains to secure him as an ally, 
 but the physician rejected the eunuch's- flatteries, gifts, and at- 
 tentions with dignity. 
 
 Xo sooner did an Angare appear in the court of the palace 
 with dispatches for the king than Boges hastened to inquire 
 whether news from Tapuri had arrived. 
 
 At length the desired messenger appeared, bringing word 
 that the rebels were subdued and Bartja on the point of return- 
 ing. 
 
 Three weeks passed fresh messengers arrived from day to 
 day announcing the approach of the victorious prince; the 
 streets glittered once more in festal array, the army entered 
 the gates of Babylon, Bartja thanked the rejoicing multitude, 
 and a short time after was in the arms of his blind mother. 
 
 Cambyses received his brother with undisguised warmth, 
 and took him to the queen's apartments when he knew that 
 Nitetis would be there. 
 
 For he was sure the Egyptian girl loved him; his previous 
 jealousy seemed a silly fancy now, and he wished to give Bartja 
 an opportunity of seeing how entirely he trusted his bride. 
 
 Cambyses^ love had made him mild and gentle, unwearied 
 in giving and in doing good. His wrath slumbered for a season, 
 and around the spot where the heads of those who had suffered 
 capital punishment were exhibited as a warning to their fellow- 
 men, the hungry, screeching crows now wheeled in vain. 
 
 ical calculations reaching as far back as the year 1903 before Alexan- 
 der 2234 B. C. ("Simplicius Comm.," in Arist. "de Caelo," i, ii, Lep- 
 sius, "Chronologic," 8, 9) yet there is no doubt that the Egyptian as- 
 tronomy is still older. Diodorus, indeed (i, 81), tells us the Egyptian 
 priests maintained that the Chaldeans were Egyptian colonists and 
 owed their fame as astronomers to the teaching of the Egyptian 
 priests. There may be some truth in the latter assertion, but it is 
 more likely that the Egyptians came from Western Asia than that the 
 Chaldeans came from Egypt.
 
 198 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The influence of the insinuating eunuchs (a race who had 
 never been seen within the gates of Cyrus until the incorpora- 
 tion of Media, Lydia and Babylon, in which countries they 
 had filled many of the highest offices at court and in the state), 
 was now waning, and the importance of the noble Achaemen- 
 idae increasing in proportion; for Cambyses applied oftener 
 to the latter than to the former for advice in matters relating 
 to the welfare of the country. 
 
 The aged Hystaspes, father of Darius, governor of Persia 
 proper and cousin to the king; Pharnaspes, Cambyses' grand- 
 father on the mother's side; Otanes, his uncle and father-in- 
 /aw; Intaohernes 1 , Aspathines, Gobryas, Hydarnes, the gen- 
 eral Megabyzus,* father of Zqpyrus, the envoy Prexaspes, the 
 noble Croesus, and the old warrior Araspes; in short, the 
 flower of the ancient Persian aristocracy were now at the court 
 of Cambyses. 
 
 To this must be added that the entire nobility of the realm, 
 the satraps or governors of the provinces, and the chief priests 
 from every town were also assembled at Babylon to celebrate 
 the king's birthday.f 
 
 The entire body of officials and deputies streamed from the 
 provinces up to the royal city, bringing presents to their ruler 
 and good wishes; they came also to take part in the great sacri- 
 fices at which horses, stags, bulls and asses were slaughtered in 
 thousands as offerings to the gods. 
 
 At this festival all the Persians received gifts, every man was 
 allowed to ask a petition of the king, which seldom remained 
 unfulfilled, and in every city the people were feasted at the 
 
 "These names, given by Herodotus, are to be found with slight dif- 
 ferences of form, in the inscription of Behistun or Bisitun. Spiegel, 
 "Altpersische Keilschriften." Behistun inscription, iv, xviii, p. 37. 
 Rawlinson, "Journ. of Asiatic Soc.," x, p. 12. 
 
 tThe king's birthday was the principal feast among the Persians, 
 and called "the perfect feast." "Herod.," i, 133. Birthdays were held 
 in much honor by the ancients, and more especially those of their 
 kings. Both the great bilingual Egyptian tablets which we possess 
 (the Rosetta stone, line 10 of hieroglyphic text; Gr. text, line 46, and 
 the edict of Canopus ed. Lepsius, hieroglyphic text 1, 3, Gr. text 1, 5) 
 mention the celebration of the birthday of one of the Ptolemies, and 
 even of Rameses II, so early as the fourteenth century B. C., we read: 
 "Nehem em pet heru em mese-t-f." "There was joy in heaven on his 
 birthday." Stela of Kuban, 1, 3. Drumann quotes a number of pas- 
 sages referring to the birthdays of the kings in his Greek text to the 
 Rosetta stone. See, also, Ebers, "Aegypten," i, p. 334.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 1S9 
 
 royal expense. Cambyses had commanded that his marriage 
 with Nitetis should be celebrated eight days after the birthday, 
 and all the magnates of the realms should be invited to the 
 ceremony. 
 
 The streets of Babylon swarmed with strangers, the colossal 
 palaces on both shores of the Euphrates were overfilled, and all 
 the houses stood adorned in festal brightness. 
 
 The zeal thus displayed by his people the vast throng of 
 human beings representing and bringing around him, as it 
 were, his entire kingdom, contributed not a little to raise the 
 king's spirits. 
 
 His pride was gratified; and the only longing left in his 
 heart had been stilled by Nitetis' love. For the first time in 
 his life he believed himself completely happy, and bestowed 
 his gifts, not only from a sense of duty as king of Persia, but 
 because the act of giving was in itself a pleasure. 
 
 Megabyzus could not extol the deeds of Bartja and his 
 friends too highly. Cambyses embraced the young warriors, 
 gave them horses and gold chains, called them "brothers" and 
 reminded Bartja that he had promised to grant him a petition 
 if he returned victorious. 
 
 At this Bartja cast down his eyes, not knowing at first in 
 what form to begin his request, and the king answered, laugh- 
 ing: "Look, my friends; our young hero is blushing like a 
 girl! It seems I shall have to grant something important; 
 so he had better wait until my birthday, and then at supper, 
 when the wine has given him courage, he shall whisper in my 
 ear what he is now afraid to utter. Ask much, Bartja; I am 
 happy myself and wish all my friends to be happy, too." 
 
 }3artja only smiled in answer and went to his mother; for he 
 had not yet opened his heart to her on the matter which lay 
 so near it. 
 
 He was afraid of meeting with decided opposition; but 
 Croesus had cleared the way for him by telling Kassandane so 
 much in praise of Sappho, her virtues and her graces, her 
 talents and skill, that Nitetis and Atossa maintained she must 
 have given the old man a magic potion, and Kassandane, after 
 a short resistance, yielded to her darling's entreaties. 
 
 "A Greek woman the lawful wife of a Persian prince of 
 the blood!" cried the blind woman. "Unheard of! What 
 will Cambyses say? How can we gain his consent?"
 
 200 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "On that matter you may be at ease, my mother," answered 
 Bartja. "I am as certain that my brother will give his con- 
 sent as I am that Sappho will prove an ornament and honor 
 to our house." 
 
 "Croesus has already told me much in favor of this maiden," 
 answered Kassandane, "and it pleases me that thou hast at 
 last resolved to marry; but nevertheless this alliance does not 
 seem suitable for a son of Cyrus. And have you forgotten 
 that the Achaemenidae will probably refuse to recognize the 
 child of a Greek mother as their future king, if Cambyses 
 should remain childless?" 
 
 "Mother, I fear nothing; for my heart is not set upon the 
 crown. And indeed many a king of Persia has had a mother 
 of far lower parentage than my Sappho.* I feel persuaded 
 that when my relations see the precious jewel I have won 
 on the Nile not one of them will chide me." 
 
 "The gods grant that Sappho may be equal to our Xitetis !" 
 answered Kassandane. "I love her as if she were my own 
 child, and bless the day which brought her to Persia. The 
 warm light of her eyes has- melted your brother's hard heart; 
 her kindness and gentleness bring beauty into the night of 
 my blind old age and her sweet earnestness and gravity have 
 changed your sister Atossa from an unruly child into a gentle 
 maiden. But now call them (they are playing in, the garden), 
 and we will tell them of the new friend they are to gain 
 through you." 
 
 "Pardon me, my mother," answered Bartja, "but I must 
 beg you not to tell my sister until we are sure of the king's 
 cons-ent." 
 
 "You are right, my son. We must conceal your wish, to 
 save Nitetis and Atossa from a possible disappointment. A 
 bright hope unfulfilled is harder to bear than an unexpected 
 sorrow. So let us wait for your brother's consent, and may 
 the gods give their blessing!" 
 
 *Thus, for instance, we read in Firdusi's "Book of the Kings" that 
 the race of Feridun was perpetuated by a female slave. And Sal, the 
 father of Rustem, married a foreigner with whom he had fallen in 
 love. Whether the heroes of the Persian Epos were purely mythical 
 personages (a fact which has never been proved) or not, still the mar- 
 riage of a prince and slave-girl was by no means an unheard of occur- 
 rence.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 201 
 
 Early in the morning of the king's birthday the Persians 
 offered their sacrifices on the shores of the Euphrates. A 
 huge altar of silver had been raised an an artificial hill. On 
 this a mighty fire had been kindled, from which flames and 
 sweet odors rose toward heaven. White-robed Magi fed the 
 Are with pieces of daintily cut' sandal-wood and stirred it 
 with bundles of rods. 
 
 A cloth, the paiti-dhana,* was bound round the heads: of 
 the priests, the ends of which covered the mouth, and thus 
 preserved the pure fire from pollution by human breath. The 
 victims had been slaughtered in a meadow near the river, 
 the flesh cut into pieces,f sprinkled with salt, and laid out 
 on tender grasses, sprouts of clover, myrtle blossoms, and 
 laurel leaves, that the beautiful daughter of Ormuzd, the 
 patient, sacred earth, might not be touched by aught that 
 was dead or bleeding. 
 
 Oropastes, the chief destur (priest), now drew near the fire 
 and cast fresh butter into it. The flames leaped up into the 
 air and all the Persians fell on their knees and hid their 
 faces, in the belief that the fire was now ascending to their 
 great god and father. The Magian then took a mortar, laid 
 some leaves and stalks of the sacred herb Haomai within it, 
 crushed them and poured the ruddy juice, the food of the 
 gods, into the flames. 
 
 After this he raised his hands to heaven, and, while the 
 other priests continually fed the flames into a wilder blaze 
 by casting in fresh butter, sang a long prayer out of the 
 sacred books. In this prayer the blessing of the gods was 
 called down on everything pure and good, but principally 
 
 *The Persians were ordered to hold this little square piece of cloth 
 before their mouths when they prayed. It was from two to seven 
 fingers broad. Anquetil gives a drawing of it in his "Zend-Avesta." 
 Strabo speaks of the "paiti-dhana," p. 733. He says the ends of the 
 cloth used as a covering for the head hung down over the mouth. 
 
 f'Herod.." i, 132. "Strabo," 733. Anquetil gives descriptions and 
 drawings of all the instruments of sacrifice used by the modern 
 Parsees. 
 
 JHaoma or Soma is the name of a plant, the juice of which is said 
 to have been the food of the gods; it was tasted and poured by drops 
 into the fire at certain religious ceremonies. Haoma was also a god. 
 For particulars on the worship of Soma among the Arians see Wind- 
 ischman, "Abhandlungpn rler K. B. Aoaclemie der 
 iv, I
 
 202 . AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 on the king and his entire realm. The good spirits of light v 
 life and truth; of all noble deeds; of the earth, the universal 
 giver; of the refreshing waters, the shining metals, the pas- 
 tures, trees and innocent creatures, were praised; the evil 
 spirits of darkness; of lying, the deceiver of mankind; of 
 disease, death and sin; of the rigid cold; the desolating heat; 
 of all odious dirt and vermin, were cursed, together with their 
 father, the malignant Ahriman. At the end all present joined 
 in singing the festival prayer: "Purity and glory are sown 
 for them that are pure and upright in heart."* 
 
 The sacrificial ceremony was concluded with the king's 
 prayer, and then Cambyses, arrayed in his richest robes, 
 ascended a splendid chariot drawn by four snow-white Xicaean 
 horses and studded with topazes, cornelian and amber, and 
 was conveyed to the great reception-hall, where the deputies 
 and officers from the provinces awaited him. 
 
 As soon as the. king and his retinue had departed the priests 
 selected the best pieces of flesh which had been offered in 
 sacrifice for themselves, and allowed the thronging crowd to 
 take the rest. 
 
 The Persian divinities* disdained sacrifices in the light of 
 food, requiring only the souls of the slaughtered animals, and 
 many a poor man, especially among the priests, subsisted on 
 the flesh of the abundant royal sacrifices. 
 
 The prayer offered up by the Magian was a model for those 
 of the Persian people. No man was allowed to ask anything 
 of the gods for himself alone. Every pious soul was rather 
 to implore blessings for his nation; for was not each only a 
 part of the whole? and did not each man share in the bless- 
 ings granted to the whole kingdom? But, especially, they 
 were commanded to pray for the king, in whom the realm 
 was embodied and shadowed forth. It was this beautiful sur- 
 render of self for the public weal that had made the Persians 
 great. 
 
 The doctrines of the Egyptian priesthood represented the 
 Pharaohs as actual divinities, while the Persian monarchs 
 were only called "sons of the gods;"f yet the power of the 
 
 *This beautiful prayer is to be repeated by the Parsees on awak- 
 ing from sleep. Anquetil, "Zend-Avesta," ii, 564. 
 
 tin later times, however, the Persian kings allowed themselves to 
 be worshiped as gods, also, though only indirectly,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 203 
 
 latter was far more absolute and unfettered than that of the 
 former; the reason for this being that the Persians had been 
 wise enough to free themselves from priestly domination, 
 while the Pharaohs, as we have seen, if not entirely under 
 the dominion of the priestly caste, were yet under its influence 
 in the most important matters. 
 
 The Egyptian intolerance of all strange religions 1 was 
 unknown in Asia. The conquered Babylonians were allowed 
 by Cyrus to retain their own gods after their incorporation 
 in the great Asiatic kingdom. The Jews, lonians and inhab- 
 itants of Asia Minor, in short the entire mass of nations sub- 
 ject to Cambyses, remained unmolested in possession of their 
 hereditary religions and customs. 
 
 Beside the great altar, therefore, might be seen many a 
 smaller sacrificial flame kindled in honor of their own divini- 
 ties by the envoys from the conquered provinces to this great 
 birthday feast. 
 
 Viewed from a distance the immense city looked like a 
 gigantic furnace. Thick clouds of smoke hovered over its 
 towers, obscuring the light of the burning May sun. 
 
 By the time the king had reached the palace the multitude, 
 who had come to take part in the festival, had formed them- 
 selves into a procession of interminable length, which wan- 
 dered on through the straight streets of Babylon toward the 
 royal palace. 
 
 Their road was strewn with myrtle and palm branches, 
 roses, poppy and oleander blossoms, and with leaves of the 
 silver poplar, palm and laurel; the air perfumed with incense, 
 myrrh, and a thousand other sweet odors. Carpets and flags 
 waved and fluttered from the houses. 
 
 Music, too, was there; the shrill peal of, the Median trum- 
 pet, and soft tone of the Phrygian flute; the Jewish cymbal 
 and harp, Paphlagonian tambourines and the stringed instru- 
 ments of Ionia; Syrian kettledrums and cymbals, the shells 
 and drums of the Arians from the mouth of the Indus and the 
 loud notes of the Bactrian battle trumpets. But above all these 
 resounded the rejoicing shouts of the Babylonian multitude, 
 subjugated by the Persians only a few short years before, and 
 yet, like all Asiatics, wearing their fetters with an air of glad- 
 ness so long as the fear of their tyrant was before their eyes. 
 
 The fragrant odors, the blaze of color and sparkling of gold
 
 204 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 and jewels, the neighing of the horses, and ; shouts and songs 
 of human beings, all united to produce a whole at once bewil- 
 dering and intoxicating to the senses and the feelings. 
 
 The messengers had not been sent up to Babylon empty- 
 handed. Beautiful horses 1 , huge elephants and comical mon- 
 keys; rhinoceroses and buffaloes adorned with housings and 
 tassels; double-humped Bactrian camels with gold collars on 
 their shaggy necks; wagonloads of rare woods and ivory, 
 woven goods of exquisite texture, casks of ingots and gold 
 dust, gold and silver vessels, rare plants for the royal gardens, 
 and foreign animals for the preserves, the most remarkable of 
 which were antelopes, zebras and rare monkeys and birds," 
 these last being tethered to a tree in full leaf and fluttering 
 among the branches. Such were the offerings sent to the 
 great king of Persia. 
 
 They were the tribute of the conquered nations, and, after 
 having been shown to the king, were weighed and tested by 
 treasurers and secretaries, either declared satisfactory, or found 
 wanting and returned, in which case the niggardly givers were 
 condemned to bring a double tribute later.f 
 
 The palace gates were reached without hindrance, the way 
 being kept clear by lines of soldiers and whip-bearers stationed 
 on either side of the street. 
 
 If the royal progress to the place of sacrifice, when five 
 hundred richly caparisoned horses had been led behind the 
 king's charijt,$ could be called magnificent and the march of 
 the envoys a brilliant spectacle, the great throne-room pre- 
 sented a vision of dazzling a.nd magic beauty. 
 
 In the background, raised on six steps, each of which was 
 guarded, as it were, by two golden dogs, stood the throne of 
 gold; above it, supported by four golden pillars studded with 
 
 *We have described this procession from reliefs, for our acquaint- 
 ance with which we are in a great measure indebted to Layard's 
 excavations and an obelisk from Nimrud (Nineveh). 
 
 tAt the time of which we are writing the kings of Persia taxed their 
 kingdom at whatever time and to whatever extent seemed good in 
 their own eyes. Cambyses' successor, Darius, was the first to intro- 
 duce a regular system of taxation, in consequence of which he was 
 nicknamed the "shopkeeper." Up to a much later period it still re- 
 mained the duty of certain districts to send natural products to the 
 court. "Herod.," i, 192. Xenoph. "Anab.," iv, 5. 
 
 .," vli, 40, 41, 54. 55, Xenoph, "Cyrop.," vjii, 3, "Curtius. -
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 205 
 
 precious stones, was a purple canopy, on which appeared two 
 winged disks, the king's feruer.* 
 
 Fan-bearers, high in office at the court, stood behind the 
 throne, and on either side, those who sat at the king's table, 
 his relations' and friends, and the most important among the 
 officers of state, the priestly caste and the eunuchs. 
 
 The walls and ceilings of the entire hall were covered with 
 plates of burnished gold and the floor with purple carpets. 
 
 Before the silver gates lay winged bulls, and the king's 
 bodyguard their dress consisting of a gold cuirass under a 
 purple overcoat, and the high Persian cap, their swords in 
 golden scabbards glittering with jewels, and their lances orna- 
 mented with gold and silver apples were stationed in the court 
 of the palace. Among them the band of the "immortals"f 
 was easily to be distinguished by their stately forms and daunt- 
 less bearing. 
 
 Officers, whose duty consisted in announcing and present- 
 ing strangers, and who carried short ivory staves, led the 
 deputies into the hall and up to the throne, where they cast 
 themselves- on the ground as though they would kiss the earth, 
 concealing their hands in the sleeves of their robes. A cloth 
 was bound over the mouth of every man before he was allowed 
 to answer the king's questions, lest the pure person of the king 
 should be polluted by the breath of common men. 
 
 Cambyses' severity or mildness toward the deputations* with 
 whose chiefs he spoke was proportioned to the obedience of 
 
 *The feruer or ferwer is the spiritual part of every man his soul 
 and reason. It was in existence before the man was born, joins him 
 at his birth and departs at his death. The ferwer keeps up a war with 
 the diws or evil spirits, and is the element of man's preservation in 
 life. The moment he departs the body returns to its original elements. 
 After death he becomes immortal if he has done well, but if his deeds 
 have been evil he is cast into hell. It isi right to call upon the ferwer 
 and entreat his help. He will bring the prayer before God, and on 
 this account is represented as a winged disk. "Ulmai Islam" in Vul- 
 ler's "Fragmente u'ber die Religion des Zoroaster." We would also 
 direct our readers especially with reference to the Fravashis (in 
 "Farwardin Yasht") to Tiele. "De Godsdienst van Zarathustra." 
 
 fThese "immortals" owed their honorable name to the circumstance 
 that as soon as one of their number fell in battle, or died, his place 
 was filled by a substitute, and thus the total number of the band never 
 diminished ten thousand warriors were always there. "Herod.," vii, 
 40, 41, 84. Xenoph. "Cyrop.," vii, 1, viii, 1, 2, 3. "Curtius," iii, 3.
 
 206 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 their province and the munificence of their tribute-offerings. 
 Near the end of the train appeared an embassy from the Jews 
 led by two grave men with sharply cut features and long 
 beards. Cambyses called on them in a friendly tone to stop. 
 
 The first of these men was dressed in the fashion of the 
 Babylonian aristocracy. The other wore a purple robe woven 
 without seam, trimmed with bells and tassels and held in at 
 the waist by a girdle of blue, red and white.* A blue garment 
 was thrown over his shoulders and a little bag suspended 
 around his neck containing the sacred lots, the urim and 
 thummin, adorned with twelve precious stones set in gold, 
 and bearing the names of the tribes of Israel. The high- 
 priest's brow was grave and thoughtful. A white cloth wa3 
 wound around his head, the ends of which living down to the 
 shoulders. 
 
 "I rejoice to behold you once more, Belteshazzar,"f ex- 
 claimed the king to the former of the two men. "Since 
 the death of my father you have not been seen at my gate." 
 
 The man thus addressed bowed humbly and answered: "The 
 favor of the king rejoices the servant! If it seems 1 good unto 
 thee to cause the sun of thy favor to shine on me, thine un- 
 worthy servant, so hearken unto my petition for my nation 
 which thy great father caused to return unto the land of their 
 fathers' sepulchers. This old man at my side, Joshua, the 
 high-priest of our God, hath not feared the long journey to 
 Babylon, that he might bring his request before thy face. Let 
 his speech be pleasing in thine ears and his words bring forth 
 fruit in thine heart." 
 
 "I foresee what ye desire of me," cried the king. "Am I 
 
 *Ewald, "Alterthumer des Volkes Israel," pp. 289, 305, 333. Weiss, 
 "Kostiimkunde," i, p. 344. Winer, "Bibl. Realworterbuch, 3 Aufl." 
 Kitto's "The Tabernacle and Furniture," pi. iii. 
 
 tin our first edition we brought Daniel himself before our readers 
 in the person of the Israelite who accompanies Joshua; but the later 
 researches made by Hitzig, Lengerke, Merx and Kuenen have ren- 
 dered this inadmissible. A rich and distinguished Jew, however, from 
 among those who had remained behind in Babylon after the captivity 
 can be introduced without further remarks; and at the same time we 
 would mention that the writing in Cyrus' hand, which induced Darius 
 later to allow the rebuilding of the temple, is historically authentic. 
 "Ezra," vi, 2-12. "Zachariah," 1-8. At the time of our tale Joshua 
 was high-priest. Bunsen, "Bibelwerk," p. 324.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 207 
 
 wrong, priest, in supposing that your petition refers to the 
 building of the temple in your native land?" 
 
 "Nothing can be hidden from the eyes of my lord," an- 
 swered the priest, bowing low. "Thy servants in Jerusalem 
 desire to behold the face of their ruler, and beseech thee by 
 my mouth to visit the land of their fathers and to grant them 
 permission to s-et forward the work of the temple, concerning 
 which thine illustrious father (the favor of our God rest upon 
 him) made a decree." 
 
 The king answered, with a smile: "You have the craft of 
 your nation and understand how to choose the right time and 
 words for your petition. On my birthday it is difficult for me 
 to refuse my faithful people even one request. I promise 
 you, therefore, so soon as possible to visit Jerusalem and the 
 land of your fathers." 
 
 "By so doing thou wilt make glad the hearts of thy servants," 
 answered the priest; "our vines and olives will bear more 
 fruit at thine approach, our gates will lift up their heads to 
 receive thee, and Israel rejoice with shouts to meet his lord, 
 doubly blessed if as lord of the building " 
 
 "Enough, priest, enough!'' cried Cambyses. "Your first 
 petition, I have said it, shall not remain unfulfilled; for I have 
 long desired to visit the wealthy city of Tyre, the golden 
 Zidon, and Jerusalem with its strange superstitions; but were 
 I to give permission for the building now what would remain 
 for me to grant you in the coming year?" 
 
 "Thy servants will no more molest thee by their petitions 
 if thou grant unto them this one to finish the temple of the 
 Lord their God," answered the priest. 
 
 "Strange beings, these men of Palestine!" exclaimed Cam- 
 byses. "I have heard it said that ye believe in one God alone, 
 who can be represented by no likeness and is a spirit. Think 
 ye, then, that this omnipresent Being requires a house ! Verily, 
 your great spirit can be but a weak and miserable creature if 
 He need a covering from the wind and rain and a shelter from 
 the heat which He himself has created. If your God be like 
 ours, omnipresent, fall down before Him and worship as we 
 do in every place and feel certain that everywhere ye will be 
 heard of Him." 
 
 "The God of Israel hears His people in every place," ex- 
 claimed the high-priest. "He heard us when we pined in
 
 208 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 captivity under the Pharaohs far from our land; He heard 
 us weeping by the rivers of Babylon. He chose thy father 
 to be the instrument of our deliverance and will hear my prayer 
 this day and soften thine heart likewis-e. Oh, mighty king, 
 grant unto thy servants a common place of sacrifice whither 
 our twelve tribes may repair, an altar on the steps of which 
 they can pray together, a house in which to keep their holy 
 feasts. For this permission we will call down the blessing of 
 God upon thine head and His curse upon thine enemies." 
 
 "Grant unto my brethren the permission to build their 
 temple," added Belteshazzar, who was the richest and most 
 honorable and respected of the Jews yet remaining in Babylon, 
 a man whom Cyrus had treated with much consideration and 
 of whom he had even taken counsel from time to time. 
 
 "Will ye then be peaceable if I grant your petition?" asked 
 the king. "My father allowed you to begin the work and 
 granted the means for its completion. Of one. mind, happy 
 and content, ye returned to your native land, but while pur- 
 suing your work strife and contention entered among you. 
 Cyrus was assailed by repeated letters, signed by the chief 
 men of Syria, entreating him to forbid the work, and I also 
 have been lately besought to do the same. Worship your 
 God when and where ye will, but just because I desire your 
 welfare I cannot consent to the prosecution of a work which 
 kindles discord among you." 
 
 "And is it, then, thy pleasure on this day to take back a 
 favor which thy father made sure unto us by a written decree?" 
 asked Belteshazzar. 
 
 "A written decree?" 
 
 "Which will surely be found even to this day laid up in the 
 archives of thy kingdom." 
 
 "Find this decree and show it to me and I will not only 
 allow the building to be continued, but will promote the same," 
 answered the king; "for my father's will is 1 as sacred to me as 
 the commands of the gods." 
 
 "Wilt thou allow s-earch to be made in the house of the rolls 
 at Ekbatana?" asked Belteshazzar. "The decree will surely 
 be found there." 
 
 "I consent, but I fear ye will find none. Tell thy nation, 
 priest, that I am content with the equipment of the men of 
 war they have sent to take the field against the Massagetae.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 20S 
 
 My general, Megabyzus, commends their looks and bearing. 
 May the people prove as valiant now as in the wars of my 
 father! You, Belteshazzar, I bid to my marriage feast, and 
 charge you to tell your fellows, Meshach and Abed-nego,* 
 next unto you the highest in the city of Babylon, that I expect 
 them this evening at my table." 
 
 "The God of my people Israel grant thee blessing and hap- 
 piness," answered Belteshazzar, bowing before the king. 
 
 "A wish which I accept!" answered the king, "for I do not 
 despise the power of your wonder-working great spirit. But 
 one word more, Belteshazzar. Many Jews have lately been 
 punished for reviling the gods of the Babylonians. Warn 
 your people! They bring down hatred on themselves by 
 their stiff-necked superstition,! and the pride with which they 
 declare their own great spirit to be the only true God. Take 
 example by us; we are content with our own faith and leave 
 others to enjoy theirs in peace. Cease to look upon yourselves 
 as better than the rest of the world. I wish you well, for pride 
 founded on self-respect is pleasing in mine eyes; but take heed 
 lest pride degenerate into vain glory. Farewell! rest assured 
 of my favor." 
 
 The Jews then departed. They were disappointed, but not 
 hopeless; for Belteshazzar knew well that the decree, relative 
 to the building of the temple, must be in the archives at 
 Ekbatana. 
 
 They were followed by a deputation from Syria, and by 
 tb.e Greeks of Ionia; and then, winding up the long train, ap- 
 peared a band of wild-looking men, dressed in the skins of 
 animals, whose features bespoke them foreigners 1 in Babylon. 
 They wore girdles and shoulder-bands of solid, unwrought 
 gold; and of the same precious metal were their bow-cases, 
 axes, lance-points, and the ornaments on their high fur caps. 
 They were preceded by a man in Persian dress, whose features 
 proved him, however, to be of the same race as his followers.^ 
 
 *We have retained the names Meshach and Abed-nego, as it seemed 
 to us that none more suitable could be found for distinguished Jews 
 living in Babylon than those given in the Bible to Daniel's compan- 
 ions. 
 
 fTacitus ("Histor.," v, 2-5) speaks still more severely, even harshly 
 and bitterly, of the Jewish religion, especially of its intolerance. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 215. We give this episode partly from "Herod.," i, 
 204-216, partly from "Diod.," ii, 44, and "Justin," i, 8. Ktesias, "Per-
 
 210 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The king gazed at first on these envoys with wonder; then 
 his brow darkened, and, beckoning the officer whose duty it 
 was to present strangers, he exclaimed: "What can these men 
 have to crave of me? If I mistake not they belong to the 
 Massagetae, to that people who are so soon to tremble before 
 my vengeance. Tell them, Gobryas, that an armed host is 
 standing on the Median plains ready to answer their demands 
 with the sword." 
 
 Gobryas answered, bowing low: "These men arrived this 
 morning during the sacrifice, bringing huge burdens of the 
 purest gold to purchase your forbearance. When they heard 
 that a great festival was- being celebrated in your honor, they 
 urgently besought to be admitted into your presence, that 
 they might declare the message intrusted to them by their 
 country/' 
 
 The king's brow cleared, and after sharply scrutinizing the 
 tall, bearded Massagetae, he said: "Let them come nearer. 
 I am curious to know what proposals my father's murderers 
 are about to make me." 
 
 Gobryas made a sign, and the tallest and eldest of the 
 Massagetae came up close to the throne and began to speak 
 loudly in his native tongue. He was accompanied by the man 
 in a Persian dress, who, as one of Cyrus' prisoners of war, had 
 learned the Persian language, and now interpreted one by one 
 the sentences uttered by the spokesman of this wandering tribe. 
 
 "We know," began the latter, "that thou, great king, art 
 wroth with the Massagetae because thy father fell in war with 
 our tribe a war which he alone had provoked with a people 
 who had done naught to offend him." 
 
 "My father was justified in punishing your nation," in- 
 terrupted the king. "Your queen, Tomyris, had dared to 
 refuse him her hand in marriage." 
 
 "Be not wroth, O king," answered the Massagetan, "when 
 I tell thee that our entire nation approved of that act. Even 
 a child could see that the great Cyrus only desired to add our 
 
 sica," 9, tells that Cyrus was wounded by an Indian during a battle 
 with the Derbians, and died from the effects of the wound. In Xeno- 
 phon's account he returns home peacefully, but this is probably only 
 because it gives such a good opportunity of putting a beautiful dying 
 speech into his mouth.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 211 
 
 queen to the number of his wives, hoping, in his insatiable 
 thirst for more territories, to gain our land with her." 
 
 Cambyses was silent, and the envoy went on. 
 'Cyrus caused a bridge to be made over our boundary 
 river, Araxes.* We were not dismayed at this, and Tomyris 
 sent word that he might save himself this trouble, for the 
 Massagetae were willing either to await him quietly in their 
 own land, leaving the passage of the river free, or to meet 
 him in his. Cyrus decided, by the advice of the dethroned 
 king of Lydia (as we learned afterward, through some pris- 
 oners of war), on meeting us in our own land and defeating 
 us by a stratagem. With this intention he sent at first only 
 a small body of troops, which could be easily dispersed and 
 destroyed by our arrows and lances, and allowed us to seize 
 his camp without striking a blow. Believing that we had 
 defeated this insatiable conqueror, we feasted on his abundant, 
 stores, and, poisoned by the sweet, unknown drink which you 
 call wine, fell into a stupefied slumber, during which his 
 soldiers fell upon us, murdered the greater number of our 
 warriors and took many captives. Among the latter was the 
 brave young Spargapises, our queen's son. 
 
 "Hearing in his captivity that his mother was willing to 
 conclude peace with your nation as the price of his liberty, he 
 asked to have his chains taken off. The request was granted, 
 and obtaining the use of his hands he seized a sword and 
 stabbed himself, exclaiming: 'I sacrifice my life for the free- 
 dom of my nation!' 
 
 "No sooner did we hear the news that the young prince we 
 loved so well had died thus than we assembled all the forces 
 yet left us- from your swords and fetters. Even old men and 
 boys flew to arms to revenge our noble Spargapises, and 
 sacrifice themselves, after his example, for Massagetan free- 
 dom. Our armies met; ye were worsted and Cyrus fell. 
 When Tomyris found his body lying in a pool of human blood, 
 she cried: 'Methinks, insatiable conqueror, thou art, at last, 
 sated with blood!' The troop, composed of the flower of your 
 nobility, which you call the immortals, drove us back and 
 carried your father's dead body forth from our closest ranks. 
 
 *The Araxes (Aras) rises in the highlands of Armenia and flows into 
 the Caspian Sea.
 
 212 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 You led them on, fighting like a lion. I know yon well, and 
 that wound across your manly face, which adorns it like a 
 purple badge of honor, was made by the sword now hanging 
 at my side." 
 
 A movement pass-ed through the listening crowd; they 
 trembled for the bold speaker's life. Cambyses, however, 
 looked pleased, nodded approvingly to the man and answered: 
 "Yes, I recognize you too now; you rode a red horse with 
 golden trappings. You shall see that the Persians know how 
 to honor courage. Bow down before this man, my friends, 
 for never did I see a sharper sword nor a more unwearied 
 arm than his; and such heroic courage deserves honor from 
 the brave, whether shown by friend or foe.* As for you, 
 Massagetae, I would advise you to go home quickly and pre- 
 pare for war; the mere recollection of your strength and 
 courage increases my longing to test it once more. A brave 
 foe, by Mithras', is far better than a feeble friend. You shall 
 be allowed to return home in peace ; but beware of remaining 
 too long- within my reach, lest the thought of the vengeance 
 I owe my father's soul should rouse my anger and your end 
 draw suddenly nigh." 
 
 A bitter smile played round the bearded mouth of the war- 
 rior as he made answer to this speech. "The Massagetae 
 deem your father's soul too well avenged already. The only 
 son of our queen, his 1 people's pride, and in no way inferior 
 to Cyrus, has bled for him. The shores of the Araxes have 
 been fertilized by the bodies of fifty thousand of my country- 
 men, slain as offerings for your dead king, while only thirty 
 thousand fell there on your own side. We fought as bravely 
 
 This speech corresponds with the Persian character. In "Herodo- 
 tus" (vii, 231) Xerxes is made to act on opposite principles, but the 
 following epigram by Antiphilos of Byzantium (translated by G. Bur- 
 ges, M. A. Trin. Coll. Cambridge) is a proof that the Greeks fully ac- 
 knowledged the chivalrous feeling of the Persian nation: 
 A. This purple robe, Leonidas, to thee 
 
 Has Xerxes given; for thy deeds in arms 
 Have won his admiration. 
 L- Not for me 
 
 Be this the gift. A traitor's limbs it warms 
 Better; and I reject it. In death's sleep 
 
 My shield throw o'er me, not a garb of gold. 
 A. Why 'midst the dead thy hate 'gainst Persians keep? 
 L. The love of freedom not in death is cold.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 213 
 
 as you, but your armor is better able to resist the arrows 
 which pierce our clothing of skins. And lastly, as the most 
 cruel blow of all, ye slew our queen." 
 
 "Tomyris is dead?" exclaimed Cambyses, interrupting him. 
 "You mean to tell me that the Persians have killed a woman? 
 Answer at once, what has happened to your queen?" 
 
 "Tomyris died ten months ago of grief for the loss of her 
 only son, and I have, therefore, a right to say that she, too, 
 fell a sacrifice to the war with Persia and to your father's 
 spirit." 
 
 "She was a great woman," murmured Cambyses, his voice 
 unsteady from emotion. "Verily, I begin to think that the 
 gods themselves have undertaken to revenge my father's blood 
 on your nation. Yet I tell you that, heavj as your losses 
 may seem, Spargapises, Tomyris and fifty thousand Mas- 
 sagetae can never outweigh the spirh of one king of Persia, 
 and least of all of a Cyrus." 
 
 "In our country," answered the envoy, "death makes all 
 men equal. The spirits of the king and the slave are of equal 
 worth. Your father was a great man, but we have undergone 
 awful sufferings for his sake. My tale is not yet ended. After 
 the death of Tomyris discord broke out among the Massagetae. 
 Two claimants for the crown appeared ; half our nation fought 
 for the one, half for the other, and our hosts- were thinned, 
 first by this fearful civil war and then by the pestilence which 
 followed in its track. We can no longer resist your power, 
 and therefore come with heavy loads of pure gold as the price 
 of peace." 
 
 "Ye submit then, without striking a blow?" asked Cam- 
 byses. "Verily, I had expected something else from such 
 heroes; the numbers of my host, which waits assembled on 
 the plains of Media, will prove that. We cannot go to battle 
 without an enemy. I will dismiss my troops and send a 
 satrap. Be welcome as new subjects of my realm." 
 
 The red blood mounted into the cheeks of the Massagetan 
 warrior on hearing these words, and he answered in a voice 
 trembling with excitement: "You err, O king, if you imagine 
 that we have lost our own courage or learned to long for 
 slavery. But we know your strength; we know that the small 
 remnant of our nation which war and pestilence have spared 
 cannot resist your vast and well-armed hosts. This we admit.
 
 214 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 freely and honestly, as is the manner of the Massagetae, de- 
 claring, however, at the same time, that we are determined to 
 govern ourselves as of yore, and will never receive laws or 
 ordinances from a Persian satrap. You are wroth, but I can 
 bear your angry gaze and yet repeat my declaration." 
 
 "And my answer," cried Cambyses, "is this: Ye have but 
 one choice; either to submit to my scepter, become united to 
 the kingdom of Persia, under the name of the Massagetan 
 province, and receive a satrap as my representative with due 
 reverence, or to look upon yourselves as my enemies, in which 
 case you will be forced by arms to conform to those conditions 
 which I now offer you in good part. To-day you could secure 
 a ruler well-affected to your cause later you will find in me 
 only a conqueror and avenger. Consider well before you 
 answer." 
 
 "We have already weighed and considered all," answered 
 the warrior, "and, as free sons of the desert, prefer death to 
 bondage. Hear what the council of our old men has sent me to 
 declare to you: The Massagetae have become too weak to 
 oppose the Persians, not through their own fault, but through 
 the heavy visitation of our god, the sun. We know that you 
 have armed a vast host against us, and we are ready to buy 
 peace and liberty by a yearly tribute. But, if you persist in 
 compelling us to submit by force of arms, you can only bring 
 great damage on yourselves. The moment your army nears 
 the Araxes we shall depart with our wives and children and 
 seek another home, for we have no fixed dwellings like yours, 
 but are accustomed to rove at will on our swift horses, and to 
 rest in tents. Our gold we shall take with us, and shall fill up, 
 destroy and conceal the pits in which you could find new 
 treasures. We know every spot where gold is to be found, 
 and can give it in abundance if you grant us peace and leave 
 us our liberty; but, if you venture to invade our territory, 
 you win nothing but an empty desert and an enemy always 
 beyond your reach an enemy who may become formidable 
 when he has had time to recover from the heavy losses which 
 have thinned his- ranks. Leave us in peace and freedom and 
 we are ready to give every year five thousand swift horses of 
 the desert, besides the yearly tribute of gold; we will also come 
 to the help of the Persian nation when threatened by any 
 serious danger."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 215 
 
 The envoy ceased speaking. Cambyses did not answer at 
 once; his eyes were fixed on the ground in deep thought. 
 At last he said, rising at the same time from his throne: "We 
 will take counsel on this matter over the wine to-night, and 
 to-morrow you shall hear what answer you can bring to your 
 people. Gobryas, see that these men are well cared for, and 
 send the Massagetan who wounded me in battle a portion of 
 the best dishes from my own table." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 During these events Nitetis had been sitting alone in her 
 house on the hanging-gardens, absorbed in the saddest 
 thoughts. To-day for the first time she had taken part in the 
 general sacrifice made by the king's wives, and had tried to 
 pray to her new gods in the open air before the fire-altars 
 and amid the sound of religious songs strange to her ears. 
 
 Most of the inhabitants of the harem saw her to-day for the 
 first time, an 1 instead of raising their eyes to heaven had fixed 
 them on her during the ceremony. 
 
 The inquisitive, malevolent gaze of her rivals, and the loud 
 music resounding from the city, disquieted and distracted her 
 mind. Her thoughts reverted painfully to the solemn, sultry 
 stillness of the gigantic temples in her native land, where she 
 had worshiped the gods of her childhood so earnestly at the 
 side of her mother and sister; and much as she longed, just 
 on this day, to pray for blessings on her beloved king, all her 
 efforts were in vain; she could arouse no devotional feeling. 
 
 Kassandane and Atossa knelt at her side, joining heartily 
 in the very hymns which to Nitetis were an empty sound. 
 
 It cannot be denied that many parts of these hymns con- 
 tain true poetry ; but they become wearisome through the con- 
 stant repetition and invocation of the names of good and bad 
 spirits. The Persian women had been taught from childhood 
 to look upon these religious songs as higher and holier than 
 any other poetry. Their earliest prayers had been accom-
 
 216 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 panied by such hymns, and, like everything else which has 
 come down to us from our fathers, and which we have been 
 told in the impressionable time of childhood is divine and 
 worthy of our reverence, they were still sacred and dear to 
 them and stirred their most devotional feelings. 
 
 But for Nitetis, who had been spoiled, for such things by an 
 intimate acquaintance with the best Greek poets, they could 
 have but little charm. What she had lately been learning 
 in Persia with difficulty had not yet become a part of herself, 
 and so, while Kassandane and Atossa went through all the 
 outward rites as things of course and perfectly natural to them, 
 Nitetis could only prevent herself from forgetting the pre- 
 scribed ceremonials by a great mental effort, and dreaded 
 lest she should expose her ignorance to the jealous, watchful 
 gaze of her rivals-. 
 
 And then, too, only a few minutes before the sacrifice, she 
 had received her first letter from Egypt. It lay unread on 
 her dressing-table and came into her mind whenever she at- 
 tempted to pray. She could not help wondering what news 
 it might bring her. How were her parents, and how had 
 Tachot borne the parting from herself and from the prince 
 she loved so well? 
 
 The ceremony over, Nitetis embraced Kassandane and 
 Atossa and drew a long, deep breath, as if delivered from some 
 threatening danger. Then ordering her litter she was carried 
 back to her dwelling and hastened eagerly to the table where 
 her letter lay. Her principal attendant, the young girl who on 
 the journey had dressed her in her first Persian robes, received 
 her with a smile full of meaning and promise, which changed, 
 however, into a look of astonishment on seeing her mistress 
 seize the letter without even glancing at the articles and 
 jewelry which lay on the table. 
 
 Nitetis broke the seal quickly and was sitting down in order 
 to begin the difficult work of reading her letter when the girl 
 came up with clasped hands exclaimed: "By Mithras, my 
 mistress, I cannot understand you. Either you are ill or 
 that ugly bit of gray stuff must contain some magic which 
 makes you blind to everything else. Put that roll away and 
 look at the splendid presents that the great king (Auramazda, 
 grant him victory) has sent while you were at the sacrifice. 
 Look at this wonderful purple robe with the white stripe and
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 217 
 
 the rich silver embroidery; and then the tiara with the royal 
 diamonds! Do not you know the high meaning of these 
 gifts? Cambyses begs (the messenger said 'begs,' not 'com- 
 mands') you to wear thes-e splendid ornaments at the banquet 
 to-day. How angry Phaedime will be! and how the others 
 will look, for they have never received such presents. Till 
 now only Kassandane has had a right to wear the purple and 
 diamonds; so, by sending you these gifts, Cambyses places 
 you on a level with his mother and chooses you to be his 1 
 favorite wife before the whole world.* Oh, pray allow me 
 to dress you in these new and beautiful things! How lovely 
 you will look! How angry and envious the others will feel! 
 If I could only be there when you enter the hall! Come, my 
 mistress, let me take off your simple dress and array you (only 
 is a trial, you know) in the robes that as the new queen you 
 ought to wear." 
 
 Nitetis listened in silence to the chattering girl and admired 
 the gifts with a quiet smile. She was woman enough to re- 
 joice at the sight, for he had sent them whom she loved better 
 than life itself; and they were a pi oof that she was more to 
 the king than all his other wives that Cambyses really loved 
 her. The long-wish ed-for letter fell unread to the ground, the 
 girl's wish to dress* her was granted without a word, and in a 
 short time the splendid toilet was completed. The royal 
 purple added to her beauty, the high, flashing tiara made her 
 slender, perfect figure seem taller than it really was, and when, 
 in the metal mirror which lay on her dressing-table, she beheld 
 herself for the first time in the glorious likeness of a queen a 
 new expression dawned on her features. It seemed as if a 
 portion of her lord's pride were reflected there. The frivolous 
 waiting-woman sank involuntarily on her knees as her eyes, 
 full of smiling admiration, met the radiant glance of Nitetis 
 of the woman who was beloved by the most powerful of men. 
 
 For a few moments Nitetis gazed on the girl, lying in the 
 dust at her feet: but soon shook her beautiful head, and blush- 
 ing for shame, raised her kindly, kissed her forehead, gave 
 her a gold bracelet, and then, perceiving her letter on the 
 ground, told her she wished to be alone. Mandane ran, rather 
 
 *"Book of Esther," i, 11, 19, ii, 4, 17, v f 1, Heliodorus of Emesa, 
 "Aethiopica"vii, 19,
 
 218 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 than walked, out of the room in her eagerness to show the 
 splendid present she had just received to the inferior attendants 
 and slaves; and Nitetis, her eyes glistening and her heart beat- 
 ing with excess of happiness, threw herself onto the ivory chair 
 which stood before her dressing-table, uttered a short prayer 
 of thanksgiving to her favorite Egyptian goddess, the beau- 
 tiful Hathor, kissed the gold chain which Cambyses had given 
 her after plunging into the water for her ball, then her letter 
 from home, and rendered almost overconfident by her great 
 happiness, began to unroll it, slowly sinking back into the 
 purple cushions as she did so and murmuring: "How very, 
 very happy I am. Poor letter, I am sure your writer never 
 thought Nitetis would leave- you a quarter of an hour on the 
 ground unread." 
 
 In this happy mood she began to read, but her face soon 
 grew serious and when she had finished the letter fell once 
 more to the ground. 
 
 Her eyes, whose proud glance had brought the waiting-maid 
 to her feet, were dimmed by tears; her head, carried so proudly 
 but a few minutes before, now lay on the jewels which covered 
 the table. Tears rolled down among the pearls and diamonds, 
 as strange a contrast as the proud tiara and its unhappy, faint- 
 ing wearer. 
 
 The letter read as follows: 
 
 "Ladice the wife of Amasis and queen of upper and lower 
 Egypt, to her daughter Nitetis, consort of the great king of 
 Persia. 
 
 "It has not been our fault, my beloved daughter, that you 
 have remained so long without news from home. The trireme 
 by which we sent our letters for you to Aegae was detained 
 by Samian ships of war, or rather pirate vessels, and towed 
 into the harbor of Astypalaea.* 
 
 "Polykrates' presumption increases with the continual suc- 
 
 *Aegae, a seaport town in Mysia. The Astypalaea mentioned here 
 must not be confounded with the island of the same name on which 
 Dorian colonists built the town Akragas, "the most beautiful town 
 ever built by mortals." Pindar, "Pyth.," 12, 1. The castle built on the 
 Island of Samos by Polykrates and fortified with round towers was 
 also called Astypalaea. Its walls were twelve feet thick, and it was gar- 
 risoned by the tyrant's Scythian bodyguard. "Polyaenus," i, 23. E. 
 Curtius, "Geschichte von Griechenland," p. 312,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 219 
 
 cess of his undertakings, and since his victory over the Les- 
 bians and Milesians,* who endeavored to put a stop to his 
 depredations, not a ship is safe from the attacks of his pirate 
 vessels. 
 
 "Pisistratus is dead,f but his sons are friendly to Polykrates. 
 Lygdamis- is under obligations to him, and cannot hold his 
 own in Naxos without Samian help. He has won over the 
 Amphiktyonic council to his side by presenting the Apollo of 
 Delos with the neighboring island of Rhen 2a.| His fifty- 
 oared vessels, requiring to be manned by twent) thousand men, 
 do immense damage to all the seafaring nations; yet not one 
 dares to attack him, as the fortifications of his citadel and his 
 splendid harbor are almost impregnable, and he himself always 
 surrounded by a well-drilled bodyguard. 
 
 "Through the traders who followed the fortunate Kolaeus 
 to the far west, and these pirate ships, Samos will become 
 the richest of islands and Polykrates the most powerful of men, 
 unless, as your father says, the gods become envious of such 
 unchanging good fortune and prepare him a sudden and 
 speedy downfall. 
 
 "In this fear Amasis advised Polykrates, as his old friend, 
 to put away from him the thing he held dearest, and in such 
 a manner that he might be sitre of never receiving it again. 
 Polykrates adopted his advice and threw into the sea, from 
 the top of the round tower on his citadel, his most valuable 
 signet-ring, an unusually large sardonyx held by two dolphins. 
 This ring was the work of Theodorus, and a lyre, the symbol 
 of the ruler, was exquisitely engraved on the stone.|| 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 39. 
 
 fPisistratus, who has already been spoken of, died at a great age, 
 527 B. C. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias. 
 
 JRhenea is one of the northern Cyclades. "Herod.," iii, 39. "Thu- 
 cydides," i, 13, iii, 104. 
 
 In the seventh century B. C. a Samian captain named Kolaeus was 
 driven out of his course during a voyage to Egypt, and was the first 
 Greek that passed the pillars of Hercules (Straiffe of Gibraltar). "Her- 
 od.," iv, 152. 
 
 ||Both Pliny (37, 2) and Solinus (38) speak of the stone in this well- 
 known ring as a sardonyx. In the time of Solinus the temple of Con- 
 cordia possessed a ring, presented by Augustus, which was said to have 
 belonged to Polykrates. Clemens of Alexandria says that a lyre was 
 engraved on this ring. The Arabs of the present day tell a story very 
 like the one in our text; their hero, however, loses his ring by accident,
 
 220 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Six days later, however, the ring was found by Polykrates*' 
 cook in the body of a fish. He sent us news at once of this 
 strange occurrence, but, instead of rejoicing, your father shook 
 his gray head sadly, saying he saw now it was impossible for 
 anyone to avoid his destiny! On the same day he renounced 
 the friendship of Polykrates and wrote him word that he 
 should endeavor to forget him in order to. avoid the grief of 
 seeing his friend in misfortune. 
 
 "Polykrates laughed at this message and returned the letters 
 his pirates had taken from our trireme with a derisive greet- 
 ing. For the future all your letters will be sent by Syria. 
 
 "You will ask me, perhaps, why I have told you this long 
 story which has so much less interest for you than any other 
 home news. I answer: To prepare you for your fathers 
 state. Would you have recognized the cheerful, happy, care- 
 less Amasis in that gloomy answer to his Samian friend? 
 
 "Alas, my husband has- good reason to be sad, and, since you 
 left us, my own eyes have seldom been free from tears. My 
 time is passed either at the sick-bed of your sister or in com- 
 forting your father and guiding his steps; and, though much 
 in need of sleep, I am now taking advantage of night to write 
 these lines. 
 
 "Here I was interrupted by the nurs-es calling me to your 
 sister Tachot, your own true friend. 
 
 "How often the poor child has called you in her feverish 
 delirium; and how carefully she treasures your likeness in 
 wax,* that wonderful portrait which bears evidence not only 
 
 See the story of the clever Schuchu in Fr. Dieterici's "Reisebilder aus 
 dem Morgenlande," i, p. 161. Schiller took the fable for his beautiful 
 ballad from Herodotus, who gives a letter in full, written, he tells us, 
 by Amasis to Polykrates. "Herod." iii, 40. We still possess seals 
 made of sardonyx stones, as, for instance, the beautifully carved one 
 which belonged to the king of Phoenicia, Abibal, and which is now at 
 Florence. Gori. "Gemmae Antiquae ex Thesauro Medicoe," p. 56, pi. 
 xxii, de Luynes, "Essal sur la Numismatique des Satrapies de la Phe- 
 nicie sous les rois Achaemenides," p. 69, pi. xiii, 1. 
 
 *Anacreon, who lived at the time of our tale, wrote a song on a 
 picture of Eros made in wax, which he had bought of a boy for one 
 drachma, or nine pence. "Anacreon ed. Moebius," 10. Plato, too, 
 uses the word mpoirMtmx, that is, sculptor in wax, in "Timaeus," 
 p. 74. But usually, fruit seems to have been the principal object 
 imitated in wax. See Bottiger. "Kl. Schriften," ii, p. 98, iii, p 304, 
 and Becker, "Charikles," i, p . 99.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 221 
 
 of the height to which Greek art has risen, but of the master- 
 hand of the great Theodorus. To-morrow it will be sent to 
 Aegina,* to be copied in gold, as the soft wax becomes injured 
 from frequent contact with your sister's burning hands and 
 lips. 
 
 "And now, my daughter, you must summon all your cour- 
 age to hear what I need all my strength of mind to tell the 
 sad story of the fate which the gods have decreed for our 
 house. 
 
 "For three days after you left us Tachot wept incessantly. 
 Neither our comforting words nor your father's good advice, 
 neither offerings nor prayers, could avail to lessen her grief 
 or divert her mind. At last, on the fourth day, she ceased 
 to weep and would answer our questions in a low voice, as 
 if resigned; but spent the greater part of every day sitting 
 silently at her wheel. Her ringers, however, which used to 
 be so skillful, either broke the threads they tried to spin, or 
 lay for hours idle in her lap, while she was lost in dreams-. 
 Your father's jokes, at which she used to laugh so heartily, 
 made no impression on her, and when I endeavored to reason 
 with her she listened in anxious suspense. 
 
 "If I kissred her forehead and begged her to control herself, 
 she would spring up, blushing deeply, and throw herself into 
 my arms, then sit down again to her wheel and begin to pull 
 at the threads with almost frantic eagerness; but in half an 
 hour her hands would be lying idle in her lap again and her 
 eyes dreamily fixed, either on the ground, or on some spot in 
 the air. If we forced her to take part in any entertainment, 
 she would wander among the guests totally uninterested in 
 everything that was passing. 
 
 "We took her with us on the great pilgrimage to Bubastis, 
 during which the Egyptians forget their usual gravity, and the 
 shores of the Nile look like a great stage where the wild games 
 of the satyrs are being performed by choruses, hurried on in 
 the unrestrained wantonness of intoxication. f When she saw 
 
 *See note p. 15. 
 
 tHerodotus (ii, 58) gives a description of this riotous festival. He 
 says that it was usual for seven hundred thousand people to under- 
 take this pilgrimage to Bubastis on the east of the Pelusinian Nile 
 arm. and when there to drink more wine than during the entire year 
 besides. See also note p 28. Similar festivals were celebrated at
 
 222 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, 
 
 thus for the first time an entire people given up to the wiliest 
 and most unfettered mirth and enjoyment, she woke up from 
 her silent, brooding thoughts and began to weep again, as in 
 the first days after you went away. 
 
 "Sad and perplexed, we brought our poor child back to Sais. 
 
 "Her looks were not those of a common mortal. She grew 
 thinner, and, we all fancied, taller; her complexion was white, 
 and almost transparent, with a tender bloom on her cheek, 
 which I can only liken to a young rose leaf or the first faint 
 blush of sunrise. Her eyes are still wonderfully clear and 
 bright. It always seems to me as if they looked beyond the 
 heaven and earth which we see. 
 
 "As she continued to suffer more and more from heat in 
 the head and hands, while her tender limbs often shivered 
 with a slight chill, we sent to Thebes for Thutmes, the most 
 celebrated physician for inward complaints. 
 
 "The experienced priest shook his head on seeing your 
 sister and foretold a serious illness. He forbade her to spin 
 or to speak much. Potions of all kinds were given her to 
 drink, her illness was discussred and exorcised,* the stars and 
 oracles consulted, rich presents and sacrifices made to the 
 
 Dendera, the goddess of which place, Hathor, was also called "the 
 great one" of Bubastis. This we learn from the inscription. See 
 note p. 29. The excesses which took place on these occasions, arid 
 the entire nature and worship of the goddess Bast, are undoubtedly 
 connected with the Phoenician religion, in explanation of which con- 
 nection we must remind our readers that the delta coast of the Med- 
 iterranean was colonized by Phoenicians at a very early period. 
 
 *The Egyptian physicians seem often to have used charms and 
 incantations for the sick. Medical directions for these, of various 
 kinds, have been preserved in the hieratic papyri, among which the 
 one on medicine in Berlin is especially celebrated. It has been edited 
 by Brugsch in his "Recueil de Monum. Egyptiens," pi. 85-107. 
 Chabas ("Melanges Egyptol.," 1862) has treated it very ably, and 
 Brugsch also; see "Notice Raisonn6e d'un Traite Medical. Datant 
 du xiv Siecle Avant Notre ere." See also H. Brugsch, "Ueber die 
 Medicinische Kenntniss der Alten Aegypter und iiber ein Altaegyp- 
 tisches Medicin. Manuscript des Berl. Museums." "Allgemeine Mo- 
 natsschrift f. Wissenschaft u.Literatur," 1853. This papyrus describes 
 the condition of a patient characteristically in the following words: 
 "His body is heavy, the opening of his stomach is burning, his 
 clothes are a burden to him, and, though he wears many, yet he is not 
 warm. In the night he feels thirst; the taste of his heart (stomach) 
 is spoiled, like that of him who has eaten sycamore figs he has a
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 223 
 
 gods. The priest of Hathor from the island of Philae sent 
 us a consecrated amulet; the priest of Osiris in Abydos a lock 
 of hair from the god himself set in gold, and Neithotep, the 
 high priest of our guardian goddess, set on foot a great sacri- 
 fice which was to restore your sister to health. 
 
 "But neither physicians nor charms were of any avail, and 
 at last Neithotep confessed that Tachot's stars gave but little 
 ground for hope. Just then, too, the sacred bull at Memphis 
 died and the priests could discover no heart in his entrails, 
 which they interpreted as prognosticating evil to our country. 
 They have not yet succeeded in finding a new Apis, and be- 
 lieve that the gods are wroth with your father's kingdom. 
 Indeed the oracle of Buto has declared that the immortals will 
 show no favor to Egypt until all the temples- that have been 
 built in the black lands* for the worship of false gods are 
 destroyed and their worshipers banished. 
 
 "These evil omens have proved, alas! only too true. Tachot 
 fell ill of a dreadful fever and lay for nine days hovering be- 
 tween life and death; she is still so weak that she must be 
 carried, and can move neither hand nor foot. 
 
 nest of inflammation within him when he rises he is like a man 
 who is prevented from walking by others." Among the remedies 
 mentioned is: "An ointment for outward application made of palm- 
 wine, salt and incense." Spells and the magical element appear, too, 
 in this manuscript. Isis is to be called upon to destroy the germs of 
 disease, and remarkable means made use of in certain cases. In this 
 place, too, I must mention the demotic Greek papyri now at Leyden, 
 which has been rendered accessible to the literary world by Dr. Lee- 
 mans' valuable work, "Monuments Egyptien du Musee de Leyde." 
 Sect. 2 contains the "Recette Medicale par Hemerius." See also sec. 
 15. I would here call to mind the "Griechisch-Aegyptischen Zauber- 
 papyrus," edited by Parthey. The fumigations mentioned by Plu- 
 tarch (Is. and Os.) as disinfectants, are very reasonable. A remark- 
 able formula of exorcism has come down to us through a Coptic MS. 
 in which the writer has transformed the Egyptian divinities into the 
 Archangels Michael, Uriel and Gabriel. Dulaurier, "Recette Depre- 
 catoire." "Journal Asiatique," iv, t. i, p. 433. Horapollo (i, 23) speaks 
 of amulets possessing medicinal powers, and Tacitus of oracles, "His- 
 tor.," iv, 81. We could fill a larger space with similar quotations. 
 It is strange that such remedies, even up to the present day, continue 
 to be believed in and used, often as they have proved ineffectual. 
 
 *Egypt was called by its ancient inhabitants Cham, the black, or 
 black-earthed.
 
 224 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "During the journey to Bubatis 1 , Amasis' eyes, as so often 
 happens here,* became inflamed. Instead of sparing them 
 he continued to work as usual from sunrise until midday, and 
 while your sister was so ill he never left her bed, notwith- 
 standing all our entreaties. But I will not enter into particu- 
 lars, my child. His eyes grew worse, and on the very day 
 which brought us the news of your safe arrival in Babylon 
 Amasis became totally blind. 
 
 "The cheerful, active man has become old, gloomy and de- 
 crepit since that day. The death of Apis and the unfavorable 
 constellations and oracles weigh on his mind; his happy 
 temper is clouded by the unbroken night in which he lives; 
 and the consciousness that he cannot stir a step alone causes 
 indecision and uncertainty. The daring and independent ruler 
 will soon become a mere tool by means of which the priests 
 can work their will. 
 
 "He spends hours in the temple of Neith, praying and offer- 
 ing sacrifices; a number of workmen are employed there in 
 building a tomb for his mummy, and the same number at 
 Memphis in leveling the temple which the Greeks have begun 
 building to Apollo. He speaks of his own and Tachot's mis- 
 fortunes as a just punishment from the immortals. 
 
 "His visits to Tachot's sick-bed are not the least comfort 
 to her, for instead of encouraging her kindly he only endeavors 
 to convince her that she, too, deserves punishment from the 
 gods. He spends- all his remarkable eloquence in trying to 
 persuade her that she must forget this world entirely and only 
 try to gain favor of Osiris and the judges of the nether world 
 by ceaseless prayers and sacrifices. In this manner he only 
 tortures our poor, sick child, for she hasr not lost her love of 
 life. Perhaps I have still too much of the Greek left in n\e for 
 a queen of i^gypt, but really death is so long and life so short 
 that I cannot help calling even wise men foolish when they 
 
 *The Egyptian eye disease, which unfortunately is not unknown 
 to us moderns, must have raged on the shores of the Nile in "very 
 early ages. Egyptian oculists were already very celebrated at the 
 time of our tale. Herodotus says that Egypt swarmed with physi- 
 cians, and we find blind people represented on the monuments. Oph- 
 thalmia is fearfully frequent among the modern Egyptians. F. 
 Pruner. "Krankheiten des Orients." Bruaut, "Notice sur 1'Opthalmie 
 Regnante-." In the "Me'moires sur 1'Egypte," i, p. 95-103^
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 225 
 
 devote the half of even this short term to a perpetual medita- 
 tion on the gloomy hades. 
 
 "I have just been interrupted again. Our great physician. 
 Thutmes, came to inquire after his patient. He gives very 
 little hope, and seems surprised that her delicate frame has 
 been able to resist death so long. He said yesterday: 'She 
 would have sunk long ago if not kept up by her determined 
 will and a longing which gives her no rest. If she ceased to 
 care for life she could allow death to take her just as we dream 
 ourselves asleep. If, on the other hand, her wish could be 
 gratified, she might (though it is hardly probable) live some 
 years yet, but if it remain but a short time longer unfulfilled 
 it will certainly wear her to death.' 
 
 "Have you any idea for whom she longs so eagerly? Our 
 Tachot has allowed herself to be fascinated by the beautiful 
 Bartja, the brother of your future husband. I do not mean 
 to say by this that he has employed magic, as the priest 
 Ameneman believes, to gain her love; for a youth might 
 be far less- handsome and agreeable than Bartja and yet take 
 the heart of an innocent girl, still half a child. But her pas- 
 sionate feeling is so strong, and the change in her whole being 
 so great, that sometimes I, too, am tempted to believe in the 
 use of supernatural influence. A short time before you left I 
 noticed that Tachot was fond of Bartja. Her distress at first 
 we thought could only be for you, but when she sank into that 
 dreamy state, Ibykus, who was still at our court, said she must 
 have been seized by some strong passion. 
 
 "Once, when she was sitting dreaming at her wheel, I heard 
 him singing softly Sappho's little love-song to her: 
 
 " 'I cannot, sweet my mother, 
 Throw shuttle any more; 
 My heart is full of longing 
 My spirit troubled sore, 
 All for a love of yesterday, 
 A boy not seen before.'* 
 
 "She turned pale and asked him: 'Is that your own song?' 
 "'No,' said he; 'Sappho wrote it fifty years ago.' 
 " 'Fifty years ago,' echoed Tachot, musingly. 
 
 *"Sappho ed. Neue," xxxii. Translation from Edwin Arnold's 
 "Poets of Greece."
 
 226 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 " 'Love is always the same/ interrupted the poet; 'women 
 loved centuries ago, and will love thousands of years to come, 
 just as Sappho loved fifty years back.' 
 
 "The sick girl smiled in assent, and from that time I often 
 heard her humming the little song as she sat at her wheel. 
 But we carefully avoided every question that could remind her 
 of him she loved. In the delirium of fever, however, Bartja's 
 name was always on her burning lips. When she recovered 
 consciousness we told her what she had said in her delirium ; 
 then she opened her heart to me, and, raising her eyes to 
 heaven like a prophetess, exclaimed, solemnly: 'I know that 
 I shall not die till I have seen him again.' 
 
 "A short time ago we had her carried into the temple, as 
 she longed to worship there again. When the service was 
 over and we were crossing the temple court we passed some 
 children at play, and Tachot noticed a little girl telling some- 
 thing very eagerly to. her companions. She told the bearers 
 to put down the litter and call the child to her. 
 
 " 'What were you saying?' she asked the little one. 
 
 ' 'I was telling the others something about my eldest sister.' 
 
 "'May I hear it, too?' said Tachot so kindly that the little 
 girl began at once without fear: "'Batau, who is betrothed 
 to my sister, came back from Thebes quite unexpectedly yes- 
 terday evening. Just as the Isis star* was rising he came sud- 
 denly onto our roof, where Kerimama was playing at draughts 
 with my father; and he brought her such a beautiful golden 
 bridal wreath.' 
 
 "Tachot kissed the child and gave her her own costly fan. 
 When we were at home again she smiled archly at me and 
 said: 'You know, mother dear, that the words children say 
 in the temple courts are believed to be oracles. f So, if the 
 little one spoke the truth, he must come; and did you not hear 
 that he is to bring the bridal wreath? Oh, mother, I am sure 
 quite sure that I shall see him again.' 
 
 "I asked her yesterday if she had any message for you, and 
 she begged me to say that she sent you thousands of kisses 
 
 *Among the Egyptians the planet Venus bore the name of the 
 goddess Isis. "Pliny," ii, 6. Arist., "De Mundo," ii, 7. Earlv monu- 
 ments prove that they were acquainted with the identity of the morn- 
 ing and evening star. Lepsius, "Chronologic," p. 94. 
 
 tPlutarch, "I. and 0.," 14. "Pausanias," vii, 22.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 227 
 
 and messages of love, and that when she was stronger she 
 meant to write, as she had a great deal to tell you. She has 
 just brought me the little note which I inclose; it is for you 
 alone, and has cost her much fatigue to write. 
 
 "But now I must finish my letter, as the messenger has been 
 waiting for it some time. 
 
 "I wish I could give you some joyful news, but sadness and 
 sorrow meet me whichever way I turn. Your brother yields 
 more and more to the priests' tyranny, and manages the affairs 
 of state for your poor, blind father under Neithotep's guidance. 
 
 "Amasis does- not interfere, and says it matters little whether 
 his place be filled a few days sooner or later by his successor. 
 
 "He did not attempt to prevent Psamtik from seizing the 
 children of Phanes in Rhodopis' house, and actually allowed 
 his son to enter into a negotiation with the descendants of 
 those two hundred thousand soldiers* who emigrated to 
 Ethiopia in the reign of Psamtik I on account of the preference 
 shown to the Greek mercenaries. In case they declared them- 
 selves willing to return to their native land the Greek mer- 
 cenaries were to have been dismissed. The negotiation failed 
 entirely, but Psamtik's treatment of the children of Phanes has 
 given bitter offense to the Greeks. Aristomachus threatened 
 to leave Egypt, taking with him ten thousand of his best troops, 
 and on hearing that Phanes' son had been murdered at Psam- 
 tik's command applied for his discharge. From that time 
 the Spartan disappeared, no one knows whither; but the 
 Greek troops allowed themselves to be bribed by immense 
 sums and are still in Egypt. 
 
 "Amasis said nothing to all this 1 , and looked on silently 
 from the midst of his prayers and sacrifices, while your brother 
 was either offending every class of his subjects or attempting 
 to pacify them by means below r the dignity of a ruler. The 
 commanders of the Egyptian and Greek troops and the gov- 
 ernors of different provinces have all alike assured me that 
 the present state of things is intolerable. No one knows what 
 to expect from this new ruler; he commands to-day the very 
 
 *According to Herodotus (ii, 29-31) two hundred and forty thousand 
 men. According to Diod. (i, 67), more than two hundred thousand. 
 In the great rock temple of Rameses II, at Abusimbel, in Nubia, 
 Greek and Phoenician inscriptions have been found written by the 
 pursuers of .these fugitives. L^psius, "Denkmaler," iv, bl. 98 and 99.
 
 228 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 thing which he angrily forbade the day before. Such a gov- 
 ernment must soon snap the beautiful bond which has hitherto 
 united the Egyptian people to their king. 
 
 "Farewell, my child; think of your poor friend, your mother; 
 and forgive your parents when you hear what they have so 
 long kept secret from you. Pray for Tachot, and remember 
 us to Croesus and the young Persians whom we know. Give 
 a special message, too, from Tachot to Bartja; I beg him to 
 think of it as the last legacy of one very near death. If you 
 could only send her some proof that he has not forgotten her! 
 
 "Farewell! once more, farewell, and be happy in your new 
 and blooming home." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Sad realities follow bright anticipations nearly as surely as 
 a rainy day succeeds a golden sunrise. 
 
 Nitetis had been so happy in the thought of reading the 
 very letter which poured such bitter drops of wormwood into' 
 her cup of happiness. 
 
 One beautiful element in her life, the remembrance of her 
 dear home and, the companions of her happy childhood, had 
 been destroyed in one moment, as if by the touch of a magi- 
 cian's wand. 
 
 She sat there in her royal purple, weeping, forgetful of every- 
 thing but her mother's grief, her father's misfortunes and her 
 sister's illness. The joyful future, full of love, joy and hap- 
 piness, which had been beckoning her forward only a few 
 minutes before, had vanished. Cambyses' chosen bride for- 
 got her waiting, longing lover, and the future queen of Persia 
 could think of nothing but the 'sorrows of Egypt's royal house. 
 
 It was long past midday when the attendant Mandane came 
 to put a last touch to Nitetis' dress and ornaments. 
 
 "She is asleep," thought the girl. "I can let her rest another 
 quarter of an hour; the sacrifice this morning has tired her, 
 and we must have her fresh and beautiful for the evening
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 229 
 
 banquet; then she will outshine the others as the moon does 
 the stars." 
 
 Unnoticed by her mistress she slipped out of the room, the 
 windows of which commanded a splendid view over the hang- 
 ing-gardens, the immense city beneath, the river, and the rich 
 and fruitful Babylonian plain, and went into the garden. 
 
 Without looking round she ran to a flower-bed to pluck 
 some roses. Her eyes were fixed on her new bracelet, the 
 stones of which sparkled in the sun, and she did not notice a 
 richly dressed man peering in at one of the windows of the 
 room where Nitetis lay weeping. On being disturbed in his 
 watching and listening he turned at once to the girl and 
 greeted her in a high treble voice. 
 
 She started, and on recognizing the eunuch Boges, answered: 
 "It is not polite, sir, to frighten a poor girl in this way. By 
 Mithras, if I had seen you before I heard you I think I should 
 have fainted. A woman's voice does not take me by sur- 
 prise, but to find a man here is as rare as to find a swan in 
 the desert/' 
 
 Boges laughed good-humoredly, though he well under- 
 stood her saucy allusion to his high voice, and answered, 
 rubbing his fat hands: "Yes, it is very hard for a young and 
 pretty bird like you to have to live in such a lonely corner, 
 but be patient, sweetheart. Your mistress 1 will soon be queen, 
 and then she will look out a handsome young husband for 
 you. Ah, ha! you will find it pleasanter to live here alone 
 with him than with your beautiful Egyptian." 
 
 "My mistress is too beautiful for some people's fancy, and 
 I have never asked anyone to look out a husband for me," 
 she answered, pertly. "I can find one without your help, 
 either." 
 
 "Who could doubt it? Such a pretty face is as good a 
 bait for a man as a worm for a fish." 
 
 "But I am not trying to catch a husband, and, least of all, 
 one like you." 
 
 "That I can easily believe," he answered, laughing. "But 
 tell me, my treasure, why are you so hard on me? Have I 
 done anything to vex you? Wasn't it through me that you 
 obtained this good appointment, and are not we both Medes?" 
 
 "You might just as well say that we are both human beings, 
 and have five ringers on each hand and a nose in the middle
 
 230 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 of our faces. Half the people here are Medes, and if I had 
 as many friends as- I have countrymen I might be queen 
 to-morrow. And as to my situation here, it was not you 
 but the high-priest Oropastes who recommended me to the 
 great Queen Kassandane. Your will is not law here." 
 
 "What are you talking about, my sweet one? Don't you 
 know that not a single waiting-woman can be engaged with- 
 out my consent?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know that as well as you do, but " 
 
 "But you women are an unthankful race and don't deserve 
 our kindness 1 ." 
 
 "Please do not forget that you are speaking to a girl of 
 good family." 
 
 "I know that very well, my little one. I know that your 
 father was a Magian and your mother a Magian's daughter; 
 that they both died early and you were placed under the care 
 of the Destur Ixabates, the father of Oropastes, and grew 
 up with his children. I know, too, that when you had received 
 the earrings Oropastes' brother Gaumata* (you need not blush, 
 Gaumata is a pretty name) fell in love with your rosy face 
 and wanted to marry you, though he was only nineteen. 
 Gaumata and Mandane how well the two names sound 
 together! Mandane and Gaumata! If I were a poet I 
 should call my hero Gaumata and his lady-love Mandane." 
 
 "I insist on your ceasing to jest in this way," cried Man- 
 dane, blushing deeply and stamping her foot. 
 
 "What, are you angry because I say the names sound well 
 together? You ought rather to be angry with the proud 
 Oropastes, who sent his younger brother to Rhagaef and you 
 to the court that you might forget one another." 
 
 "Known among the Greeks by the name of Smerdis. But in the 
 cuneiform inscriptions he is called Gumata, or, according to Spiegel, 
 Gaumata. "Inscription of Behistan," xi. "Justin.," i, 9, gives the 
 correct name, though somewhat disfigured, and calls Smerdis Ko- 
 metes. For this reason we have taken the name Oropastes also from 
 him, though "Herod.," iii, 61, gives Patizeithes. 
 
 tRhagae (Rhagai), in the time of Alexander Europes later, under 
 Seleucus Nicator, Arsacia and now called Rai, is one of the oldest 
 towns in Persia. Zoroaster is said to have been born here, and the 
 same is told of Haroun-el-Raschid. In the Apocrypha Tobit is said 
 to have been cast ashore at Rages. In this town there was a famous 
 school for priests.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 231 
 
 "That is a slander on my benefactor." 
 
 "Let my tongue wither away if I am not speaking the 
 truth and nothing but the truth! Oropastes separated you 
 and his brother because he had higher intentions for the 
 handsome Gaumata than a marriage with the orphan, daugh- 
 ter of an inferior Magian. He would have been satisfied 
 with Amytis or Menische for a sister-in-law, but a poor girl 
 like you, who owed everything to his bounty, would only 
 have stood in the way of his ambitious plans'. Between our- 
 selves, he would like to be appointed regent of Persia while 
 the king is away at the Massagetan war, and would, there- 
 fore, give a great deal to connect himself by marriage in some 
 way or other with the Achaemenidae. At his age a new 
 wife is not to be thought of; but his brother is young and 
 handsome; indeed, people go so far as to say that he is 
 like the Prince Bartja." 
 
 "That is true," exclaimed the girl. "Only think, when we 
 went out to meet my mistress and I saw Bartja for the first 
 time from the window of the station-house I thought he was 
 Gaumata. They are so like one another that they might be 
 twins, and they are the handsomest men in the kingdom." 
 
 "How you are blushing, my pretty rosebud! But the like- 
 ness between them is not quite so great as all that. When 
 I spoke to the high-priest's brother this morning 
 
 "Gaumata is here?" interrupted the girl, passionately. "Have 
 you really seen him, or are you trying to draw me out and 
 make fun of me?" 
 
 "By Mithras, my sweet one, I kissed his forehead this very 
 morning, and he made me tell him a great deal about his 
 darling. Indeed, his blue eyes, his golden curls and his 
 lovely complexion, like the bloom on a peach, were so irre- 
 sistible that I felt inclined to try and work impossibilities for 
 him. Spare your blushes, my little pomegranate-blossom, 
 till I have told you all, and then perhaps in future you will 
 not be so hard upon poor Boges; you will see that he has 
 a good heart, full of kindness for his beautiful, saucy little 
 countrywoman." 
 
 "I do not trust you," she answered, interrupting these assur- 
 ances. "I have been warned against your smooth tongue, 
 and I do not know what I' have done to deserve this kind 
 interest."
 
 232 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS 
 
 "Do you know this?" he asked, showing her a white ribbon 
 embroidered all over with little golden flames. 
 
 "It is the last present I worked for him," exclaimed Man- 
 dane. 
 
 "I asked him for his token, because I knew you would not 
 trust me. Who ever heard of a prisoner loving his jailer?'' 
 
 "But tell me at once, quickly what does my old play- 
 fellow want me to do? Look, the western sky is beginning 
 to glow. Evening is coming en and I must arrange my 
 mistress' dress and ornaments for the banquet." 
 
 "Well, I will not keep you long," said the eunuch, becom- 
 ing so serious: that Mandane was frightened. "If you do 
 not choose to believe that I would run into any risk out of 
 friendship to you, then fancy that I forward your love affair 
 to humble the pride of Oropastes. He threatens to supplant 
 me in the king's favor, and I am determined, let him plot 
 and intrigue as he likes, that you shall marry Gattmata. 
 To-morrow evening, after the Tistar star has risen,* your 
 lover shall come to s-ee you. I will see that all the guards 
 are away, so that he can come without danger, stay one hour 
 and talk over the future with you; but, remember, only one 
 hour. I see clearly that your mistress will be Cambyses' 
 favorite wife, and will then forward your marriage, for she 
 is very fond of you, and thinks no praise too high for your 
 fidelity and skill. So, to-morrow evening," he continued, 
 falling back into the jesting tone peculiar to him, "when the 
 Tistar star rises- fortune will begin to shine on you. Why 
 do you look down? Why don't you answer? Gratitude stop:; 
 your pretty little mouth, eh? Is that the reason? Well, my 
 little bird, I hope you won't be quite so silent if you should 
 ever have a chance of praising poor Boges to your powerful 
 mistress. And what message shall I being to the handsome 
 Gaumata? May I say that you have not forgotten him and 
 will be delighted to see him again? You hesitate? Well, I 
 am very sorry, but it is getting dark and I must go. I have 
 
 The Tistar star (probably Sirius or the dog-star) in the Avesta, 
 "Tistrija," and in the Vedas, Tishija, was invoked by the Persians 
 as a brilliant, powerful star, which brought the rain so valuable in 
 Persia. It is often mentioned in the Parsee sacred books. Spiegel, 
 "Avesta," i, 1, "Excurs.," p. 274. Many Jashts treat of this star. 
 Anquetil in his "Vie de Zoroaster," p. 1, ventures to derive the name 
 Zerethoschtro from "zere," gold, and "thaschtre," Tistar star.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 233 
 
 to inspect the women's dresses for the birthday banquet. 
 Ah! one thing I forgot to mention. Gaumata must leave 
 Babylon to-morrow. Oropastes is afraid that he may chftnce 
 to see you, and told him to return to Rhagae directly the 
 festival was over. What! still silent? Well, then, I really 
 cannot help you or that poor fellow, either. But I shall gain 
 my ends quite as well without you, and, perhaps, after all it 
 is better that you should forget one another. Good-by." 
 
 It was a hard struggle for the girl. She felt nearly sure 
 that Boges was deceiving her, and a voice within warned her 
 that it would be better to refuse her lover this 1 meeting. Duty 
 and prudence gained the upper hand, and she was just going 
 to exclaim, "Tell him I cannot see him," when her eye caught 
 the ribbon she had once embroidered for her handsome play- 
 fellow. Bright pictures from her childhood flashed through 
 her mind, short moments of intoxicating happiness; love, 
 recklessness* and longing gained the day in their turn over her 
 sense of right, her misgivings and her prudence, and before 
 Boges could finish his farewell, she called out, almost in spite 
 of herself and flying toward the house like a frightened fawn : 
 "I shall expect him." 
 
 Boges passed quickly through the flowery paths of the 
 hanging-gardens. He stopped at the parapet and cautiously 
 opened a hidden trap-door admitting to a secret staircase 
 which wound down through one of the huge pillars supporting 
 the hanging-gardens, and which had probably been intended 
 by their original designer as a means of reaching his wife's 
 apartments unobserved from the shores of the river. The door 
 moved easily on its hinges, and when Boges had shut it again 
 and strewed a few of the river shells from the garden walks 
 over it, it would have been difficult to find, even for anyone 
 who had come with that purpose. The eunuch rubbed his 
 jeweled hands, smiling the while, as was his custom, and 
 murmured: "It can't fail to succeed now; the girl is caught, 
 her lover is at my beck and call, the old secret flight of steps 
 is in good order, Nitetis has been weeping bitterly on a day 
 of universal rejoicing, and the blue lily opens to-morrow night. 
 Ah, ha! my little plan can't possibly fail now. And to-morrow, 
 my pretty Egyptian kitten, your little velvet paw will be fast 
 in a trap set by the poor, despised eunuch, who was not 
 allowed, forsooth, to give you any orders,"
 
 234 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 His eyes gleamed maliciously as he said these words and 
 hurried from the garden. 
 
 At the great flight of steps he met another eunuch, named 
 Neriglissar, who held the office of head gardener and lived 
 at the hanging-gardens. 
 
 "How is the blue lily going on?" asked Boges. 
 
 "It is unfolding magnificently!'' cried the gardener, in enthu- 
 siasm at the mere mention of his cherished flower. "To-mor- 
 row, as I promised, when the Tistar star rises, it will be in all 
 its beauty. My Egyptian mistress will be delighted, for she 
 is very fond of flowers, and may I ask you to tell the king 
 and the Achaemeniclae that under my care this rare plant 
 has at last flowered? It is to be seen in full beauty only once 
 in every ten years. Tell the noble Achaemenidae this and 
 bring them here." 
 
 "Your wish shall be granted," said Boges, smiling, "but 
 I think you must not reckon on the king, as I do not expect 
 he will visit the hanging-gardens before his marriage with 
 the Egyptian. Some of the Achaemenidae, however, will be 
 sure to come; they are such lovers of horticulture that they 
 would not like to miss this rare sight. Perhaps, too, I may 
 succeed in bringing Croesus. It is true that he does not 
 understand flowers- or dote on them as the Persians do, but 
 he makes amends for this by his thorough appreciation of 
 everything beautiful." 
 
 "Yes, yes, bring him, too," exclaimed the gardener. "He 
 will really be grateful to you, for my queen of the night is 
 the most beautiful flower that has ever bloomed in a royal 
 garden. You saw the bud in the clear waters of the reservoir 
 surrounded by its green leaves; that bud will open into a 
 gigantic rose, blue as the sky. My flower 
 
 The enthusiastic gardener would have said much more in 
 praise of his flower, but Boges left him with a friendly nod 
 and went down the flight of stops. A two-wheeled wooden 
 carriage was waiting for him there; he took his seat by the 
 driver; the horses, decked out with bells and tassels,* were 
 urged into a sharp trot and quickly brought him to the gate 
 of the harem garden. 
 
 *From pictures in Gosse's "Assyria," pp. 224, 251, and Layard's 
 "Nineveh and Its Remains," p. 288, "Nin, and Babylon," pp. 198, 
 340, 450,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 235 
 
 That day was a busy, stirring one- in Cambyses' harem. 
 In order that the women might look their very best Boges 
 had commanded that they should all be taken to the bath 
 before the banquet. He, therefore, went at once to that wing 
 of the palace which contained the baths for the women. 
 
 While he was- still at some distance a confused noise of 
 screaming, laughing, chattering and tittering reached his ears. 
 In the broad porch of the large bathing-room, which had 
 been almost overheated, more than three hundred women* 
 were moving about in a dense cloud of steam. The half- 
 naked forms floated over the warm pavement like a motley 
 crowd of phantoms. Their thin silken garments were wet 
 through and clung to their delicate figures, and a warm rain 
 descended upon them from the roof of the bath, rising up 
 again in vapor when it reached the floor. 
 
 Groups of handsome women, ten or twenty together, lay 
 gossiping saucily in one part of the room ; in another two of 
 the king's wives: were quarreling with naughty children. One 
 beauty was screaming at the top of her voice because she 
 had received a blow from her neighbor's dainty little slipper, 
 while another was lying in lazy contemplation, still as death, 
 on the damp, warm floor. Six Armenians were standing 
 together singing a saucy love-song in their native language, 
 with clear-toned voices, and a little knot of fair-haired Per- 
 sians were slandering Nitetis- so fearfully that a bystander 
 would have fancied our beautiful Egyptian was some awful 
 monster, like those nurses use to frighten children. 
 
 Naked female slaves moved about through the crowd, car- 
 
 *We read "Diodorus," xvii, 77, that the king of Persia had as 
 many wives as there are days in the year. At the battle if Issus 
 Alexander the Great took three hundred and twenty-nine concubines 
 of the last Darius captive. See, also, "Esther," i, 9, 18, ii, 2, and fol- 
 lowing verses. "Herod.," iii, 68, 69, 84, 88, and in many other pas- 
 sages. But it must be observed that the large numbers above men- 
 tioned only refer to the concubines. After the insurrection of the 
 Magi had been put down it was agreed among the great Persian lords 
 that the king should only be allowed to choose his lawful wives from 
 among their daughters. "Herod.," iii, 84. This law seems to have 
 been observed almost without a single exception. Later Darius had 
 four lawful wives, among whom Atossa always retained the highest 
 place. V. Hammer's opinion (which is difficult to refute) that the 
 permission to marry four wives, given by Mahomet, was derived 
 from an ancient oriental custom, is partly grounded on this fact. V. 
 Hammer, "Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches," vol. i, p. 565,
 
 236 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 
 
 rying on their heads well-warmed cloths to throw over their 
 mistresses. The cries of the eunuchs who held the office of 
 doorkeepers and were continually urging the women to 
 greater haste the screeching calls of those whose slaves had 
 not yet arrived the penetrating perfumes and the warm vapor, 
 combined to produce a motley, strange and stupefying scene. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, however, the king's wives pre- 
 sented a very different spectacle. 
 
 They lay like roses steeped in dew, not asleep, but quite 
 still and dreaming, on soft cushions placed along the walls of 
 an immense room. The wet perfumes still lay on their unclried 
 and flowing hair, and nimble female slaves were busied in 
 carefully wiping away, with little bags made of soft camel's 
 hair, the slightest outward trace of the moisture which pene- 
 trated deep into the pores of the skin. 
 
 Silken coverlets were spread over their weary, beautitul 
 limbs, and a troop of eunuchs took good care that the dreamy 
 repose of the entire body should not be disturbed by quarrel- 
 some or petulant individuals. 
 
 Their efforts, however, were seldom so successful as to-day, 
 when everyone knew that a disturbance of the peace would 
 be punished by exclusion from the banquet. 
 
 They had probably been lying a full hour in this dreamy 
 silence when the sound of a gong produced another trans- 
 formation. 
 
 The reposing figures sprang from their cushions, a troop 
 of female slaves pressed into the hall, the beauties were 
 anointed and perfumed, their luxuriant hair ingeniously 
 braided, plaited, and adorned with precious stones. Costly 
 ornaments and silken and woolen robes, in all the colors of 
 the rainbow, were brought in shoes stiff with ricli embroidery 
 of pearls and jewels were tied on their tender feet, and golden 
 girdles fastened round their waists.* 
 
 By the time Boges came in the greater number of the women 
 were already fully adorned in their costly jewelry, which would 
 have represented, probably, when taken together, the riches 
 of a large kingdom. 
 
 He was greeted by a shrill cry of joy from many voices. 
 
 *Some kings gave their wives the revenues of entire cities as 
 "girdle-money" (pin-money). Xenoph. "Anab.," i, 4. Cicero, "Verr.," 
 iii, 83. Expensive shoes. "Judith," xvi, 9. See "Herodotus," iii, 130, 
 on the well-filled jewel caskets of the Persian women.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 237 
 
 Twenty of the women joined hands and danced round their 
 smiling keeper, singing a simple song which had been com- 
 posed in the harem in praise of his virtues. On this day it 
 was- customary for the king to grant each of his wives one 
 reasonable petition. So, when the ring of dancers had loos- 
 ened hands a troop of petitioners rushed in upon Boges, kissing 
 his hands, stroking his cheeks, whispering in his ear all kinds 
 of requests, and trying by flattery to gain his intercession 
 with the king. The woman's tyrant smiled at it all, stopped 
 his ears and pushed them all back with jests and laughter, 
 promising Amytis the Median that Esther the Phoenician 
 should be punished, and Esther the same of Amytis that 
 Parmys should have a handsomer set of jewels than Parisatys,* 
 and Parisatys a more costly one than Parmys; but, finding 
 it impossible to get rid of these importunate petitioners, he 
 blew a little golden whistle. Its shrill tones acted like magic 
 on the eager crowd; the raised hands fell in a moment, the 
 little tripping feet stood still, the opening lips closed and the 
 eager tumult was- turned into a dead silence. 
 
 Whoever disobeyed the sound of this little whistle was cer- 
 tain of punishment. It was as important as the words "Silence, 
 in the king's name!" or the reading of the riot act. To-day 
 it worked even more effectually than usual. Boges' self-satis- 
 fied smile showed that he had noticed this; he then favored 
 the assembly with a look expressive of his contentment with 
 their conduct, promised in a flowery speech to exert all his 
 influence wkh the king in behalf of his dear little white doves, 
 and wound t;p by telling them to arrange themselves in two 
 long rows. 
 
 The women obeyed, and submitted to his scrutiny like 
 soldiers on drill or slaves being examined by their buyer. 
 
 With the dress- and ornaments of most he was satisfied, 
 ordering, however, to one a little mere rouge to another 
 a little white powder to subdue a too healthy color here a 
 different arrangement of the hair there a deeper tinge to 
 the eyebrows or more pains to be taken in anointing the lips. 
 
 When this was over he left the hall and went to Phaedime, 
 who, as one of the king's lawful wives, had a private room, 
 separated from those allotted to the concubines. 
 
 This name signifies "of the race of the Peris." According to 
 Rogge it is really Pairikazana, Pairikagaona or Pairikanafa.
 
 238 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 This former favorite this humbled daughter of the Achae- 
 menidae had been expecting him already some time. 
 
 She was magnificently dressed, and almost overloaded with 
 jewels. A thick veil of gauze inwrought with gold hung from 
 her little tiara, and interlaced with this was the blue-and-white 
 band of the Achaemenidae. There could be no question that 
 she was beautiful, but her figure was already too strongly 
 developed, a frequent result of the lazy harem life among 
 eastern women. Fair, golden hair, interwoven with little sil- 
 ver chains and gold pieces, welled out almost too abundantly 
 from beneath her tiara and was smoothed over her white 
 temples'. 
 
 She sprang forward to meet Boges, trembling with eager- 
 ness, caught a hasty glance at herself in the looking-glass, 
 and then, fixing her eyes on the eunuch, asked, impetuously: 
 "Are you pleased with me? Will he admire me?" 
 
 Boges smiled his old, eternal smile, and answered: "You 
 always please me, my golden peacock, and the king would 
 admire you, too, if he could s-ee you as you were a moment 
 ago. You were really beautiful when you called out, 'Will 
 he admire me?' for passion had turned your blue eyes black 
 as night, and your lip was curled with hatred so as to show 
 two rows of teeth white as the snow on the Demawend!" 
 
 Phaedime was flattered and forced her face once more into 
 the admired expression, saying: "Then take us at once to 
 the banquet, for I know my eyes will be darker and more 
 brilliant and my teeth will gleam more brightly when I see 
 that Egyptian girl sitting where I ought to sit." 
 
 "She will not be allowed to sit there long." 
 
 "What! is your plan likely to succeed/then? Oh, Boges, 
 do not hide it any longer from me I will be as silent as the 
 grave I will help you I will " 
 
 "No, I cannot, I dare not tell you about it, but this much 
 I will say in order to sweeten this bitter evening; we have 
 dug the pit for our enemy, and if my golden Phaedime will 
 only do what I tell her, I hope to give her back her old place, 
 and not only that, but even a higher one." 
 
 "Tell me what I am to do; I am ready for anything and 
 everything." 
 
 "That was well and bravely spoken; like a true lioness. 
 If you obey me we must succeed; and the harder the task
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 233 
 
 the higher the reward. Don't dispute what I am going to 
 say, for we have not a minute to lose. Take off all your 
 useless ornaments and only wear the. chain the king gave 
 you on your marriage. Put on a dark, simple dress instead 
 of this bright one; and when you have prostrated yourself 
 before Kassandane, bow down humbly before the Egyptian 
 princess, too." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "I will not be contradicted. Take off those ornaments at 
 once, I entreat you. There, that is right. We cannot succeed 
 unless you obey me. How white your neck is. The fairest 
 peri would look dark by your side." 
 
 -But " 
 
 "When your turn conies to ask a favor of the king tell him 
 you have no wishes now that the sun of your life has with- 
 drawn his light." 
 
 "Yes, that I will do." 
 
 "When your father asks after your welfare you must weep." 
 
 "I will do that, too/' 
 
 "And so that all the Achaemenidae can see that you are 
 weeping." 
 
 "That will be a fearful humiliation!" 
 
 "Not at all ; only a means by which to rise the more surely. 
 Wash the red color from your cheeks and put on white pow- 
 der. Make yourself pale paler still." 
 
 "Yes, I shall need that to hide my blushes. Boges, you 
 are asking something fearful of me, but I will obey you if 
 you will only give me a reason." 
 
 "Girl, bring your mistress' new dark-green robe." 
 
 "I shall look like a slave." 
 
 "True grace is lovely even in rags." 
 
 "The Egyptian will completely eclipse me." 
 
 "Yes, everyone must see that you have not the slightest 
 intention of comparing yourself with her. Then people will 
 say: 'Would not Phaedime be as beautiful as this proud 
 woman, if she had taken the same pains to make herself so?' " 
 
 "But I cannot bow down before her." 
 
 "You must." 
 
 "You only want to humble and ruin me." 
 
 "Short-sighted fool ! listen to my reasons, and obey. I want 
 especially to excite the Achaemenidae against our enemy.
 
 240 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 How it will enrage your grandfather Intaphernes and your 
 father Otanes to see you in the dust before a stranger! Their 
 wounded pride will bring them over to our side, and if they 
 are too 'noble,' as they call it, to undertake anything them- 
 selves against a woman, still they will be more likely to help 
 than to hinder us, if I should need their assistance. Then, 
 when the Egyptian is ruined, if you have done as I wish, the 
 king will remember your sad, pale face, your humility and 
 forgetfulness of self. The Achaemenidae, and even the Magi, 
 will beg him to take a queen from his own family ; and where 
 in all Persia is there a woman who can boast of better birth 
 than you? Who else can wear the royal purple but my bright 
 bird of paradise, my beautiful rose Phaedime? With such 
 a prize in prospect we must no more fear a little humiliation 
 than a man who is learning to ride fears a fall from his 
 horse." 
 
 And she, princess as she was, answered: "I will obey you." 
 "Then we are certain of victory," said the eunuch. "There, 
 now your eyes are flashing darkly again, as I like to see them, 
 my queen. And so Cambyses shall see you when the tender 
 flesh of the Egyptian shall have become food for dogs and 
 the birds of the air, and when, for the first time after long 
 months of absence I bring him once more to the door of 
 your apartments. Here, Armorges! tell the rest of the women 
 to get ready and enter their litters. I will go on and be there 
 to show them their places 1 ." 
 
 The great banqueting-hall was bright as day even brighter 
 from the light of thousands of candles, whose rays were 
 reflected in the gold plates forming the paneling of the walls. 
 A table of interminable length stood in the middle of the 
 hall, overloaded with gold and silver cups, plates, dishes, 
 bowls, jugs, goblets-, ornaments and incense-altars, and looked 
 like a splendid scene from fairy-land. 
 
 "The king will soon be here," called out the head steward 
 of the table, one of the great court lords, to the king's cup- 
 bearer, who was a member of the royal family. "Are all the 
 wine-jugs full, has the wine been tasted, are the goblets
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 24l 
 
 fanged in order, and the skins sent by Polykrates, have they 
 been emptied?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the cup-bearer, "everything is ready, and 
 that Chian wine is better than any I ever tasted; indeed, in 
 my opinion, even the Syrian* is not to be compared to it. 
 Only taste it." 
 
 So saying he took a graceful little golden goblet from the 
 table in one hand, raised a wine-pitcher of the same costly 
 metal with the other, swung the latter high into the air and 
 poured the wine so cleverly into the narrow neck of the little 
 vessel that not a drop was lost, though the liquid formed a 
 wide curve in its- descent. He then presented the goblet to 
 the head steward with the tips of his fingers, bowing grace- 
 fully as he did so.f 
 
 The latter sipped the delicious wine, testing its flavor with 
 great deliberation, and said, on returning the cup: "I agree 
 with you; it is indeed a noble wine, and tastes twice as well 
 when presented with such inimitable grace. Strangers are 
 quite right in saying that there are no cup-bearers like the 
 Persian." 
 
 "Thanks for this praise," replied the other, kissing his 
 friend's forehead. "Yes, I am proud of my office, and it is 
 one which the king only gives to his friends. Still, it is a 
 great plague to have to stay so long in this hot, suffocating 
 Babylon. Shall we ever be off for the summer to Ekbatana 
 or Pasargadae?" 
 
 "I was talking to the king about it to-day. He had intended 
 not to leave before the Massagetan war, and to go straight 
 from Babylon into the field, but to-day's embassy has changed 
 matters; it is probable that there may be no war, and then 
 we shall go to Susa three days after the king's marriage 
 that is, in one week from the present time." 
 
 "To Susa?" cried the cup-bearer. "It's- very little cooler 
 there than here, and, besides, the old Memnon's castle is being 
 rebuilt"! 
 
 *The Chian wine was the most esteemed by the Greeks. The wine 
 of Byblus (Gebal) in Syria was celebrated on acount of its exquisite 
 flavor. 
 
 fXenoph. "Cyrop.," i, 3, 8, praises the Persian cup-bearers highly for 
 -, their dexterity and grace. 
 
 \ JThe citadel of Susa was called by the ancients, and also by Ktesies, 
 v. who lived a long time at the Persian court as physician, the castle of
 
 242 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "The satrap of Susa has just brought word that the new 
 palace is finished, and that nothing so brilliant- has ever been 
 seen. Directly Cambyses heard it he said: 'Then we will 
 start for Susa three days after our marriage. I should like 
 to show the Egyptian princess that we understand the art 
 of building as well as her own ancestors. She is accustomed 
 to hot weather on the Nile, and will not find our beautiful 
 Susa too w-arrn.' The king seems wonderfully fond of this 
 woman." 
 
 "He does, indeed! All other women have become perfectly 
 indifferent to him, and he means soon to make her his queen." 
 
 "That is unjust; Phaedime, as a daughter of the Achae- 
 menidae, has an older and better right." 
 
 "No doubt; but whatever the king wishes must be right." 
 
 "The ruler's will is the will of God." 
 
 "Well said. A true Persian will kiss his king's hand even 
 when dripping with the blood of his own child." 
 
 "Cambyses ordered my brother's execution, but I bear him 
 no more ill-will for it than I should the gods for depriving 
 me of my parents 4 . Here, you fellows, draw the curtains back; 
 the guests are coming.- Look sharp, you dogs, and do your 
 duty! Farewell, Artabazos, we shall have warm work to- 
 night." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The principal steward of the banquet went forward to meet 
 the guests as they entered, and, assisted by other noble staff- 
 bearers (chamberlains and masters of the ceremonies), led 
 them to their appointed places. 
 
 When they were all seated a flourish of trumpets announced 
 that the king was near. As he entered the liall everyone 
 rose, and the multitude received him with a thundering shout 
 of "Victory to the king!" again and again repeated. 
 
 The way to his seat was marked by a purple Sardian car- 
 
 Memnon. Ktesias, in "Diodor.," ii, 22. "Herod.," vii, 151, v. 53, 54. 
 Aeschylus in "Strabo," p. 718. In Fr. Jacobs' "Vermischten-Schriften" 
 the best remarks on Memnon as a mythical character are to be found.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 243 
 
 pet, only to be trodden by himself and Kassandane. His 
 blind mother, led by Croesus, went first and took her seat 
 at the head of the table on a throne somewhat higher than 
 the golden chair for Cambyses* which stood by it The king's 
 lawful wives sat on his left hand; Nitetis next to him, then 
 Atossa, and by her side" the pale, plainly dressed Phaedime; 
 next to this last wife of Cambyses sat Boges, the eunuch. 
 Then came the high-priest Oropastes, some of the principal 
 Magi, the satraps of various provinces (among them the Jew 
 Belteshazzar), and a number of Persians, Medes and eunuchs, 
 all holding high offices under the crown. 
 
 Bartja sat at the king's right hand, and after him Croesus, 
 Hystaspes, Gobryas, Araspes and others of the Achaemenidae, 
 according to their rank and. age. Of the concubines, the 
 greater number sat at the foot of the table ; s-ome stood oppo- 
 site to Cambyses and enlivened the banquet by songs and 
 music. A number of eunuchs stood behind them, whose 
 duty it was to see that they did not raise their eyes toward 
 the men.f 
 
 Cambyses' first glance was bestowed on Nitetis 1 ; she sat 
 by him in all the splendor and dignity of a queen, but look- 
 ing very, very pale in her new purple robes. 
 
 Their eyes met, and Cambyses felt that such a look could 
 only come from one who loved him very dearly. But his 
 own love told him that something had troubled her. There 
 was a sad seriousness about her mouth, and a slight cloud, 
 which only he could see, seemed to veil the usually calm, 
 clear and cheerful expression of her eyes. "I will ask her 
 afterward what has happened," thought he, "but it will not 
 do to let my subjects see how much I love this girl." 
 
 He kissed his mother, sister, brother and his nearest rela- 
 tions on the forehead said a short prayer thanking the gods 
 for their mercies and entreating a happy new year for him- 
 self and the Persians named the immense sum he intended 
 to present to his countrymen on this day, and then called on 
 the staff-bearers to bring the petitioners before his face who 
 I hoped to obtain some reasonable request from the king on 
 < this day of grace. 
 
 j *Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," 5. 
 
 , f'Herod.," ix, 110, 111. "Book of Esther," i, 10, 11. Brisson. "Regn. 
 Persarum Princip." i, c, 103.
 
 244 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 As every petitioner had been obliged to lay his request 
 before the principal staff-bearer the day before, in order to 
 ascertain whether it was admissible, they all received satis- 
 factory answers. The petitions 1 of the women had been inquired 
 into by the eunuchs in the same manner, and they, too, were 
 now conducted before their lord and master by Boges, Kas-- 
 sandane alone remaining seated. 
 
 The long procession was opened by Nitetis and Atossa, 
 and the two princesses were immediately followed by Phaedime 
 and another beauty. The latter was magnificently dressed 
 and had been paired with Phaedime by Boges, in order to 
 make the almost poverty-stricken simplicity of the fallen favor- 
 ite more apparent. 
 
 Intaphernes and Otanes looked as annoyed as Boges had 
 expected, on seeing their grandchild and daughter so pale 
 and in such miserable array in the midst of all this splendor 
 and magnificence. 
 
 Cambyses had had experience of Phaedime's former extrav- 
 agance in matters of dress, and when he saw her standing 
 before him so plainlv dressed and so pale, looked both angry 
 and astonished. His brow darkened, and as she bent low 
 before him he asked her, in an angry and tyrannical tone: 
 "What is the meaning of this beggarly dress at my table, on 
 the day set apart in my honor? Have_you forgotten that in 
 our country it is the custom never to appear unadorned before 
 the king? Verily, if it were not my birthday, and if I did not 
 owe you some consideration as the daughter of our dearest 
 kinsman, I should order the eunuchs to take you back to 
 the harem, that you might have time to think over your con- 
 duct in solitude." 
 
 These words rendered the mortified woman's task much 
 easier. She began to weep loud and bitterly, raising her 
 hands and eyes to her angry lord in such a beseeching man- 
 ner that his anger was changed into compassion and he raised 
 her from the ground with the question: "Have you a petition 
 to ask of me?" 
 
 "What can I find to wish for now that the sun of my life 
 has withdrawn his light?" was her faltering answer, hindered 
 by sobs. 
 
 Cambyses shrugged his shoulders- and asked again: "Is 
 there nothing, then, that you wish for? I used to be able to
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 245 
 
 dry your tears with presents; ask me for some golden com- 
 fort to-day." 
 
 "Phaedime has nothing left to wish for now. For whom 
 can she put on jewels when her king, her husband, withdraws 
 the light of his countenance?'' 
 
 "Then I can do nothing for you." exclaimed Cambyses, 
 turning away angrily from the kneeling woman. 
 
 Boges had been quite right in advising Phaedime to paint 
 herself with white, for underneath the pale color her cheeks 
 were burning with shame and anger. But, in spite of all, 
 she controlled her passionate feelings, made the same deep 
 obeisance to Nitetis as to the queen mother and allowed her 
 tears to flow fast and freely in sight of all the Achaemenidae. 
 
 Otanes and Intaphernes could scarcely suppress their indig- 
 nation at seeing their daughter and grandchild thus humbled, 
 and many an Achaemenidae looked on, feeling deep sym- 
 pathy with the unhappy Phaedime and a hidden grudge 
 against the favored, beautiful stranger. 
 
 The formalities were at last at an end and the feast began. 
 Just before the king, in a golden basket, and gracefully bor- 
 dered round with other fruits, lay a gigantic pomegranate, as 
 large as a child's head.* 
 
 Cambyses noticed it now for the first time, examined its 
 enormous size and rare beauty with the eye of a connoisseur, 
 and said: "Who grew this w r onderful pomegranate?" 
 
 "Thy servant Oropastes," answered the chief of the Magi, 
 with a low obeisance. "For many years I have studied the 
 art of gardening, and have ventured to lay this, the most 
 beautiful fruit of my labors, at the feet of my king."f 
 
 "I owe you thanks," cried the king. "My friends, this 
 pomegranate will assist me in the choice of a governor at 
 home when we go out to war; for, by Mithras, the man who 
 can cherish and foster a little tree so carefully will do greater 
 things than these. What a splendid fruit! Surely its like 
 
 *The pishkesh, or gift, which the Persians of the present day are in 
 the habit of presenting to their guests usually consists of sweets or 
 baskets of fruit arranged in the most graceful manner. Brugsch, in 
 his "Reise Nach Persien," praises very highly the good taste with 
 which these baskets are arranged. 
 
 tThe story which follows in the text is told by Aelian ("V. H.," i, 23) 
 of Artaxerxes and a certain Omises.
 
 246 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 was never seen before. I thank you again, Oropastes, and, 
 as the thanks- of a king must never consist of empty words 
 alone, I name you at once vicegerent of my entire kingdom, 
 in case of war. For we shall not dream away our time much 
 longer in this idle rest, my friends. A Persian gets low-spirited 
 without the joys of war." 
 
 A murmur of applause ran through the ranks of the Achae- 
 menidae, and fresh shouts of "Victory to the king" resounded 
 through the hall. Their anger on account of the humiliation 
 of a woman was quickly forgotten; thoughts of coming bat- 
 tles, undying renown and conqueror's laurels to be won by 
 deeds of arms, and recollections of their former mighty deeds 
 raised the spirits of the revelers. 
 
 The king himself was more moderate than usual to-day, 
 but he encouraged his guests to drink, enjoying their noisy 
 merriment and overflowing mirth, taking, however, far more 
 pleasure still in the fascinating beauty of the Egyptian princess, 
 who sat at his side, paler than usual, and thoroughly exhausted 
 by the exertions of the morning and the unaccustomed weight 
 of the high tiara. He had never felt so happy as cvn this day. 
 What, indeed, could he wish for more than he already pos- 
 sessed? Had not the gods given him everything that a man 
 could desire? and, over and above all this, had they not flung 
 into his lap the precious gift of love? His usual inflexibility 
 seemed to have changed into benevolence and his stern sever- 
 ity into good-nature as he turned to his brother Bartja with 
 the words: "Come, brother, have you forgotten my promise? 
 Don't you know that to-day you are sure of gaining the dear- 
 est wish of your heart from me? That's right, drain the 
 goblet and take courage! but do not ask anything small, for 
 I am in the mood to give largely to-day. Ah! it is a s-ecret! 
 Come nearer, then. I am really curious to know what the 
 most fortunate youth in my entire kingdom can long for so 
 much that he blushes like a girl when his wish is spoken of." 
 
 Bartja, whose cheeks were really glowing from agitation, 
 bent his head close to his brother's ear and whispered shortly 
 the story of hi* love. Sappho's father had helped to defend 
 his native town, Phocaea,* against the hosts of Cyrus, and this 
 fact the boy cleverly brought forward, speaking of the girl 
 
 *See note p. 13.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 247 
 
 he loved as the daughter of a Greek warrior of noble birth. 
 In so saying he spoke the truth, but at the same time he sup- 
 pressed the fact* that this very father had acquired great 
 riches by mercantile undertakings. He then told his- brother 
 how charming, cultivated and loving his Sappho was, and 
 was just going to call on Croesus for a confirmation of his 
 words when Cambyses interrupted him by kissing his forehead 
 and saying: "You need say no more, brother; do what 
 your heart bids you. I know the power of love, too, and I will 
 help you to gain our mother's cons-ent." 
 
 Bartja threw himself at his brother's feet, overcome with 
 gratitude and joy, but Cambyses raised him kindly, and, look- 
 ing especially at Nitetis and Kassandane, exclaimed: "Listen, 
 my dear ones; the stem of Cyrus is going to blossom afresh, 
 for our brother Bartja has- resolved to put an end to his single 
 life so displeasing to the gocls.f In a few days the young 
 lover will leave us for your country, Nitetis, and will bring 
 back another jewel from the shores of the Nile to our moun- 
 tain home." 
 
 "What is the matter, sister?" cried Atossa, before her brother 
 had finished speaking. Nitetis had fainted, and Atossa was 
 sprinkling her forehead with wine as she lay in her arms. 
 
 "What was it?" asked the blind Kassandane, when Nitetis 
 had awakened to consciousness a few moments later. 
 
 "The joy the happiness- Tachot," faltered Nitetis. 
 
 Cambyses, as well as his sister, had sprung to the fainting 
 girl's help. When she had recovered consciousness he asked 
 her to take some wine to revive her completely, gave her 
 the cup with his own hand, and then went on at the point 
 at which he had left off in his account: "Bartja is- going 
 to your own country, my wife to Naukratis on the Nile 
 to fetch thence the granddaughter of a certain Rhodopis and 
 
 *The Persians were forbidden by law to contract debts, because 
 debtors were necessarily led to say much that was untrue. "Herod.," 
 i, 138. For this reason they held all money transactions in contempt, 
 such occupations being also very uncongenial to their military tastes. 
 They despised commerce and abandoned it to the conquered nations. 
 
 tThe Persians were commanded by their religion to marry, and the 
 unmarried were held up to ridicule. "Vendid.," iv, "Fargard," 130. 
 The highest duty of man was to create and promote life, and to have 
 many children was, therefore, considered praiseworthy. "Herod.," 1, 
 136.
 
 248 AN EGYPTIAN 'PRINCESS. 
 
 daughter of a noble warrior, a native of the brave town of 
 Phocaea, as his wife." 
 
 "What was that?" cried the blind queen-mother. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" exclaimed Atossa again, 
 in an anxious, almost reproachful tone. 
 
 "Nitetis!" cried Croesus, admonishingly. But the warning 
 came too late; the cup which her royal lover had given her 
 slipped from her hands and fell ringing onto the floor. All 
 eyes were fixed on the king's features 1 in anxious suspense. 
 He had sprung from his seat, pale as death; his lips trembled 
 and his fist was clinched. 
 
 Nitetis looked up at her lover imploringly, but he was afraid 
 of meeting those wonderful, fascinating eyes, and turned his 
 head away, saying, in a hoarse voice: "Take the women back 
 to their apartments 1 , Boges. I have seen enough of them 
 let us begin our drinking-bout good-night, my mother; take 
 care how you nourish vipers with your heart's blood. Sleep 
 well, Egyptian, and pray to the gods to give you a more 
 equal power of dissembling your feelings. To-morrow, my 
 friends, we will go out hunting. Here, cup-bearer, give me 
 wine! fill the large goblet, but taste it well yes, well for 
 to-day I am afraid of poison; to-day for the first time. Do 
 you hear, Egyptian? I am afraid of poison! and every child 
 knows ah ha that all the poison, as well as the medicine,* 
 comes from Egypt." 
 
 Nitetis 4 left the hall, she hardly knew how more stagger- 
 ing than walking. Boges accompanied her, telling the bear- 
 ers to make haste. 
 
 When they reached the hanging-gardens he gave her up 
 to the care of the eunuch in, attendance, and took his leave, 
 not respectfully, as usual, but chuckling, rubbing his hands 
 and speaking in an intimate and confidential tone: "Dream 
 about the handsome Bartja and his Egyptian lady-love, my 
 
 *The reputation of Egypt for medicines was known even to Homer. 
 The number of different drugs mentioned in the inscriptions on the 
 walls of the temple laboratories, especially at Dendera and Edfpo 
 (published by Dumichen), and in the medical papyri, is surprising. 
 "Odyssey," iv, 299. "Pliny," xxv, 2, mentions the great number of use- 
 ful herbs which flourished on the shores of the Nile. Neither were the 
 Egyptian poisons less celebrated, especially the strychnus. "Plin.," 
 xxi, 15. The Halicacadon, called by Homer ("Odyss.," 304) /iafa>, 
 was a very strong Egyptian poison.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 249 
 
 white Nile kitten ! Haven't you any message for the beautiful 
 boy whose love-story frightened you so terribly? Think a 
 little. Poor Boges will very gladly play the go-between; the 
 poor, despised Boges wishes you so well the humble Boges 
 will be so sorry when he sees the proud palm-tree from Sais 
 cut down. Boges is a prophet; he foretells you a speedy re- 
 turn home to Egypt, or a quiet bed in the black earth in Baby- 
 lon, and the kind Boges wishes you a peaceful sleep. Farewell, 
 my broken flower, my gay, bright viper, wounded by its own 
 sting, my pretty fir-cone, fallen from the tall pine tree !" 
 
 "How dare you speak in this impudent manner?" said the 
 indignant princess. 
 
 "Thank you," answered the wretch, smiling. 
 
 "I shall complain of your conduct," threatened Nitetis. 
 
 "You are very amiable," answered Boges. 
 
 "Go out of my sight!" she cried. 
 
 "I will obey your kind and gentle hints," he answered, softly, 
 as if whispering words of love in her ear. 
 
 She started back in disgust and fear at these scornful words ; 
 she saw how full of terror they were for her, turned her back 
 on him and went quickly into the house, but his voice rang 
 after her: "Don't forget me, my lovely queen, think of me 
 now and then; for everything that happens in the next few 
 days will be a keepsake from the poor, despised Boges." 
 
 As soon as she had disappeared he changed his tone, and 
 commanded the sentries in the severest and most tyrannical 
 manner to keep a strict watch over the hanging-gardens. 
 "Certain death," said he, "to whichever of you allows anyone 
 but myself to enter these gardens. No one, remember no 
 one and least of all messengers from the queen-mother, 
 Atossa or any of the great people, may venture to set foot on 
 these steps. If Croesus or Oropastes should wish to speak to 
 the Egyptian princess refuse them decidedly. Do you under- 
 stand? I repeat it, whoever is begged or bribed into dis- 
 obedience will not see the light of to-morrow's sun. Nobody 
 may enter these gardens without express permission from my 
 own mouth. I think you know me. Here, take these gold 
 staters, your work will be heavier now ; but remember, I swear 
 by Mithras not to spare one of you who is careless or dis- 
 obedient." 
 
 The men made a due obeisance and determined to obev:
 
 250 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 they knew that Boges' threats were never meant in joke, and 
 fancied something great must be coming to pass, as the stingy 
 eunuch never spent his staters without good reason. 
 
 Boges was carried back to the banquet-hall in the same 
 litter which had brought Nitetis away. 
 
 The king's wives had left; but the concubines were still 
 standing in there appointed place, singing their monotonous 
 songs, though quite unheard by the uproarious men. 
 
 The drinkers had already long forgotten the fainting woman. 
 The uproar and confusion rose with every fresh wine-cup. 
 They forgot the dignity of the place where they were assembled 
 and the presence of their mighty ruler. 
 
 They shouted in their drunken joy; warriors embraced one 
 another with a tenderness only excited by wine; here and 
 there a ndVice was carried away in the arms- of a pair of sturdy 
 attendants, while an old hand at the work would seize a wine 
 jug instead of a goblet and drain it at a draught amid the 
 cheers of the lookers-on. 
 
 The king sat at the head of the table, pale as death, staring 
 into the wine-cup as if unconscious of what was going on 
 around him. But at the sight of his brother his fist clinched. 
 
 He would neither speak to him nor answer his questions. 
 The longer he sat there gazing into vacancy the firmer became 
 his conviction that Nitetis had deceived him; that she had 
 pretended to love him while her heart really belonged to Bartja. 
 How shamefully they had made sport of him! How deeply 
 rooted must have been the faithlessness of this clever hypocrite, 
 if the mere news that his brother loved some one else could 
 not only destroy all her powers of dissimulation, but actually 
 deprive her of consciousness! 
 
 When Nitetis left the hall Otanes, the father of Phaedime, 
 had called out: "The Egyptian women seem to take great 
 interest in the love affairs of their brothers-in-law. The Per- 
 sian women are not so generous with their feelings; they 
 keep them for their husbands." 
 
 Cambyses was too proud to let it be seen that he had heard 
 these words; like the ostrich, he feigned deafness and blind- 
 ness in order not to seem aware of the looks and murmurs of 
 his guests, which all went to prove that he had been deceived. 
 
 Bartja could have had no share in her perfidy; she had 
 love<J this handsome youth, and perhaps- the more because
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 251 
 
 she had not been able to hope for a return of her love. If 
 he had had the slightest suspicion of his brother he would 
 have killed him on the spot. Bartja was certainly innocent 
 of any share in the deception and in his brother's misery, but 
 still he was the cause of all; so the old grudge, which had only 
 just been allowed to slumber, awoke again; and, as a relapse 
 is always more dangerous than the original illness, the newly 
 roused anger was more violent than what he had formerly felt. 
 
 He thought and thought, but he could not devise a fitting 
 punishment for this false woman. . Her death would not con- 
 tent his vengeance she must suffer something worse than 
 mere death. 
 
 Should he send her back to Egypt disgraced and shamed? 
 Oh, no! she loved her country, and she would be received 
 by her parents with open arms. Should he, after she had 
 confessed her guilt (for he was determined to force a confes- 
 sion from her), shut her up in a solitary dungeon, or should 
 he deliver her over to Boges to be the servant of his concu- 
 bines? Yes! now he had hit upon the right punishment. 
 Thus the faithless creature should be disciplined, and the 
 hypocrite who had dared to make sport of him the all-power- 
 ful forced to atone for her crimes. 
 
 Then he said to himself: "Bartja must not stay here; fire 
 and water have more in common than we two he always 
 fortunate and happy, and I so miserable. Some day or other 
 his descendants will divide my treasures and wear my crown; 
 but as yet I am king, and will show that I am." 
 
 The thought of his proud, powerful position flashed through 
 him like lightning. He woke from his dreams into new life, 
 flung his golden goblet far into the hall, so that the wine flew 
 round like rain, and cried: "We have had enough of this idle 
 talk and useless noise. Let us hold a council of war, drunken 
 as we are,* and consider what answer we ought to give the 
 Massagetae. Hystaspes, you are the eldest; give us your 
 opinion first. 
 
 Hystaspes, the father of Darius, was an old man. He an- 
 swered: "It seems to me that the messengers of this wander- 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 134. The Persians deliberated and resolved when 
 they were intoxicated, and when they were sober reconsidered their 
 determinations. Tacitus tells the same of the old Germans. "Germ.." 
 0,22.
 
 252 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ing tribe have left us no choice. We cannot go to war against 
 desert wastes; but as our host is already under arms and our 
 swords^ have long lain in their scabbards, war we must have. 
 We want only a few good enemies, and I know no easier work 
 than to make them." 
 
 At these words the Persians broke into loud shouts of de- 
 light; but Croesus only waited till the noise had ceased to say: 
 "Hystaspes, you and I are both old men; but you are a 
 thorough Persian and fancy you can only be happy in battle 
 and bloodshed. You are now obliged to lean for support on 
 the staff which used to be the badge of your rank as com- 
 mander, and yet you speak like a hot-blooded boy. I agree 
 with you that enemies are easy enough to find, but only fools 
 go out to look for them. The man who tries to make enemies 
 is like a wretch who mutilates his own body. If the enemies 
 are there let us go out to meet them like wise men who 
 wish to look misfortune boldly in the face; but let us never 
 try to begin an unjust war hateful to the gods. We will wait 
 until wrong has been done us, and then go to victory or 
 death, conscious that we have right on our side." 
 
 The old man was interrupted by a low murmur of applause, 
 drowned, however, quickly by cries of "Hystaspes is right! 
 let us look for an enemy!" 
 
 It was now the turn of the envoy Prexaspes to speak, and 
 he answered, laughing: "Let us follow the advice of both 
 these noble old men. We will do as Croesus bids us and not 
 go out to seek an enemy, but at the same time we will follow 
 Hystaspes' advice by raising our claims and pronouncing 
 everyone our enemy who does not cheerfully consent to 
 become a member of the kingdom founded by our great father, 
 Cyrus. For instance, we will ask the Indians if they would 
 feel proud to obey your scepter, Cambyses. If they answer no 
 it is a sign that they do not love us, and whoever does not 
 love us must be our enemy." 
 
 "That won't do," cried Zopyrtis. "We must have war at 
 any price." 
 
 "I vote for Croesus," cried Gobryas. 
 
 "And I, too," said the noble Artabazus. 
 
 "We- are for Hystaspes," shouted the warrior Araspes, the 
 old Tntaphernes, and some more of Cyrus* old companions 
 in arms.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 253 
 
 "War \vc must have at any price,'' roared the general Mega- 
 byzus, the father of Zopyrus, striking the table so sharply 
 with his heavy fist that the golden vessels rang again and 
 some goblets even fell; "but not with the Massagetae not 
 with a flying foe." 
 
 "There must be no war with the Massagetae," said the high- 
 priest Oropastes. "The gods themselves have avenged Cyrus' 
 death upon them." 
 
 Cambyses sat for some moments, quietly and coldly watch- 
 ing the unrestrained enthusiasm of his warriors, and then, 
 rising from his- seat, thundered out the words: "Silence, and 
 listen to your king!" 
 
 The words worked like magic en this multitude of drunken 
 men. Even those who were most under the influence of wine 
 listened to their king in a kind of unconscious obedience. 
 He lowered his voice and went on: "I did not ask whether you 
 wished for peace or war I know that every Persian prefers 
 the labor of war to an inglorious idleness but I wished to 
 know what answer you would give the Massagetan warriors. 
 Do you consider that the soul of my father of the m>m to 
 whom you owe all your greatness has been sufficiently 
 avenged?'' 
 
 A dull murmur in the affirmative, interrupted by some vio- 
 lent voices in the negative, was the answer. The king then 
 asked a second question: "Shall we accept the conditions 
 proposed by their envoys and grant peace to this nation, 
 already so scourged and desolated by the gods?" 
 
 To this they all agreed eagerly. 
 
 "That is what I wished to know," continued Cambyses. 
 "To-morrow, when we are sober, we will follow the old custom 
 and reconsider what has been resolved on during our intox- 
 ication. Drink on, all of you, as long as the night lasts. To- 
 morrow at the last crow of the sacred bird parodar* I shall 
 expect you to meet me for the chase at the gate of the temple 
 of Bel." 
 
 So saying, the king left the hall, followed by a thundering 
 
 *The cock was held sacred by the Persians because it scared the 
 dark divs of night back into their dens. Jasht, "A van," 21. It was 
 called parodar (parodarsh) and also kahrkatac, (he who raises and 
 lowers his comb). "Vendid.," xviii, 34.
 
 254 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Victory to the king!" Boges had slipped out quietly before 
 him. In the forecourt he found one of the gardener's boys 
 from the hanging-gardens. 
 
 "What do you want here?" asked Boges. 
 
 "I have something for the prince Bartja." 
 
 "For Bartja? Has he asked your master to send him 
 some seeds or slips?" 
 
 The boy shook his simburned head and smiled roguishly. 
 
 "Someone else sent you, then?" said Boges, becoming more 
 attentive. 
 
 "Yes, someone else." 
 
 "Ah! the Egyptian has sent a message to her brother-in- 
 law?" 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "Nitetis spoke to me about it. Here, give me what you 
 have; I will give it to Bartja at once." 
 
 "I was not to give it to anyone but the prince himself." 
 
 "Give it to me; it will be safer in my hands than in yours 1 ." 
 
 "I dare not." 
 
 "Obey me at once, or " 
 
 At.this moment the king came up. Boges thought a moment, 
 and then called^ in a loud voice to the whip-bearers on duty 
 at the palace gate to take the astonished boy up. 
 
 "What is the matter here?" asked Cambyses. 
 
 "This fellow," answered the eunuch, "has had the audacity 
 to make his way into the palace with a message from your 
 consort Nitetis to Bartja." 
 
 At the sight of the king the boy had fallen on his knees, 
 touching the ground with his forehead. 
 
 Cambyses looked at him and turned deadly pale. Then, 
 turning to the eunuch, he asked: "What does the Egyptian 
 princess wish from my brother?" 
 
 "The boy declares that he has orders to give up what has 
 been intrusted to him to no one but Bartja." 
 
 On hearing this the boy looked imploringly up at the king 
 and held out a little papyrus roll. 
 
 Cambyses snatched it out of his hand, but the next moment 
 stamped furiously on the ground on seeing that the letter 
 was written in Greek, which he could not read. 
 
 He collected himself, however, and with an awful look, 
 asked the boy who had given him the letter.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 255 
 
 "The Egyptian lady's waiting-woman, Mandane," he an- 
 swered; "the Magian's daughter." 
 
 "For my brother Bartja?" 
 
 "She said I was to give the letter to the handsome prince 
 before the banquet with a greeting from h'er mistress Nitetis, 
 and I was to tell him " 
 
 Here the king stamped so furiously that the boy was fright- 
 ened and could only stammer: "Before the banquet the prince 
 was walking with you, so I could not speak to him, and now 
 I am waiting for him here, for Mandane promised to give 
 me a piece of gold if I did what she told me cleverly." 
 
 "And that you have not done," thundered the king, fancy- 
 ing himself shamefully deceived. "No, indeed, you have not. 
 Here, guards, seize this fellow!" 
 
 The boy begged and prayed, but all in vain; the whip- 
 bearers seized him quick as thought, and Cambyses, who 
 went off at once to his own apartments, was soon out of reach 
 of his whining entreaties for mercy. 
 
 Boges followed his- master, rubbing his fat hands and laugh- 
 ing quietly to himself. 
 
 The king's attendants began their work of disrobing him, 
 but he told them angrily to leave him at once. 
 
 As soon as they were gone he called Boges and said, in a 
 low voice: "From this time forward the hanging-gardens 
 and the Egyptian are under your control. Watch her care- 
 fully! If a single human being or a message reaches her 
 without my knowledge your life will be the forfeit." 
 
 "But if Kassandane or Atossa should send to see her?" 
 
 "Turn the messengers away, and send word that every 
 attempt to see or communicate with Nitetis will be regarded 
 by me as a personal offense." 
 
 "May I ask a favor for myself, O king?" 
 
 "The time is not well chosen for asking favors." 
 
 "I feel ill. Permit someone else to take charge of the 
 hanging-gardens for to-morrow only." 
 
 "No! Now leave me." 
 
 "I am in a burning fever and have lost consciousness three 
 times during the day. .If, when I am in that state, anyone 
 should " 
 
 "But who could tak e your place?" 
 
 "The Lydian captain of the eunuchs, Kandaules. He is
 
 256 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 true as gold and inflexibly severe. One day of rest would 
 restore me to health. Have mercy, O king!" 
 
 "No one is so badly s-erved as the king himself. Kandaules 
 may take your place to-morrow, but give him the strictest 
 orders, and say that the slightest neglect will put his life 
 in danger. Now, depart." 
 
 "Yet one word, my king: to-morrow night the rare blue 
 lily in the hanging-gardens will open. Hystaspes, Intaphernes, 
 Gobryas, Croesus and Oropastes, the greatest horticulturists 
 at your court, would very much like to see it. May they be 
 allowed to visit the gardens for a few minutes? Kandaules 
 shall see that they enter into no communication with the 
 Egyptian." 
 
 "Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he cares for his 
 own life. Go!" 
 
 Boges made a deep obeisance and left the king's apartments. 
 He threw a few gold pieces to the slaves who bore the torches 
 before him. He was so very happy. Everything had suc- 
 ceeded beyond his expectations; the fate of Nitetis was as 
 good as decided, and he held the life of Kandaules, his hated 
 colleague, in his own hands. 
 
 Cambyses 1 spent the night in pacing up and down his apart- 
 ment. By cock-crow he had decided that Nitetis should be 
 forced to confess her guilt, and then be sent into the great 
 harem to wait on the concubines. Bartja, the destroyer of 
 his happiness, should be set off at once for Egypt, and on 
 his return become the satrap of some distant provinces. He 
 did not wish to incur the guilt of a brother's- murder, but he 
 knew his own temper too well not to fear that in a moment 
 of sudden anger he might kill one he hated so much, and, 
 therefore, wished to remove him out of the reach of his 
 passion. 
 
 Two hours after the sun had risen Cambyses was riding on 
 his fiery steed, far in front of a countless train of followers 
 armed with shields, swords, lances, bows and lassos, in pursuit 
 of the game which was to be found in the immense preserves 
 near Babylon, and was to be started from its lair by more 
 than a thousand dogs.* 
 
 "The same immense trains of followers, of course, accompanied the 
 kings on their hunting expeditions a s on the ir Journeys. As the Per- 
 sian nobility were very fond of huhting their boys were taught this
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 25? 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The hunt was over. Wagons full of game, among which 
 were several enormous wild boars killed by the king's own 
 hand, were driven home behind the sportsmen. At the palace 
 gates the latter dispersed to their several abodes in order to 
 exchange the simple Persian leather hunting costume for the 
 splendid Median court' dress. 
 
 In the course of the day's sport Cambyses had (with diffi- 
 culty restraining his agitation) given his brother the seem- 
 ingly kind order to start the next day for Egypt in order to 
 fetch Sappho and accompany her to Persia. At the same 
 time he assigned him the revenues of Bactra, Rhagae and 
 Sinope for the maintenance of his new household, and to his 
 young wife all the duties levied from her native town Phocaea 
 as pin-money. 
 
 Bartja thanked his generous brother with undisguised 
 warmth, but Cambyses remained cold as ice, uttered a few 
 farewell words, and then, riding off in pursuit of a wild ass 1 , 
 turned his back upon him. 
 
 On the way home from the chase the prince invited his 
 bosom friends* Croesus, Darius, Zopyrus and Gyges, to drink 
 a parting cup with him. 
 
 sport at an early age. According to Strabo, kings themselves boasted 
 of having been mighty hunters in the inscriptions on their tombs. 
 A relief has been found in the ruins of Persepolis, on which the king 
 is strangling a lion with his right arm. Texier, "Description de 1'Ar- 
 menie," pi. 98. Layard discovered some representations of hunting 
 scenes during his excavations; as, for instance, stags and wild boars 
 among the reeds; and the Greeks often mention the immense troops 
 of followers on horse and foot who attended the kings of Persia when 
 they went hunting. According to Xenophon, "Cyrop.," i, 2, ii, 4, every 
 hunter was obliged to be armed with a bow and arrows, two lances, 
 sword and shield. In Firdusi's "Book of Kings" we read that the lasso 
 was also a favorite weapon. Hawking was well known to the Persians 
 more than nine hundred years ago. "Book of Kabus," xviii, p. 495. 
 The boomerang was used in catching birds as well by the Persians as 
 by the ancient Egyptians and the present savage tribes of New Hol- 
 land. Brugsch tells us that the present Shah of Persia, Nasr-ed-din, 
 is a bold sportsman and passionately fond of hunting. 
 *See note p. 128.
 
 25g AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Croesus promised to join them later, as he had promised 
 to visit the blue lily at the rising of the Tistar star. 
 
 He had been to the hanging-gardens that morning early 
 to visit Nitetis, but had been refused entrance by the guards, 
 and the blue lily seemed now to offer him another chance 
 of seeing and speaking to his beloved pupil. He wished for 
 this very much, as he could not thoroughly understand her 
 behavior the day before, and was uneasy at the strict watch 
 set over her. 
 
 The young Achaemenidae sat cheerfully talking together 
 in the twilight in a shady bower in the royal gardens, cool 
 fountains plashing round them. Araspes, a Persian of high 
 rank, who had been one of Cyrus' friends, had joined them, 
 and did full justice to the prince's excellent wine. 
 
 "Fortunate Bartja!" cried the old bachelor, "going out 
 to a golden country to fetch the woman you love; while I, 
 miserable old fellow, am blamed by everybody,* and totter 
 to my grave without wife or children to weep for me and 
 pray the gods to be merciful to my poor soul." 
 
 "Why think of such things?" cried Zopyrus, flourishing the 
 wine-cup. "There's no woman so perfect that her husband 
 does not, at least once a day, repent that he ever took a wife. 
 Be merry, old friend, and remember that it's all your own 
 fault. If you thought a wife would make you happy why 
 did you not do as I have done? I am only twenty-two years 
 old and have five stately wives and a troop of the most beau- 
 tiful slaves in my house." 
 
 Araspes smiled bitterly. 
 
 "And what hinders you from marrying now?" said Gyges. 
 "You are a match for many a younger man in appearance, 
 strength, courage and perseverance. You are one of the king's 
 nearest relations, too. I tell you, Araspes, you might have 
 twenty young and beautiful wives." 
 
 "Look after your own affairs," answered Araspes. "In 
 your place I certainly should not have waited to marry till I 
 was thirty." 
 
 "An oracle has forbidden my marrying." 
 
 "Folly! how can a sensible man care for what an oracle 
 says? It is only by dreams that the gods announce the future 
 to men. I should have thought that your own father was 
 *See note p. 247.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 25y 
 
 example enough of the shameful way in which those lying 
 priests deceive their best friends." 
 
 "That is a matter which you do not understand, Araspes." 
 
 "And never wish to, boy, for you only believe in oracles 
 because you don't understand them, and in your shortsight- 
 edness call everything that is- beyond your comprehension a 
 miracle. And you place more confidence in anything that 
 seems to you miraculous than in the plain, simple truth that 
 lies before your face. An oracle deceived your father and 
 plunged him into ruin; but the oracle is miraculous, and so 
 you, too, in perfect confidence, allow it to rob you of hap- 
 piness!" 
 
 "That is blasphemy, Araspes. Are the gods to be blamed 
 because we misunderstand their words?" 
 
 "Certainly; for if they wished to benefit us they would 
 give us, with the words, the necessary penetration for discov- 
 ering their meaning. What good does a beautiful speech do 
 me, if it is in a foreign language that I do not understand?" 
 
 "Leave off this useless discussion," said Darius, "and tell 
 us instead, Araspes, how it i's that, though you congratulate 
 every man on becoming a bridegroom, you yourself have so 
 long submitted to be blamed by the priests, slighted at all 
 entertainments and festivals, and abused by the women, only 
 because you choose to live and die a bachelor?" 
 
 Araspes looked down thoughtfully, then shook himself, took 
 a long draught from the wine-cup, and said: "I have my 
 reasons, friends, but I cannot tell them now." 
 
 "Tell them, tell them," was the answer. 
 
 "No, children, I cannot, indeed, I cannot. This cup I drain 
 to the health of the charming Sappho, and this second to 
 your good fortune, my favorite, Darius." 
 
 "Thanks, Araspes!" exclaimed Bartja, joyfully raising his 
 goblet to his lips. 
 
 "You mean well, I know," muttered Darius, looking down 
 gloomily. 
 
 "What's this, you son of Hystaspes?" said the old man 
 looking more narrowly at the serious face of the youth. "Dark 
 looks like these don't sit well on a betrothed lover who is to 
 drink to the health of his dearest one. Is not Gobryas' little 
 daughter the noblest of all the young Persian girls after 
 Atossa? and isn't she beautiful?"
 
 260 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Artystone has every talent and quality that a daughter of 
 the Achaemenidae ought to possess," was Darius' answer, but 
 his brow did not clear as: he said the words. 
 
 "Well, if you want more than that, you must be very hard 
 to please." 
 
 Darius raised his goblet and looked down into the wine. 
 
 "The boy is in love, as sure as my name is Araspes !" 
 exclaimed the elder man. 
 
 "What a set of foolish fellows you are," broke in Zopyrus 
 at this exclamation. "One of you has remained a bachelor 
 in defiance of all Persian customs; another has been frightened 
 out of marrying by an oracle; Bartja has determined to be 
 content with only one wife; and Darius looks like a destur 
 chanting the funeral service because his father has told him 
 to make himself happy with the most beautiful and aristo- 
 cratic girl in all Persia!" 
 
 "Zopyrus is right," cried Araspes. "Darius is ungrateful to 
 fortune." 
 
 Bartja, meanwhile, kept his eyes fixed on the friend who 
 was thus blamed by the others. He saw that their jests an- 
 noyed him, and, feeling his own great happiness doubly in 
 that moment, pressed Darius' hand, saying: "I am so sorry 
 that I cannot be present at your wedding. By the time I come 
 back I hope you will be reconciled to your father's choice." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Darius, "I may be able to show a second 
 and even a third wife by that time." 
 
 "Anahita* grant it!" exclaimed Zopyrus. "The Achae- 
 menidae would soon' become extinct if everyone were to 
 follow such examples as Gyges and Araspes have set us. 
 And your one wife, Bartja, is really not worth talking about. 
 It is your duty to marry three wives at once, in order to keep 
 up your father's family the race of Cyrus 1 ." 
 
 "I hate our custom of marrying many wives," answered 
 Bartja. "Through doing this we make ourselves inferior to 
 the women, for we expect them to remain faithful to us all our 
 lives, and we, who are bound to respect truth and faithfulness 
 above everything else, swear inviolable love to one woman to- 
 day and to another to-morrow." 
 
 "Nonsense," cried Zopyrus. "I'd rather lose my tongue 
 
 *See note p. 190.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 261 
 
 i, An tell a lie to a man, but our wives are so awfully deceitful 
 that one has no choice but to pay them back in their own 
 coin." 
 
 "The Greek women are different," said Bartja, "because 
 they are differently treated. Sappho told me of one, I think 
 her name was Penelope, who waited twenty years faithfully 
 and lovingly for ner husband, though everyone believed he 
 was dead, and she had fifty lovers a day at her house." 
 
 "My wives would not wait so long for me," said Zopyrus, 
 laughing. "To tell the truth, I don't think I should be sorry 
 to find an empty house if I came back after twenty years. For 
 then I could take some new wives into my harem, young and 
 beautiful, instead of the unfaithful ones, who, besides, would 
 have grown old. But, alas! every woman does not find some 
 one to run away with her, and our women would rather have 
 an absent husband than none at all." 
 
 "If your wives could hear what you are saying!" said 
 Araspes. 
 
 "They would declare war with me at once, or, what is still 
 worse, conclude a peace with one another." 
 
 "How would that be worse?" 
 
 "How? It is easy to see that you have had no experience." 
 
 "Then let us into the secrets of your married life." 
 
 "With pleasure. You can easily fancy that five wives in 
 one house do not live quite so peacefully as five doves in a 
 cage ; mine, at least, carry on an uninterrupted, mortal warfare. 
 But I have accustomed myself to that, and their sprightliness 
 even amuses me. A year ago, however, they came to terms 
 with one another, and this day of peace was the most miserable 
 in my life." 
 
 "You are jesting." 
 
 "No, indeed, I am quite in earnest. The wretched eunuch 
 who had to keep watch over the five allowed them to see an 
 old jewel-merchant from Tyre. Each of them chose a separate 
 and expensive set of jewels. When I came back home 
 Sudabe came up and begged for money to pay for these orna- 
 ments. The things were too dear and I refused. Every one 
 of the five then came and begged me separately for the money; 
 I refused each of them point blank and went off to court. 
 When I came back there were all my wives, weeping side by 
 side, embracing one another and calling each other fellow-suf-
 
 262 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ferers. These former enemies rcse up against me with the 
 most touching unanimity, and so overwhelmed me with re- 
 vilings and threats that I left the room. They closed their 
 doors against me. The next morning the lamentations of the 
 evening before were continued. I fled once more and went 
 hunting with the king, and when I came back, tired, hungry 
 and half-frozen for it was in spring, we were already at 
 Ekbatana and the snow was lying an ell deep on the Orontes 
 there was no fire on the hearth and nothing to eat. These 
 noble creatures had entered into an alliance in order to punish 
 me, had put out the fire, forbidden the cooks to do their duty, 
 and, which was worse than all had kept the jewels! No 
 sooner had I ordered the slaves to make a fire and prepare 
 food than the impudent jewel-dealer appeared and demanded 
 his money. I refus-ed again, passed another solitary night, and 
 in the morning sacrificed ten talents for the sake of peace. 
 Since that time harmony and peace among my beloved wives 
 seems to me as much to be feared as the evil divs themselves, 
 and I see their little quarrels with the greatest pleasure/' 
 
 "Poor Zopyrus!" cried Bartja. 
 
 "Why poor?" asked this fivefold husband. "I tell you I am 
 much happier than you are. My wives are young and charm- 
 ing, and, when they grow old, what is to hinder me from taking 
 others, still handsomer, and who, by the side of the faded 
 beauties, will be doubly charming? Ho! slave, bring some 
 lamps. The sun has gone down, and the wine loses all its 
 flavor when the table is not brightly lighted." 
 
 At this moment the voice of Darius, who had left the arbor 
 and gone out into the garden, was heard calling: "Come and 
 hear how beautiful the nightingale is singing." 
 
 "By Mithras, you son of Hystaspes, you must be in love," 
 interrupted Araspes. "The flowery darts of love* must have 
 entered the heart of him who leaves his wine to listen to the 
 nightingale." 
 
 "You are right there, father," cried Bartja. "Philomel, as 
 
 *We have borrowed this idea from the Indians, the arrows of whose 
 love-god, Kama, were made of sharpened flower-blossoms. The night- 
 ingale "gulgul" plays a great part in the Persian love-songs. Her 
 song is spoken of as the perfection of sweet sound, and she herself PS 
 the lovers' bird. See J. von Hammer's "Geschichte der Schonen Red- 
 ekiinste Persiens."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 263 
 
 the Greeks call our gulgul, is the lovers' bird among all nations, 
 for love has given her her beautiful song. What beauty were 
 you dreaming of, Darius, when you went out to listen to the 
 nightingale?" 
 
 "I was not dreaming of any," answered he. You know how 
 fond I am of watching the stars, and the Tistar star rose so 
 splendidly to-night that I left the wine to watch it. The night- 
 ingales were singing so loudly to one another that if I had not 
 wished to hear them I must have stopped my ears." 
 
 "You kept them wide open, however," said Araspes, laugh- 
 ing. "Your enraptured exclamation proved that." 
 
 "Enough of this," cried Darius, to whom these jokes were 
 getting wearisome. "I really must beg you to leave off making 
 allusions to matters which I do not care to hear spoken of." 
 
 "Imprudent fellow!" whispered the older man; "now you 
 really have betrayed yourself. If you were not in love you 
 would have laughed instead of getting angry. Still, I won't 
 go on provoking you ; tell me what you have just been reading 
 in the stars." 
 
 At these words Darius looked up again into the starry sky 
 and fixed his eyes on a bright constellation hanging over the 
 horizon. Zopyrus watched him and called out to his friends: 
 "Something important must be happening up there. Darius, 
 tell us what's going on in the heavens just now." 
 
 "Nothing good," answered the other. "Bartja, I have 
 something to say to you alone." 
 
 "Why to me alone? Araspes always keeps his own counsel, 
 and from the rest of you I never have any secrets." 
 
 "Still " 
 
 "Speak out." 
 
 "No, I wish you would come into the garden with me." 
 
 Bartja nodded to the others, who were still sitting over their 
 wine, laid his hand on Darius' shoulder, and went out with him 
 into the bright moonlight. As soon as they were alone Darius 
 seized both his friends' hands and said: "To-day is the third 
 time that things have happened in the heavens which bode no 
 good for you. Your evil star has approached your favorable 
 constellation so nearly that a mere novice in astrology could 
 see some serious danger was at hand. Be on your guard, 
 Bartja, and start for Egypt to-day; the stars tell me that the 
 danger is here on the Euphrates, not abroad."
 
 264 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Do you believe implicitly in the stars?" 
 
 "Implicitly. They never lie." 
 
 "Then it would be folly to try and avoid what they have 
 foretold." 
 
 "Yes, no man can run away from his destiny; but that very 
 destiny is like a fencing-master his favorite pupils are those 
 who have the courage and skill to parry his own blows. Start 
 for Egypt to-day, Bartja." 
 
 "I cannot I haven't taken leave of my mother and Atossa." 
 
 "Send them a farewell message, and tell Croesus to explain 
 the reason of your starting so quickly." 
 
 "They would call me a coward." 
 
 "It is cowardly to yield to any mortal, but to go out of the 
 way of one's fate is wisdom." 
 
 "You contradict yourself, Darius. What would the fencing- 
 master say to a runaway pupil ?" 
 
 "He would rejoice in the stratagem by which an isolated 
 individual tried to escape a superior force." 
 
 "But the superior force must conquer at last. What would 
 be the use of my trying to put off a danger which, you say 
 yourself, cannot be averted ? If my tooth aches, I have it drawn 
 at once, instead of tormenting and making myself miserable 
 for weeks by putting off the painful operation, as a coward or 
 a woman would, till the last moment. I can await this coming 
 danger bravely, and the sooner it comes the better, for then I 
 shall have it behind me." 
 
 "You don't know how serious it is." 
 
 "Are you afraid for my life?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then, tell me, what are you afraid of?" 
 
 "That Egyptian priest, with whom I used to study the stars, 
 once cast your horoscope with me. He knew more about the 
 heavens than any man I ever saw. I learned a great deal from 
 him, and I will not hide from you that even then he drew my 
 attention to clangers that threaten you now." 
 
 "And you did not tell me." 
 
 "Why should I have made you uneasy beforehand? NOAV, 
 that your destiny is drawing nearer, I warn you." 
 
 "Thank you I will be careful. In former times I should 
 not have listened to such a warning, but now, that I love Sap- 
 pho, I feel as if my life were not so much my own to do what I 
 like with, as it used to be."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 26C 
 
 "I understand this feeling- 
 
 "You understand it? Then Araspes was right? You don't 
 deny?" 
 
 "A mere dream without any hope of fulfillment" 
 
 "But what woman could refuse you?" 
 
 "Refuse!" 
 
 "I don't understand you. Do you mean to say that you 
 the boldest sportsman, the strongest wrestler of all the young 
 Persians that you, Darius, are afraid of a woman?" 
 
 "Bartja, may I tell you more than I would tell even to my 
 own father?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I love the daughter of Cyrus, your sister and the king's 
 Atossa." 
 
 "Have I understood you rightly? you love Atossa? Be 
 praised for this, oh, ye pure Amesha <;penta!* Now I shall 
 never believe in your stars again, for, instead of the danger 
 with which they threatened me, here comes an unexpected hap- 
 piness. Embrace me, my brother, and tell me the whole story, 
 that I may see whether I can help you to turn this hopeless 
 dream, as you call it, into a reality." 
 
 "You will remember that before our journey to Egypt we 
 went with the entire court from Ekbatana to Susa. I was in 
 command of the division of the "immortals" appointed to 
 escort the carriages containing the king's mother and sisters 
 and his wives. In going through the narrow pass which leads 
 over the Orontes the horses of your mother's carriage slipped. 
 The yoke to which the horses were harnessedf broke from the 
 pole, and the heavy, four-wheeled carriage fell over the preci- 
 pice without obstruction. On seeing it disappear we were 
 horrified and spurred our horses to the place as quickly as 
 possible. We expected, .of course, to see only fragments of 
 the carriage and the dead bodies of its inmates, but the gods 
 
 *See note p. 272. 
 
 fThere was a yoke at the end of the shaft of a Persian carriage 
 which was fastened on the backs of the horses and took the place of 
 our horse-collar and pole-chain. See illustration in Gosse's "Assyria," 
 p. 224. "Layard," pp. 151 and 447-451. The Egyptian horses were 
 harnessed in the same manner. See note p. 17. The horses represent- 
 ed on the Persian and Assyrian monuments are without question a 
 different, race from those on the Egyptian,
 
 266 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 had taken them into their almighty protection, and there lay 
 the carriage, with broken wheels, in the arms of two gigantic 
 cypresses which had taken firm root in the fissures of the slate 
 rocks and whose dark tops reached up to the edge of the car- 
 riage-road. 
 
 "As quick as thought I sprang from my horse and scrambled 
 down one of the cypresses. Your mother and sister stretched 
 their arms out to me, crying for help. The danger was fright- 
 ful, for the sides of the carriage had been so shattered by the 
 fall that they threatened every moment to give way, in which 
 case those inside it must inevitably have fallen into the black, 
 unfathomable abyss which looked like an abode for the 
 gloomy divs and stretched its jaws wide to crush its beautiful 
 victims. 
 
 "I stood before the shattered carriage as it hung over the 
 precipice ready to fall to pieces every moment, and then, for the 
 first time, I met your sister's imploring look. From that mo- 
 ment I loved her, but at the time I was much too intent on 
 saving them to think of anything else, and had no idea what 
 had taken place within me. I dragged the trembling women 
 out of the carriage, and one minute later it rolled down the 
 abyss, crashing it into a thousand pieces. I am a strong man, 
 but I confess that all my strength was required to keep myself 
 and the two women from falling over the precipice until ropes 
 were thrown to us from above. Atossa hung round my neck, 
 and Kassandane lay on my breast, supported by my left arm ; 
 with the right I fastened the rope round my waist, we were 
 drawn up, and I found myself a few minutes later on the high- 
 road your mother and sister were saved. 
 
 "As soon as one of the magi had bound up the wounds cut 
 by the rope in my side, the king sent for me, gave me the 
 chain I am now wearing, and the revenues of an entire satrapy, 
 and then took me to his mother and sister. They expressed 
 their gratitude very warmly; Kassandane allowed me to kiss 
 her forehead, and gave me all the jewels she had worn at the 
 time of the accident as a present for my future wife. Atossa 
 took a ring from her finger, put it on mine, and kissed my hand 
 in the warmth of her emotion you know how eager and excit- 
 able she is. Since that day the happiest in my life I have 
 never seen your sister till yesterday evening, when we sat 
 opposite to each other at the banquet. Our eyes met. I saw
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 267 
 
 nothing but Atossa, and I think she has not forgotten the man 
 who saved her. Kassandane " 
 
 "Oh, my mother would be delighted to have you for a son- 
 in-law; I will answer for that. As to the king, your father 
 must apply to him ; he is our uncle, and has a right to ask the 
 hand of Cyrus' daughter for his son." 
 
 "But, have you forgotten your father's dream? You know 
 that Cambyses has always looked on me with suspicion since 
 that time.'' 
 
 "Oh, that has been long forgotten. My father dreamed 
 before his death that you had wings,* and was misled by the 
 soothsayers into the fancy that you, though you were only 
 eighteen then, would try to gain the crown. Cambyses thought 
 of this dream, too; but, when you saved my mother and sister, 
 Croesus explained to him that this must have been its fulfill- 
 ment, as no one but Darius or a -winged eagle could possibly 
 have possessed strength and dexterity enough to hang sus- 
 pended over such an abyss." 
 
 "Yes, and I remember, too, that these words did not please 
 your brother. He chooses to be the only eagle in Persia ; but 
 Croesus does not spare his vanity 
 
 "Where can Croesus be all this time?" 
 
 "In the hanging-gardens. My father and Gobryas have very 
 likely detained him." 
 
 Just at that moment the voice of Zopyrus was heard, ex- 
 claiming: "Well, I call that polite! Bartja invites us to a wine 
 party and leaves us sitting here without a host while he talks 
 secret yonder." 
 
 "We are coming, we are coming," answered Bartja. Then, 
 taking the hand of Darius heartily, he said: "I am very glad 
 that you love Atossa. I shall stay here till the day after to- 
 morrow, let the stars threaten me with all the dangers in the 
 world. To-morrow I will find out what Atossa feels, and when 
 everything is in the right track I shall go away and leave my 
 winged Darius to his own powers." 
 
 So saying, Bartja went back into the arbor, and his friend 
 began to watch the stars again. The longer he looked the 
 sadder and more serious became his face, and when the Tistar 
 star set he murmured: "Poof Bartja!" His friends called him, 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 209.
 
 268 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 and he was on the point of returning to them when he caught 
 sight of a new star and began to examine its position carefully. 
 His serious looks gave way to a triumphant smile, his tall 
 figure seemed to grow taller still, he pressed his hand on his 
 heart and whispered, "Use your pinions, winged Darius; your 
 star will be on your side," and then returned to his friends. 
 
 A few minutes after Croesus came up to the arbor. The 
 youths sprang from their seats to welcome the old man, but 
 when he saw Bartja's face by the bright moonlight he stood 
 as if transfixed by a flash of lightning. 
 
 "What has happened, father?" asked Gyges, seizing his hand 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing," he stammered almost inaudibly, and, 
 pushing his son on one side, whispered in Bartja's ear: "Un- 
 happy boy, you are still here? Don't delay any longer fly at 
 once ! the whip-bearers are close at my heels, and I assure you 
 that if you don't use the greatest speed you will have to forfeit 
 your double imprudence with your life." 
 
 "But, Croesus, I have " 
 
 "You have set at naught the law of the land and of the 
 court, and, in appearance at least, have done great offense 
 to your brother's honor " 
 
 "You are speaking " 
 
 "Fly, I tell you fly at once; for if your visit to the hanging- 
 gardens was ever so innocently meant you are still in the 
 greatest danger. You know Cambyses' violent temper so 
 well; how could you so wickedly disobey his express com- 
 mand?" 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "No excuses fly! Don't you know that Cambyses has long 
 been jealous of you, and that your visit to the Egyptian to- 
 night " 
 
 "I have never once set foot in the hanging-gardens since 
 Nitetis has been here." 
 
 "Don't add a lie to your offense, I " 
 
 "But I swear to you " 
 
 "Do you wish to turn a thoughtless act into a crime hy 
 adding the guilt of perjury? The whip-bearers are coming, 
 
 "I shall remain here and abide by my oath." 
 
 "You are infatuated! It is not an hour ago since I myself,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 269 
 
 Hystaspes and others of the Achaemenidae saw you in the 
 hanging-gardens " 
 
 In his astonishment Bartja had half-involuntarily allowed 
 himself to be led away, but when he heard this he stood still, 
 called his friends, and said: "Croesus says he met me an hour 
 ago in the hanging-gardens; you know that since the sun set 
 I have not been away from you. Give your testimony that in 
 this case an evil div must have made sport of our friend and his 
 companions." 
 
 "I swear to you, father," cried Gyges, "that Bartja has not 
 left this garden for some hours." 
 
 "And we confirm the same," added Araspes, Zopyrus and 
 Darius with one voice. 
 
 "You want to deceive me," said Croesus, getting very angry, 
 and looking at each of them reproachfully. "Do you fancy 
 that I am blind or mad? Do you think that your witness will 
 outweigh the words of such men as Hystaspes, Gobryas, Arta- 
 phernes and the high-priest Oropastes? In spite of all your 
 false testimony., which no amount of friendship can justify, 
 Bartja will have to die unless he flies at once." 
 
 "May Anpramainjus destroy me," said Araspes, interrupt- 
 ing the old man, "if Bartja was in the hanging-gardens two 
 hours ago !" and Gyges added : 
 
 "Don't call me your son any longer if we have given false 
 testimony." 
 
 Darius was beginning to appeal to the eternal stars, but 
 Bartja put an end to this confusion of voices by saying, in a 
 decided tone : "A division of the bodyguard is coming into the 
 garden. I am to be arrested; I cannot escape because I am 
 innocent, and to fly would lay me open to suspicion. By the 
 soul of my father, the blind eyes of my mother and the pure 
 light of the sun, Croesus, I swear that I am not lying." 
 
 "Am I to believe you, in spite of my own eyes, which have 
 never yet deceived me? But I will, boy, for I love you. I do 
 not and I will not know whether you are innocent or guilty, 
 but this I do know, you must fly, and fly at once. You know 
 Cambyses. My carriage is waiting at the gate. Don't spare 
 the horses, save yourself even if you drive them to death. The 
 soldiers seem to know what they have been sent to do ; there 
 can be no question that they delav so long only in order to give 
 their favorite time to escape. Fly, fly, or it is all over with 
 you."
 
 270 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Darius, too, pushed his friend forward, exclaiming: "Fly, 
 Bartja, and remember the warning that the heavens themselves 
 wrote in the stars for you." 
 
 Bartja, however, stood silent, shook his handsome head, 
 waved his friend back, and answered: "I never ran away yet, 
 and I mean to hold my ground to-day. Cowardice is worse 
 than death in my opinion, and I would rather suffer wrong 
 at the hands of others than disgrace myself. There are the 
 soldiers! Well met, Bischen. You've come to arrest me, 
 haven't you. Wait one moment till I have said good-by to 
 my friends." 
 
 Bischen, the officer he spoke to, was one of Cyrus' old 
 captains; he had given Bartja his first lessons in shooting and 
 throwing the spear, had fought by his side in the war with 
 the Tapuri, and loved him as if he were his own son. He 
 interrupted him, saying: "There is no need to take leave of 
 your friends, for the king, who is raging like a madman, 
 ordered me not only to arrest you, but everyone else who 
 might be with you." 
 
 And then he added, in a low voice: "The king is beside 
 himself with rage and threatens to have your life. You must 
 fly. My men will do what I tell them blindfold ; they will not 
 pursue you ; and I am so old that it would be little loss to Per- 
 sia if my head were the price of my disobedience.' 1 
 
 "Thanks, thanks, my friend," said Bartja, giving him his 
 hand; "but I cannot accept your offer, because I am innocent, 
 and I know that, though Cambyses is hasty, he is not unjust. 
 Come, friends, I think the king will give us a hearing to-day, 
 late as it is." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Two hours later Bartja and his friends were standing before 
 the king. The gigantic man was seated on his golden throne ; 
 he was pale and his eyes looked sunken; two physicians stood 
 waiting behind him with all kinds of instruments and vessels 
 in their hands. Cambyses had, only a few moments before,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 271 
 
 recovered consciousness, after lying for more than an hour in 
 one of those awful fits, so destructive both to mind and body, 
 which we call epileptic. 
 
 Since Nitetis' arrival he had been free from this illness; but 
 it had seized him to-day with fearful violence owing to the 
 overpowering mental excitement he had gone through.* 
 
 If he had met Bartja a few hours before he would have 
 killed him with his own hand; but though the epileptic fit had 
 not subdued his anger it had at least so far quieted it that he was 
 in a condition to hear what was to be said on both sides. 
 
 At the right hand of the throne stood Hystaspas, Darius' 
 gray-haired father; Gobryas, his future father-in-law; the 
 aged Intaphernes, the grandfather of the Phaedime whose 
 place in the king's favor had been given to Nitetis; Oropastes, 
 the high-priest; Croesus, and behind them, Boges, the chief 
 of the eunuchs. At its left Bartja, whose hands were heavily 
 fettered, Araspes, Darius, Zopyrus and Gyges. In the back- 
 ground stood some hundred officials and grandees. 
 
 After a long silence Cambyses raised his eyes, fixed a wither- 
 ing look on his fettered brother, and said, in a dull, hollow 
 voice : "High-priest, tell us what awaits the man who deceives 
 his brother, dishonors and offends his king and darkens his 
 own heart by black lies." 
 
 Oropastes came forward and answered: "As soon as such 
 a one is proved guilty a death full of torment awaits him in 
 this world, and an awful sentence on the bridge Chinvat;f for 
 he has transgressed the highest commands, and, by committing 
 three crimes, has forfeited the mercy of our law, which com- 
 
 *The dangerous disease to which Herodotus says Cambyses had 
 been subject from his birth and which was called "sacred" by some 
 can scarcely be other than epilepsy. See "Herod.," iii, 33. 
 
 tOn the third day after death at the rising of the bright sun, the 
 souls are conducted by divs to the bridge of Chinvat, where they are 
 questioned as to their past lives and conduct. "Vendid. Fargard," 
 xix, 93. On that spot the two supernatural powers fight for the soul. 
 "Vendid. Farg.," vii, 132. In this struggle the soul of the good, the 
 odor of which is feared by the divs as wolves by sheep, is helped by 
 the yazatas, or pure spirits, and enters heaven victorious, while the 
 soul of the impure finds no help and is dragged down, bound, into hell 
 by the Div Vizaresho. Different, and according to Rogge, more beau- 
 tiful (?) conceptions of this idea are to.be found in Tiele's "D. Godsd. 
 v. Zarathustra," p. 251.
 
 272 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 mands that his life shall be granted to the man who has sinned 
 but once, even though he be only a slave."* 
 
 "Then Bartja has deserved death. Lead him away, guards, 
 and strangle him! Take him away! Be silent, wretch! Never 
 will I listen to that smooth, hypocritical tongue again, or look 
 at those treacherous eyes. They come from the divs and de- 
 lude everyone with their wanton glances. Off with him, 
 guards." 
 
 Bischen, the captain, came up to obey the order, but at the 
 same moment Croesus threw himself at the king's feet, touched 
 the floor with his forehead, raised his hands, and cried: "May 
 thy days and years bring naught but happiness and prosperity; 
 may Auramazda pour down all the blessings of this life upon 
 thee, and the Amesha gpentaf be the guardians of thy throne ! 
 Do not close thine ear to the words of the aged, but remember 
 that thy father, Cyrus, appointed me to be thy counselor. Thou 
 art about to slay thy brother; but I say unto thee, do not in- 
 dulge anger; strive to control it. It is the duty of kings and 
 of the wise not to act without due inquiry. Beware of shedding 
 a brother's blood; the smoke thereof will rise to heaven and 
 become a cloud that must darken the days of the murderer, 
 and at last cast down the lightnings of vengeance on his head. 
 But I know that thou desirest justice, not murder. Act, then, 
 as those who have to pronounce a sentence, and hear both 
 sides before deciding. When this has been done, if the crim- 
 inal is proved guilty and confesses his crime, the smoke of his 
 blood will rise to heaven as a friendly shadow 7 instead of a dark- 
 ening cloud, and thou wilt have earned the fame of a just judge 
 instead of deserving the divine judgments." 
 
 Cambyses listened in silence, made a sign to Bischen to 
 retire, and commanded Boges to repeat his accusation. 
 
 The eunuch made an obeisance, and began: "I was ill and 
 obliged to leave the Egyptian and the hanging-gardens in the 
 care of my colleague, Kandaules, who has paid for his negli- 
 gence with his life. Finding myself better toward evening, 
 I went up to the hanging-gardens to see if everything was in 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 137. 
 
 tThe Amesha gpenta, "holy immortal ones," may be compared to 
 the archangels of the Hebrews. They surround the throne of Aura- 
 mazda and symbolize the highest virtues. Later we find their num- 
 ber fixed at six.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 273 
 
 order there and also to look at the rare flower which was to 
 blossom in the night. The king (Auramazda, grant him vic- 
 tory!) had commanded that the Egyptian should be more 
 strictly watched than usual because she had dared to send the 
 noble Bartja " 
 
 "Be silent," interrupted the king, "and keep to the matter 
 in hand." 
 
 "Just as the Tistar star was rising I came into the garden 
 and staid some time there with these noble Achaemenidae, 
 the high-priest and the king, Croesus, looking at the blue lily, 
 which was marvelously beautiful. I then called my colleague, 
 Kandaules, and asked him, in the presence of these noble wit- 
 nesses, if everything was in order He affirmed that this was 
 the case, and added that he had just come from Nitetis; that she 
 had wept the whole day, and neither tasted food nor drink. 
 Feeling anxious lest my noble mistress should become worse, 
 I commissioned Kandaules to fetch a physician, and was just 
 on the point of leaving the noble Achaemenidae, in order in 
 person to ascertain my mistress' state of health, when I saw in 
 the moonlight the figure of a man. I was so ill and weak that 
 I could hardly stand, and had no one near to help me except 
 the gardener. 
 
 "My men were on guard at the different entrances, some 
 distance from us. 
 
 "I clapped my hands to call some of them, but, as they did 
 not come, I went nearer to the house myself, under the pro- 
 tection of these noblemen. The man was standing by the 
 window of the Egyptian princess' apartment, and uttered a 
 low whistle when he heard us coming up. Another figure 
 appeared directly clearly Recognizable in the bright moon- 
 light sprang out of the sleeping-room window and came 
 toward us with her companion. 
 
 "I could hardly believe my eyes on discovering that the in- 
 truder was no other than the noble Bartja. A fig tree co'ncealed 
 us from the fugitives, but we could distinctly see them, as they 
 passed us at a distance of not mere than four steps. While I 
 was thinking whether I should be justified in arresting a son 
 of Cyrus, Croesus called to Bartja and the two figures suddenly 
 disappeared behind a cypress. No one but your brother him- 
 self can possibly explain the strange way in which he disap- 
 peared. I went at once to search the house, and found the
 
 274 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, 
 
 Egyptian lying unconscious on the couch in her sleeping- 
 room." 
 
 Everyone listened to this story in the greatest suspense. 
 Cambyses ground his teeth and asked, in a voice of great, 
 emotion: "Can you testify to the words of the eunuch, Hys- 
 taspes?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why did not you lay hands on the offender?" 
 
 "We are soldiers, not policemen." 
 
 "Or, rather, you care for every knave more than for your 
 king." 
 
 "We honor our king and abhor the criminal, just as we 
 formerly loved the innocent son of Cyrus." 
 
 "Did you recognize Bartja distinctly?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you, Croesus can you, too, give no other answer?" 
 
 "No! I fancied I saw your brother in the moonlight then 
 as clearly as I see him now; but I believe we must have been 
 deceived by some remarkable likeness." 
 
 Boges grew pale at these words; Cambyses, however, shook 
 his head as if the idea did not please him, and said: "Whom 
 am I to believe, then, if the eyes of my best warriors fail them? 
 and who would wish to be a judge if testimony such as yours 
 is not to be considered valid?" 
 
 "Evidence quite as weighty as ours will prove that we must 
 have been in error." 
 
 "Will any one dare to give evidence in favor of such an 
 outrageous criminal?" asked Cambyses, springing up and 
 stamping his foot. 
 
 "We will," "I," "we," shouted Araspes, Darius, Gyges and 
 Zopyrus with one voice. 
 
 "Traitors, knaves!" cried the king. But as he caught sight 
 of Croesus' warning eye fixed upon him he lowered his voice 
 and said: "What have you to bring forward in favor of this 
 fellow? Take care what you say and consider well what pun- 
 ishment awaits perjurers." 
 
 "We know that well enough," said Araspes, "and yet we are 
 ready to swear by Mithras that we have not left Bartja or his 
 garden one moment since we came back from hunting." 
 
 <f As for me," said Darius, "I, the son of Hystaspes, have 
 especially convincing evidence to give in favor of your broth-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 275 
 
 er's innocence; I watched the rising of the Tistar star with 
 him; and this, according to Boges, was the very star that shone 
 on his flight/' 
 
 Hystaspes gazed on his son in astonishment and doubt at 
 hearing these words, and Cambyses turned a scrutinizing eye 
 first on the one and then on the other party of these strange 
 witnesses, who wished so much, and yet found it so impossible 
 to believe one another, himself unable to come to a decision. 
 
 Bartja, who till now had remained perfectly silent, looking 
 down sadly at his chained hands, took advantage of the silence 
 to say, making at the same time a deep obeisance: "May I be 
 allowed tQ speak a few words, my king?" 
 
 '"Speak!" 
 
 "From our father we learned to strive after that which was 
 pure and good only; so up to this time my life has been un- 
 stained. If you have ever known me to take part in an evil 
 deed you have a right not to believe me; but if you find no 
 fault in me then trust to what I say, and remember that a son 
 of Cyrus would rather die than tell a lie. I confess that no 
 judge was ever placed in such a perplexing position. The best 
 men in your kingdom testify against one another, friend 
 against friend, father against son. But I tell you that were 
 the entire Persian nation to rise up against you and swear 
 that Cambyses had committed this or that evil deed, and you 
 were to say, 'I did not commit it,' I, Bartja, would give all 
 Persia the lie and exclaim: 'Ye are all false witnesses; sooner 
 could the sea cast up fire than a son of Cyrus allow his mouth to 
 deal in lies.' No, Cambyses, you and I are so high-born that 
 no one but yourself can bear evidence against me; and you 
 can only be judged out of your own mouth." 
 
 Cambyses' looks grew a little milder on hearing these words, 
 and his brother went on : "So I swear to you by Mithras, and 
 by all pure spirits, that I am innocent. May my life become 
 extinct and my race perish from off the earth if I tell you a 
 lie when I say that I have not once set foot in the hanging- 
 gardens since my return!" 
 
 Bartja's voice was so firm and his tone so full of assurance 
 as he uttered this oath that Cambyses ordered his chains to be 
 loosened, and, after a few moments' thought, said: "I should 
 like to believe you, for I cannot bear to imagine you the worst 
 and most abandoned of men. To-morrow we will summon the
 
 276 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 astrologers, soothsayers and priests. Perhaps they may be 
 able to discover the truth. Can you see any light in this dark- 
 ness, Oropastes?" 
 
 "Thy servant supposes that a div has taken upon him the 
 form of Bartja in order to ruin the king's brother and stain 
 thine own royal soul with the* blood of thy father's son." 
 
 Cambyses and everyone present nodded their assent to 
 this proposition, and the king was just going to offer his 
 hand to Bartja, when a staff-bearer came in and gave the 
 king a dagger. A eunuch had found it under the windows of 
 Nitetis' sleeping-apartment. 
 
 Cambyses examined the weapon carefully. Its^ costly hilt 
 was thickly set with rubies and turquoises. As he looked he 
 turned pale, and dashed the dagger on the ground before 
 Bartja with such violence that the stones fell out of their 
 setting. 
 
 "This is your dagger, you wretch!" he shrieked, seized by 
 the same violent passion as before. "This very morning you 
 used it to give the last thrust to the wild boar that I had mor- 
 tally wounded. Croesus, you ought to know it, too, for my 
 father brought it from your treasure-house at Sardis. At last 
 you are really convicted, you liar! you impostor! The divs 
 require no weapons, and such a dagger as this is not to be 
 picked up everywhere. Ah, ha ! you are feeling in your girdle ! 
 You may well turn pale; your dagger is gone." 
 
 "Yes, it is gone. I must have lost it, and some enemy 
 
 "Seize him, Bischen, put on his fetters! Take him to prison 
 the traitor, the perjurer! He shall be strangled to-morrow r . 
 Death is the penalty of perjury. Your heads for theirs, you 
 guards, if they escape. Not one word more will I hear; away 
 with you, you perjured villains! Boges, go at once to the 
 hanging-gardens and bring the Egyptian to me. Yet, no, I 
 won't see the serpent again. It is very near dawn now. and at 
 noon she shall be flogged through the streets. Then I'll 
 
 But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and 
 sank down on the marble floor in convulsions. 
 
 At this fearful moment Kassandane w'as led into the hall by 
 the old general Megabyzus. The news of what had happened 
 had found its way to her solitary apartments, and, notwith- 
 standing the hour, she had risen in order to try and discover 
 the truth and warn- her son against pronouncing a too hasty
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 277 
 
 decision. She believed firmly that Bartja and Nitetis were 
 innocent, though she could not explain to herself what had 
 happened. Several times she tried to put herself in communi- 
 cation with Nitetis, but without avail. At last she had been her- 
 self to the hanging-gardens, but the guards had actually had 
 the hardihood to refuse her admission. 
 
 Croesus went at once to meet her, told her what had hap- 
 pened, suppressing as many painful details as possible, con- 
 firmed her in her belief of the innocence of the accused, and 
 then took her to the bedside of the king. 
 
 The convulsions had not lasted long this time. He lay on 
 his golden bed, under purple silk coverlets, pale and exhausted. 
 His blind mother seated herself at his side. Croesus and Oro- 
 pastes took their station at the foot of the bed, and, in another 
 part of the room, four physicians* discussed the patient's 
 condition in low whispers. 
 
 Kassandane was very gentle with her son ; she begged him 
 not to yield to passionate anger, and to remember what a sad 
 effect every such outburst had on his health. 
 
 ''Yes, mother, you are right," answered the king, smiling 
 bitterly; "I see that I must get rid of everything that rouses 
 my anger. The Egyptian must die, and my perfidious brother 
 shall follow his mistress." 
 
 Kassandane used all her eloquence to convince him of the 
 innocence of the accused, and to pacify his anger, but neither 
 
 *It was natural that medicine should be carefully studied among a 
 people who set such a high value upon life as did the Persians. Pliny, 
 indeed (xxx, 1), maintains that the whole of Zoroaster's religion was 
 founded on the science of medicine, and it is true that there are a 
 great many medical directions to be found in the Avesta. In the 
 "Vendid. Farg.," vii, there is a detailed list of medical fees. The phy- 
 sician shall treat a priest for a pious blessing or spell, the master of a 
 house for a small draught animal, etc., the lord of a district for a team 
 of four oxen. When the physician cures the housewife first, a*female 
 ass shall be his fee, etc., etc. We read in the same Fargard that the 
 physician had to pass a kind of examination. If he had operated thrice 
 successfully on bad men, on whose bodies he had been permitted to 
 try his skill, he was pronounced "capable forever." If, on the other 
 hand, three evil daevayacna (worshipers of the divs) died under his 
 hands, he was pronounced "incapable of healing forevermore." Pliny 
 enumerates a multitude of strange Magian prescriptions. The Vendi- 
 dad mentions the art of healing as the highest attribute of Thrita, a 
 celebrated mythical hero not unknown to the inhabitants of India, 
 "Fargard," xx, 11.
 
 278 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCKSri. 
 
 prayers, tears, nor her motherly exhortations could in the least 
 alter his resolution to rid himself of these murderers of his 
 happiness and peace. 
 
 At last he interrupted her lamentations by saying: "I feel 
 fearfully exhausted; I cannot bear these sobs and lamenta- 
 tions any longer. Nitetis has been proved guilty. A man was 
 seen to leave her sleeping-apartment in the night, and that 
 man was not a thief, but the handsomest man in Persia, and 
 one to whom she had dared to send a letter yesterday evening." 
 
 "Do you know the contents of that letter?" asked Croesus, 
 coming up to the bed. 
 
 "No; it was written in Greek. The faithless creature 
 made use of characters which no one at this court can read." 
 
 "Will you permit me to translate the letter?" 
 
 Cambyses pointed to a small ivory box, in which the 
 ominous piece of writing lay, saying: "There it is; read it; 
 but do not hide or alter a single word, for to-morrow I shall 
 have it read over again by one of the merchants from Sinope." 
 
 Croesus' hopes revived; he seemed to breathe again as he 
 took the paper. But when he had read it over his eyes filled 
 with tears and he murmured: "The fable of Pandora is only 
 too true; I dare not be angry any longer with those poets who 
 have written severely against women.* Alas, they are all false 
 and faithless! O Kassandane, how the gods deceive us! They 
 grant us the gift of old age, only to strip us bare like trees in 
 the winter, and show us that all our fancied gold was dross 
 and all our pleasant and refreshing drinks poison." 
 
 Kassandane wept aloud, and tore her costly robes, but 
 Cambyses clinched his fist while Croesus was reading the fol- 
 lowing words: 
 
 "Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the 
 great Cyrus: 
 
 "I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to 
 no one but yourself. To-morrow I hope I shall meet you in 
 your mother's apartments. It lies in your power to comfort a 
 sad and loving heart and to give it one happy moment before 
 death. I have a great deal to tell you, and some very sad news; 
 I repeat that I must see you soon." 
 
 i 
 
 *See note p. 102.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 279 
 
 The desperate laughter which burst from her son cut his 
 mother to the heart. She stooped down and was going to kiss 
 him, but Cambyses resisted her caresses, saying: "It is rather 
 a doubtful honor, mother, to be one of your favorites. Bartja 
 did not wait to be sent for twice by that treacherous woman, 
 and has disgraced himself by swearing falsely. His friends, the 
 flower of our young men, have covered themselves with in- 
 delible infamy for his sake; and through him your best-beloved 
 daughter but, no, Bartja had no share in the corruption of 
 that fiend in Peri's form. Her life was made up of hypocrisy 
 and deceit, and her death shall prove that I know how to pun- 
 ish. Now leave me, for I must be alone." 
 
 They had scarcely left the room when he sprang up and 
 paced backward and forward like a madman till the first crow 
 of the sacred bird parodar.* When the sun had risen he threw 
 himself on his bed again and fell into a sleep that was like a 
 swoon. 
 
 Meanwhile Bartja had written Sappho a farewell letter and 
 was sitting over the wine with his fellow-prisoners and their 
 elder friend, Araspes. "Let us be merry," said Zopyrus, "for 
 I believe it will soon be up with all our merriment. I would 
 lay my life that we are all of us dead by to-morrow. Pity that 
 men haven't got more than one neck; if we'd two I would not 
 mind \vagering a gold piece or two on the chances of our 
 remaining alive." 
 
 "Zopyrus is quite right," said Araspes; "we will make merry 
 and keep our eyes open; who knows how soon they may be 
 closed forever." 
 
 "Xo one need be sad who goes to his death as innocently 
 as we do," said Gyges. "Here, cup-bearer, fill my goblet!" 
 
 "Ah, Bartja and Darius!" cried Zopyrus, seeing the two 
 speaking in a low voice together, "there you are at your secrets 
 again. Come to us and pass the wine-cup. By Mithras, I can 
 truly say I never wished for death, but now I quite look forward 
 
 *See ncte p. 253.
 
 280 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 to the black Azis* because he is going to take us all together. 
 Zopyrus would rather die with his friends than live without 
 them." 
 
 "But the great point is to try and explain what has really 
 happened," said Darius. 
 
 "It's all the same to me," said Zopyrus, "whether I die with 
 or without an explanation so long as I know I am innocent 
 and have not deserved the punishment of perjury. Try and 
 get us some golden goblets, Bischen; the wine has no flavor 
 out of these miserable brass mugs. Cambyses surelv would not 
 wish us to suffer from poverty in our las f hours, though he 
 does forbid our fathers and friends to visit us." 
 
 "It is not the metal that the cup is made of," said Bartja, 
 "but the wormwood of death that gives the wine its bitter 
 taste." 
 
 "No, really, you're quite out there," exclaimed Zopyrus. 
 "Why, I had nearly forgotten that strangling generally causes 
 death." As he said this, he touched Gyges, and whispered: 
 "Be as cheerful as you can. Don't you see that it's very hard 
 for Bartja to take leave of this world? What were you saying, 
 Darius?" 
 
 "That I thought Oropastes' idea the only admissible one-- 
 that a div had taken the likeness of Bartja and visited the 
 Egyptian in order to ruin us." 
 
 "Folly! I don't believe in such things." 
 
 "But don't you remember the legend of the div who took 
 the beautiful form of a minstrel and appeared before King 
 Kawus?" 
 
 "Of course," cried Araspes. "Cyrus had this legend so often 
 recited at the banquets that I know it by heart. Would you 
 like to hear it?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, let us hear it!" cried the young men. Araspes 
 thought a moment, and then began, half-singing, half-reciting, 
 to tell how it came to pass that Kawus became king in his 
 father's room, and the whole world was subject to him, and 
 how, "when he beheld the earth tremble at his approach arid 
 saw rich heaps of treasure that lay round about his throne 
 the golden chains, the strings of pearls, the crown of gold, with 
 
 *An evil spirit who brings death to men. "Vendid.," xviii, 45. 
 "Azis, who was created by the Daevas, may come to me. He appears 
 in order to snatch me from the world."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 281 
 
 its sparkling jewels, and the strong horses of Thasir he 
 thought that none like him could be found upon earth. And as 
 he sat one day drinking wine in an arbor of roses adorned 
 with gold, a div, that had taken upon him the form of a min- 
 strel, came to one of his courtiers and besought admittance to 
 the shah thus: 'I am a singer from Masenderan ;* if it please 
 the shah, let him allow me to approach his throne.' And 
 Kawus answered: 'Let him draw near at once and take a 
 place among my minstrels.' Then the singer came before the 
 king, struck the chords of his lyre and sang of the lovely land 
 Masenderan : 
 
 " 'Praise to my land Masenderan! All blessings rest upon 
 her meadows and gardens, where the roses never cease to 
 bloom; upon her hills, where the tulips and anemones are 
 ever bright; the land whose air is always pure, whose fields 
 are always green, whose spring is never driven forth by frost 
 or burning heat. The nightingale sings always in that land, the 
 deer bounds gladly a'er its hills and vales, the air is full of sweet 
 perfumes and gorgeous colors meet the eyes. The streams run 
 all with waters sweet, whose scent makes glad the heart of 
 man. The tulips bloom in Bahman, Ader, Ferwerdin and Di;f 
 they never fade. The banks of all her brooks are green 
 throughout the year; the hunter finds the falcon ever near. 
 My land is strewn with jewels, silk and gold in all her length 
 and breadth: her priests wear golden diadems, her nobles 
 girdles wrought in finest gold. And he that gains admittance 
 to that land has found the highest joy that lives below.'J 
 
 *Mazenderan (probably more correct than the Masenderan of 
 Schack), a district in the northern borders of Iran, is, on the one 
 hand, praised in the legends of the heroes for its fertility, but on the 
 other, is spoken of as the abode of evil spirits. To this day the district 
 is blessed with an almost tropical vegetation and its nobles are proud 
 of calling themselves "divs." See Ritter, "Erdkunde," viii, 426. 
 
 fMay, March, July and April. 
 
 IThese words are taken from a beautiful song in Firdusi's "Book of 
 Kings," which has been very well translated into German by v. 
 Schack. Firdusi was born about 940 A. D. Ancient Persian history 
 is the subject of his immortal epic poems. The Kai Kawus who was 
 lured to Mazenderan by the divs belonged to the family of the Kaja- 
 nide, which must not, as some scholars suppose, be placed on a level 
 with the Achaemenidae, but must be regarded either as purely myth- 
 ical, or at least as having reigned earlier than the Achaemenidae. We
 
 282 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "And Kai Kawus hearkened to the words of the disguised 
 div and went to Masenderan, and was beaten there by the divs 
 and deprived of his eyesight." 
 
 "But," broke in Darius, "Rustem, the great hero, came and 
 conquered Erscheng and the other bad spirits, freed the cap- 
 tives and restored sight to the blind by dropping the blood of 
 the slaughtered divs into their eyes. And so it will be with us, 
 my friends. We shall be set free, and the eyes of Cambyses 
 and of our blind and infatuated fathers will be opened to see 
 our innocence. Listen, Bischen; if we really should be exe- 
 cuted, go to the Magi, the Chaldeans, and Xebenchari, the 
 Egyptian, and tell them they had better not study the stars 
 any longer, for that those very stars had proved themselves 
 liars and deceivers to Darius." 
 
 "Yes," interrupted Araspes, "I always said that dreams were 
 the only real prophecies. Before Abradatas .fell in the battle of 
 Sardis, the peerless Panthea dreamed that she saw him pierced 
 by a Lydian arrow." 
 
 "You cruel fellow!" exclaimed Zopyrus. "Why do you re- 
 mind us that it is much more glorious to die in battle than to 
 have our necks wrung off." 
 
 "Quite right," answered the elder man; "I confess that I 
 have seen many a death which I should prefer to our own 
 indeed, to life itself. Ah, boys, there was a time when things 
 went better than they do now." 
 
 "Tell us something about those times." 
 
 "And tell us why you never married. It won't matter to you 
 in the next world, if we do let out your secret." 
 
 "There's no secret; any of your own fathers could tell you 
 what you want to hear from me. Listen, then. When I was 
 young,* I used to amuse myself with women, but I laughed at 
 the idea of love. It occurred, however, that Panthea, the 
 most beautiful of all women, fell into our hands, and Cyrus 
 gave her into my charge, because I had always boasted that 
 my heart was invulnerable. I saw her every day, and learned, 
 
 have ventured to introduce the words of a poet who lived so long after 
 the date of our story, because his poems are strictly founded on the 
 ancient Persian traditions and are thoroughly Persian. 
 
 "The story of Panthea, Abradatas and Araspes is given by Xeno- 
 phon in his Cyropaedia with a strong Greek coloring. He probably 
 invented this romance in honor of his hero, Cyrus. Xenoph., 
 "Cyrop.," v.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 283 
 
 my friends, that love is stronger than a man's will. However, 
 she refused all my offers, induced Cyrus to remove me from my 
 office near her and to accept her husband Abradatas as an ally. 
 When her handsome husband went out to the war, this high- 
 minded, faithful woman decked him out with all her own jewels 
 and told him that the noble conduct of Cyrus, in treating her 
 like a sister, when she was his captive, could only be repaid 
 by the most devoted friendship and heroic courage. Abradatas 
 agreed with her, fought for Cyrus like a lion, and fell. Panthea 
 killed herself by his dead body. Her servants, on hearing of 
 this, put an end to their own lives, too, at the grave of this 
 best of mistresses. Cyrus shed tears over this noble pair, and 
 had a stone set up to their memory, which you can see near 
 Sardis. On it are the simple words: To Panthea, Abradatas, 
 and the most faithful of servants.' You see, children, the man 
 who had loved such a woman could never care for another." 
 
 The young men listened in silence, and remained some time 
 after Araspes had finished without uttering a word. At last 
 Bartja raised his hands to heaven and cried: "Oh, thou great 
 Auramazda! why dost thou not grant us a glorious end like 
 Abradatas? Why must we die a shameful death like mur- 
 derers?" 
 
 As he said this Croesus came in, fettered and led by whip- 
 bearers. The friends rushed to him with a storm of questions, 
 and Bartja, too, went up to embrace the man who had been so 
 long his tutor and guide. But the old man's cheerful face was 
 severe and serious, and his eyes, generally so mild, had a 
 gloomy, almost threatening expression. He waved the prince 
 coldly back, saying, in a voice which trembled with pain and 
 reproach: "Let my hand go, you infatuated boy! you are not 
 worth all the love I have hitherto felt for you. You have de- 
 ceived your brother in a fourfold manner, duped your friends, 
 betrayed that poor child who is waiting for you in Naukratis, 
 and poisoned the heart of Amasis' unhappy daughter." 
 
 Bartja listened calmly till he heard the word "deceived;" 
 then his hand clinched, and, stamping his foot, he cried: 
 "But for your age and infirmities, and the gratitude I owe you, 
 old man, these slanderous words would be your last." 
 
 Croesus heard this outbreak of just indignation unmoved, 
 and answered: "This foolish rage proves that you and Cam- 
 bysos have the same blood in your veins, It would become you
 
 284 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 much better to repent of your crimes and beg your old friend's 
 forgiveness, instead of adding ingratitude to the unheard-of 
 baseness of your other deeds." 
 
 At these words Bartja's anger gave way. His clinched 
 hands sank down powerless at his side, and his cheeks became 
 pale as death. 
 
 These signs of sorrow softened the old man's indignation. 
 His love was strong enough to embrace the guilty as well as 
 the innocent Bartja, and taking the young man's right hand 
 in both his own, he looked at him as a father would who finds 
 his son wounded on the battlefield, and said: "Tell me, my 
 poor, infatuated boy, how was it that your pure heart fell away 
 so quickly to the evil power?" 
 
 Bartja shuddered. The blood came back to his face, but 
 these words cut him to the heart. For the first time in his life 
 his belief in the justice of the gods forsook him. 
 
 He called himself the victim of a cruel, inexorable fate, and 
 felt like a hunted animal driven to its last gasp and hearing the 
 dogs and sportsmen fast coming nearer. He had a sensitive, 
 childlike nature, which did not yet know how to meet the hard 
 strokes of fate. His body and his physical courage had been 
 hardened against bodily and physical enemies ; but his teachers 
 had never told him how to meet a hard lot in life; for Cambyses 
 and Bartja had seemed destined only to drink out of the cup 
 of happiness and joy. 
 
 Zopyrus could not bear to see his friend in tears. He re- 
 proached the old man angrily with being unjust and severe. 
 Gyges' looks were full of entreaty, and Araspes stationed him- 
 self between the old man and the youth, as if to ward off the 
 blame of the elder from cutting deeper into the sad and grieved 
 heart of the younger man. Darius, however, after having 
 watched them for some time, came up with quiet deliberation 
 to Croesus, and said: "You continue to distress and offend 
 one another, and yet the accused does not seem to know with 
 what offense he is charged, nor will the accuser hearken to his 
 defense. Tell us, Croesus, by the friendship which has sub- 
 sisted between us up to this day, what has induced you to 
 judge Bartja so harshly, when only a short time ago you be- 
 lieved in his innocence?" 
 
 The old man told at once what Darius desired to know that, 
 he had seen a letter, written in Nitetis' own hand, in which she
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 285 
 
 made a direct confession of her love to Bartja and asked him 
 to meet her alone. The testimony of his own eyes and of the 
 first men in the realm, nay, even the dagger found under Nite- 
 tis' windows, had not been able to convince him that his 
 favorite was guilty; but this letter had gone like a burning 
 flash into his heart and destroyed the last remnant of his belief 
 in the virtue and purity of woman.. 
 
 "I left the king/' he concluded, "perfectly convinced that 
 a sinful intimacy must subsist between your friend and the 
 Egyptian princess, whose heart I had believed to be a mirror 
 for goodness and beauty alone. Can you find fault with me 
 for blaming him who so shamefully stained this clear mirror, 
 and with it his own not less spotless soul?" 
 
 "But how can I prove my innocence?" cried Bartja, wring- 
 ing his hands. "If you loved me you would believe me; if 
 you really cared for me " 
 
 "My boy! in trying to save your life only a few minutes 
 ago I forfeited my own. When I heard that Cambyses had 
 really resolved on your death I hastened to him with a storm 
 of entreaties; but these were of no avail, and then I was pre- 
 sumptuous enough to reproach him bitterly in his irritated 
 state of mind. The weak thread of his patience broke, and 
 in a fearful passion he commanded the guards to behead me 
 at once. I was seized directly by Giv, one of the whip-bearers ; 
 but as the man is under obligations to me he granted me 
 my life until this morning, and promised to conceal the post- 
 ponement of the execution. I am glad, my sons, that I shall 
 not outlive you, and shall die an innocent man by the side of 
 the guilty." ' 
 
 The last words roused another storm of contradiction. 
 
 Again Darius remained calm and quiet in the midst of the 
 tumult. He repeated once more the story of the whole evening 
 exactly, to prove that it was impossible Bartja could have 
 committed the crime laid to his charge. He then called on 
 the accused himself to answer the charge of disloyalty and 
 perfidy. Bartja rejected the idea of an understanding with 
 Nitetis in such short, decided and convincing words and con- 
 firmed his assertion with such a fearful oath that Croesus' 
 persuasion of his guilt first wavered, then vanished, and when 
 Bartja had ended he drew a deep breath, like a man deliv- 
 ered from a heavy burden, and clasped him in his arms.
 
 286 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 But with all their efforts they could come to no explana< 
 tion of what had really happened. In one thing, however, 
 they were all agreed: that Nitetis loved Bartja and had writ- 
 ten the letter with a wrong intention. 
 
 "No one who saw her," cried Darius, "when Cambyses 
 announced that Bartja had chosen a wife, could doubt for a 
 moment that she was in ^ove with* him. When she let the 
 goblet fall I heard PKaedime's father say that the Egyptian 
 women seemed to take a great interest in the affairs of their 
 brothers-in-law." 
 
 While they were talking the sun rose and shone pleasantly 
 into the prisoners' room. 
 
 Bartja murmured: "Mithras means to make our .parting 
 difficult." 
 
 "No," answered Croesus, "he only means to light vis kindly 
 on our way into eternity." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The innocent originator of all this complicated misery had 
 passed many a wretched hour since the birthday banquet. 
 Since those harsh words with which Cambyses had sent her 
 from the hall, not the smallest fragment of news had reached 
 her concerning either her angry lover or his mother and 
 sister. Not a day had passed since her arrival at Babylon 
 that had not been spent with Kassandane and Atossa; but 
 now, on her desiring to be carried to them, that she might 
 explain her strange conduct, her new guard, Kandaules, for- 
 bade her abruptly to leave the house. She had thought that 
 a free and full account of the contents of her letter from home 
 would clear up all these misunderstandings. She fancied she 
 saw Cambyses holding out his hand as if to ask forgiveness 
 for his hastiness and foolish jealousy. And then a joyful feel- 
 ing stole into her mind as she remembered a sentence she 
 had once heard Ibykus say: "As fever attacks a strong man 
 more violently than one of weaker constitution, so a heart 
 that loves strongly and deeply can be far more awfully tor-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 287 
 
 mented by jealousy than one which nas been only superfi- 
 cially seized by passion." 
 
 If this great connoisseur in love were right, Cambyses must 
 love her passionately, or his jealousy could not have caught 
 fire so quickly and fearfully. Sad thoughts about her home, 
 however, and dark forebodings of the future would mix with 
 this confidence in Cambyses' love, and she could not shut 
 them out. Midday came, the sun stood high and burning 
 in the sky, but no news came from those she loved so well, 
 and a feverish restlessness seized her which increased as night 
 came on. In the twilight Boges came to her and told her, 
 with bitter scorn, that her letter to Bartja had come into the 
 king's hands, and that the gardener's boy who brought it 
 had been executed. The tortured nerves of the princess could 
 not resist this fresh blow, and before Boges left he carried the 
 poor girl senseless into her sleeping-room, the door of which 
 he barred carefully. 
 
 A few minutes later two men, one old, the other young, 
 came up through the trap-door which Boges had examined 
 so carefully two davs before. The old man remained outside, 
 crouching against the palace wall ; a hand was seen to beckon 
 from the window, the youth obeyed the signal, swung him- 
 self over the ledge and into -the room at a bound. Then words 
 of love were exchanged, the names of Gaumata and Mandane 
 whispered softly, kisses and vows given and received. At 
 last the old man clapped his hands. The youth obeyed, kissed 
 and embraced Nitetis' waiting-maid once more, jumped out 
 of the window into the garden, hurried past the admirers of 
 the blue lily who were just coming up, slipped with his com- 
 panion into the trap-door which had been kept open, closed 
 it carefully and vanished. 
 
 Mandane hurried to the room in which her mistress gen- 
 erally spent the evening. She was well acquainted with her 
 habits and knew that every evening, when the stars had risen, 
 Nitetis was accustomed to go to the window looking toward 
 the Euphrates, and spend hours gazing into the river and 
 over the plain; and that at that time she never needed her 
 attendance. So she felt quite safe from fear of discovery in 
 this quarter, and, knowing she was under the protection of 
 the chief of the eunuchs himself, could wait for her lover 
 calmly.
 
 288 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 But scarcely had she discovered that her mistress had 
 fainted when she heard the garden filling with people, a con- 
 fused sound of men's and eunuchs' voices and the notes of 
 the trumpet used to summon the sentries. At first she was 
 frightened and fancied her lover had been discovered, but 
 Boges appearing and whispering: "He has escaped safely," 
 she at once ordered the other attendants whom she had ban- 
 ished to the women's apartments during her rendezvous, and 
 who now came flocking back, to carry their mistress into her 
 sleeping-room, and then began using all the remedies she 
 knew of to restore her to consciousness. Nitetis had scarcely 
 opened her eyes when Boges came in followed by two eunuchs, 
 whom he ordered to load her delicate arms with fetters. 
 
 Nitetis submitted; she could not utter one word, not even 
 when Boges called out as he was leaving the room: "Make 
 yourself happy in your cage, my little imprisoned bird. They've 
 just been telling your lord that a royal marten has been 
 making merry in your dove-cote. Farewell, and think of the 
 poor tormented Boges in this tremendous heat when you feel 
 the cool, damp earth. Yes, my little bird, death teaches us 
 to know our real friends, and so I won't have you buried in 
 a coarse linen sack, but in a soft silk shawl. Farewell, my 
 darling!" 
 
 The poor, heavily afflicted girl trembled at these words, 
 and when the eunuch was gone begged Mandane to tell her 
 what it all meant. The girl, instructed by Boges, said that 
 Bartja had stolen secretly into the hanging-gardens and had 
 been seen by several of the Achaemenidae as he was on the 
 point of getting in at one of the windows. The king had been 
 told of his brother's treachery, and people were afraid his 
 jealousy might have fearful consequences. The frivolous girl 
 shed abundant tears of penitence while she was telling the 
 story, and Nitetis, fancying this a proof of sincere love and 
 sympathy, felt cheered. 
 
 When it was over, however, she looked down at her fetters 
 in despair, and it was long before she could think of her 
 dreadful position quietly. Then she read her letter from 
 home again, wrote the words, "I am innocent," and told the 
 sobbing girl to give the little note containing them to the king's 
 mother after her own death, together with her letter from 
 home. After doing this she passed a wakeful night, which
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 289 
 
 seemed as if it would never end. She remembered that in 
 her box of ointments there was a specific for improving the 
 complexion, which if swallowed in a sufficiently large quantity 
 would cause death. She had this poison brought to her, and 
 resolved calmly and deliberately to take her own life directly 
 the executioner should draw near. From that moment she 
 took pleasure in thinking of her last hour, and said to herself: 
 "It is true he causes my death, but he does it out of love." 
 Then she thought she would write to him and confess all 
 her love. He should not receive the letter until she was dead, 
 that he might not think she had written it to save her life. 
 The hope that this strong, inflexible man might perhaps shed 
 tears over her last words of love filled her with intense 
 pleasure. 
 
 In spite of her heavy fetters she managed to write the fol- 
 lowing words: "Cambyses will not receive this letter until 
 I am dead. It is to tell him that I love him more than the 
 gods, the world yes, more than my own young life. Kas- 
 sandane and Atossa must think of me kindly. They will see 
 from my mother's letter that I am innocent, and that it was 
 only for my poor sister's sake that I asked to see Bartja. 
 Boges has told me that my death has been resolved upon. 
 When the executioner approaches I shall kill myself. I com- 
 mit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you from 
 doing a disgraceful deed." 
 
 This note and her mother's letter she gave to the weeping 
 Mandane and begged her to give both to Cambyses when 
 she was gone. She then fell on her knees and prayed to the 
 gods of her fathers to forgive her for her apostasy from them. 
 
 Mandane begged her to remember her weakness and take 
 some rest, but she answered: "I do not need any sleep, 
 because, you know, I have such a little waking-time still 
 left me." 
 
 As she went on praying and singing her old Egyptian 
 hymns, her heart returned more and more to the gods of her 
 fathers whom she had denied after such a short struggle. 
 In almost all the prayers with which she was acquainted there 
 was a reference to the life after death. In the nether world, 
 the kingdom of Osiris, where the forty-two judges of the 
 dead pronounce sentence on the worth of the soul after it 
 has been weighed by the goddess of truth and Thoth, who
 
 290 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 holds the office of writer in heaven, she could hope to meet 
 her dear ones again, but only in case her unjustified soul 
 were not obliged to enter on the career of transmigration 
 through the bodies of different animals and her body, to 
 whom the soul had been intrusted, remained in a state of pres- 
 ervation.* This "if" filled her with a feverish restlessness. 
 The doctrine that the well-being of the soul depended on the 
 preservation of the earthly part of every human being left 
 behind at death had been impressed on her from childhood. 
 She believed in this error which had built pyramids and exca- 
 vated rocks, and trembled at the thought that, according to 
 the Persian custom, her body would be thrown to the dogs 
 and birds of prey, and so given up to the powers of destruc- 
 tion that her soul must be deprived of every hope of eternal 
 life. Then the thought came to her, should she prove unfaith- 
 ful to the gods of her fathers again, and once more fall down 
 before these new spirits of light, who gave the dead body 
 over to the elements and only judged the soul? And so she 
 raised her hands to the great and glorious sun who with his 
 
 *See note pp. 70-71 on the Egyptian dogma which made the welfare 
 of the soul dependent on the preservation of the body, and on their 
 views of the life to come! We will only mention here that as the dead 
 were to obtain the use of their limbs, mouths, hearts, feet and hands 
 again in the nether world, it was necessary that these should be pre- 
 served. Whatever was deficient in the body would be deficient also in 
 its phantom or shadow. They certainly seem to have exhausted the 
 thought of immortality in every direction. As the sun at night is 
 not dead, but only gone to enlighten the lower world, so the Egyptian 
 only seems to die; the real life of his eternal soul only begins after he 
 has taken leave of the earth. The soul descends into the lower world, 
 either to be pronounced just, and in the pure light of the east, a par- 
 taker of salvation, to sow the well-watered fields in the plains of 
 Anulu or Alu, and reap without trouble that which it has sown, until 
 it has become ripe to be merged in Osiris as a part of the world-soul; 
 or, after suffering fearful torments in the purgatory of hell, to be 
 scourged out of the lower world and begin its wanderings through the 
 bodies of animals. In one of the papyri of the dead the condemned 
 soul is being scourged out of hades in the form of a sow. After these 
 wanderings, if purified and pardoned, it is at last permitted to unite 
 itself with Osiris, but if not, must again begin the round of purifica- 
 tion. Pythagoras borrowed his doctrine of the transmigration of souls 
 from the Egyptians. Plato divested it of its bodily garment in the 
 delicate manner which only he was capable of doing, and transferred 
 the idea into the spiritual kingdom. On the duration of the soul's 
 wanderings and the Phoenix period see Lepsius, "Chronologic," p. 181.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 291 
 
 golden, sword-like rays was just dispersing the mists that 
 hung over the Euphrates, and opened her lips to sing her 
 newly learned hymns in praise of Mithras; but her voice failed 
 her instead of Mithras she could only see her own great Ra, 
 the god she had so often worshiped in Egypt, and instead of 
 a Magian hymn could only sing the one with which the 
 Egyptian priests are accustomed to greet the rising sun.* 
 
 This hymn brought comfort with it, and as she gazed on 
 the young light, the rays of which were not yet strong enough 
 to dazzle her, she thought of her childhood and the tea*rs gath- 
 ered in her eyes. Then she looked down over the broad plain. 
 There was the Euphrates with his yellow waves, looking so 
 like the Nile; the many villages, just as in her own home, 
 peeping out from among luxuriant corn fields and plantations 
 of fig trees. To the west lay the royal hunting park; she 
 could see its tall cypresses and nut trees miles away in the 
 distance. The dew was glistening on . every little leaf and 
 blade of grass, and the birds sang deliciously in the shrub- 
 beries round her dwelling. Now and then a gentle breath of 
 wind arose, carrying the sweet scent of the roses across to her, 
 and playing in the tops of the slender, graceful palms which 
 grew in numbers on the banks of the river and in the fields 
 around. 
 
 She had so often admired these beautiful trees and compared 
 them to dancing girls as she watched the wind seizing their 
 heavy tops and swaying the slenderous stems backward and 
 forward. And she had often said to herself that here must 
 be the home of the Phoenix,f that wonderful bird from the 
 land of palms, who, the priests said, came once in every five 
 hundred years to the temple of Ra in Heliopolis and burned 
 himself in the Sacred incense flames, only to rise again from 
 his own ashes more beautiful than before, and, after three 
 days, to fly back again to his home in the east. While she 
 was thinking of this bird, and wishing that she too might 
 rise again from the ashes of her unhappiness to a new and 
 still more glorious joy, a large bird with brilliant plumage 
 rose out of the dark cypresses which concealed the palace of 
 
 *From an inscription on a tomb in the Berlin museum, first treated 
 by E. de Rouge. "Zeitschrift der Deutsch-Morgenlandischen Gesell- 
 schaft," iv, 375. 
 
 fSee note pp. 66-67.
 
 !!!:> AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the man she loved and who had made her so miserable and 
 flew toward her. It rose higher and higher, and at last set- 
 tled on a palm tree close to her window. She had never seen 
 such a bird before, and thought it could not possibly be a 
 usual one, for a little gold chain was fastened to its foot, and 
 its tail seemed made of sunbeams instead of feathers. It must 
 be Benno,* the bird of Ra! She fell on her knees again and 
 sang with deep reverence the ancient hymn to the Phoenix, f 
 never once turning her eyes from the brilliant bird. 
 
 The bird listened to her singing, bending his little head 
 with its waving plumes, wisely and inquisitively, from side to 
 side, and flew away directly she ceased. Nitetis looked after 
 him with a smile. It was really a bird of paradise that had 
 broken the chain by which he had been fastened to a tree 
 in the park, but to her he was the Phoenix. A strange cer- 
 tainty of deliverance filled her heart; she thought the god Ra 
 had sent the bird to her, and that as a happy spirit she 
 should take that form. So long as we are able to hope and 
 wish we can bear a great deal of sorrow; if the wished-for 
 happiness does not come, anticipation is at least prolonged 
 and has its own peculiar sweetness. This feeling is of itself 
 enough, and contains a kind of enjoyment which can take 
 the place of reality. Though she was so weary, yet she lay 
 down on her couch with fresh hopes, and fell into a dream- 
 less sleep almost against her will, without having touched the 
 poison. 
 
 The rising sun generally gives comfort to sad hearts who 
 have passed the night in weeping, but to a guilty conscience 
 which longs for darkness his pure light is an unwelcome 
 
 guest. While Nitetis slept Mandane lay awake, tormented 
 
 
 
 *In ancient Egyptian the Phoenix was called Benno. On this bird 
 and the worship paid to him at Heliopolis see notes pp. 66, 67 and 290. 
 Lepsius, "Chron.," p. 180, and Brugsch, "Geogr. Inschrift," i, p. 258. 
 
 fFrom the first sentence of chap. 83 of the "Book of the Dead." A 
 picture of the Phoenix stands as vignette at the head of this chapter, 
 which is entitled, "The chapter of the transformation into the Beuno 
 bird." In fact, the souls are represented in the form of a Phoenix and 
 other birds. The Benno must be looked at as the soul of the deity, 
 with which the soul of man, being regarded as a part and emanation 
 of the former, unites itself after earthly death, retaining nevertheless 
 a certain individuality. This union can of course only take place if 
 the soul has been justified and has passed through all the preparatory 
 stages.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 293 
 
 by fearful remorse. How gladly she would have held back 
 the sun which was bringing on the day of death to this kindest 
 of mistresses, and have spent the rest of her own life in per- 
 petual night, if only her yesterday's deed could but have been 
 undone ! 
 
 The good-natured, thoughtless girl called herself a wretched 
 murderess unceasingly, resolved again and again to confess 
 the whole truth and so to save Nitetis; but love of life and 
 fear of death gained the victory over her weak heart every 
 time. To confess was certain death, and she felt as if she 
 had been made for life ; she had so many hopes for the future, 
 and the grave seemed so dreadful. She thought she could 
 perhaps have confessed the whole truth if perpetual impris- 
 onment had been all she had to fear; but death! No, she 
 could not resolve on that. And, besides, would her confes- 
 sion really save the already condemned Nitetis? 
 
 Had she not sent a message to Bartja herself by that unfor- 
 tunate gardener's boy? This secret correspondence had been 
 discovered, and that was enough of itself to ruin Nitetis, even 
 if she, Mandane, had done nothing in the matter. We are 
 never so clever as when we have to find excuses for our own 
 sins. 
 
 At sunrise, Mandane was kneeling by her mistress' couch, 
 weeping bitterly and wondering that Nitetis could sleep so 
 calmly. 
 
 tfoges, the eunuch, had passed a sleepless night, too, but 
 a very happy one. His hated colleague, Kandaules, whom 
 he had used as a substitute for himself, had been already 
 executed, by the king's command, for negligence, and on 
 the supposition that he had accepted a bribe; Nitetis was 
 not only ruined, but certain to die a shameful death. The 
 influence of the king's mother had suffered a severe shock; 
 and lastly, he had the pleasure of knowing, not only that he 
 had outwitted everyone and succeeded in all his plans, but 
 that through his favorite Phaedime he might hope once more 
 to become the all-powerful favorite of former days. That sen- 
 tence of death had been pronounced on Croesus and the
 
 294 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 young heroes was by no means an unwelcome thought, either, 
 as they might have been instrumental in bringing his intrigues 
 to light. 
 
 In the gray of the morning he left the king's apartment 
 and went to Phaedime. The proud Persian had taken no 
 rest. She was waiting for him with feverish anxiety as a 
 rumor of all that had happened had already reached the 
 harem and penetrated to her apartments. 
 
 She was lying on a purple couch in her dressing-room; a 
 thin silken chemise and yellow slippers thickly sewn witli 
 turquoises and pearls composed her entire dress. Twenty 
 attendants were standing round her, but the moment she 
 heard Boges she sent her slaves away, sprang up to meet him, 
 and overwhelmed him with a stream of incoherent questions, 
 all referring to her enemy, Nitetis. 
 
 "Gently, gently, my little bird," said Boges, laying his hand 
 on her shoulder. "If you can't make up your mind to be as 
 quiet as a little mouse while I tell my story, and not ask one 
 question, you won't hear a syllable of it to-day. Yes, indeed, 
 my golden queen, I've so much to tell that I shall not have 
 finished till to-morrow if you are to interrupt me as often as 
 you like. Ah, my little lamb, and I've still so much to do 
 to-day. First, I must be present at an Egyptian donkey ride ; 
 second, I must witness an Egyptian execution but I see I 
 am anticipating my story; I must begin at the beginning. 
 I'll allow you to cry, laugh and scream for joy as much as 
 you will, but you're forbidden to ask a single question until 
 I have finished. I think really I have deserved these caresses. 
 There, now, I am quite at my ease, and can begin: Once 
 upon a time there was a great king in Persia, who had many 
 wives, but he loved Phaedime better than the rest, and set 
 her above all the others. One day the thought struck him 
 that he would ask for the hand of the king of Egypt's daugh- 
 ter in marriage, and he sent a great embassy to Sais, with 
 his own brother to do the wooing for him " 
 
 "What nonsense!" cried Phaedime, impatiently; "I want 
 to know what has happened now." 
 
 "Patience, patience, my impetuous March wind. If you 
 interrupt me again I shall go away and tell my story to the 
 trees. You really need not grudge me the pleasure of living 
 my successes over again. While I tell this story I feel as,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 295 
 
 happy as a sculptor when he puts down his hammer. and 
 gazes at his finished work." 
 
 "No, no!" said Phaedime, interrupting him again. "I can- 
 not listen now to what I know quite well already. I am dying 
 of impatience, and every fresh report that the eunuchs and 
 slave girls bring makes it worse. I am in a perfect fever 
 I cannot wait. Ask whatever else you like, only deliver me 
 from this awful suspense. Afterward I will listen to you for 
 days, if you wish." 
 
 Boges' smile at these words was one of great satisfaction; 
 he rubbed his hands and answered: "When I was a child I 
 had no greater pleasure than to watch a fish writhing on the 
 hook; now I have got you, my splendid golden carp, at the 
 end of my line, and I can't let you go until I have sated 
 myself on your impatience." 
 
 Phaedime sprang up from the couch which she had shared 
 with Boges, stamping her foot and behaving like a naughty 
 child. This seemed to amuse the eunuch immensely; he 
 rubbed his hands again and again, laughed till the tears ran 
 down over his fat cheeks, emptied many a goblet of wine to 
 the health of the tortured beauty and then went on with his 
 tale: "It had not escaped me that Cambyses sent his brother 
 (who had brought Nitetis from Egypt) out to the war with 
 the Tapuri purely from jealousy. That proud woman, who 
 was to take no orders from me, seemed to care as -little for 
 the handsome, fair-haired boy as a Jew for pork or an Egyp- 
 tian for white beans.* But still I resolved to nourish the 
 king's jealousy, and use it as a means of rendering this impru- 
 dent creature harmless, as she seemed likely to succeed in 
 supplanting us both in his favor. It was long, however, before 
 I could hit on a feasible plan. 
 
 "At last the new year's festival arrived,f and all the priests 
 in the kingdom assembled at Babylon. For eight days the 
 city was full of rejoicing, feasting and merry-making. At 
 
 *The Egyptians were forbidden to eat beans, probably because of 
 their tendency to cause flatulence. Cicero, "De Divin.," i, 30. Plut., 
 "Isis and Osiris," 9. Pythagoras borrowed this prohibition from the 
 Egyptians. It is possible, according to "Diodorus" (i, 89), that this 
 command was limited to a portion of the Egyptian nation, as some re- 
 frained from eating lentils, others beans, etc. 
 
 fin March, at the spring equinox.
 
 296 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 court it was just the same, and so I had very little time to 
 think of my plans. But, just then, when I had hardly any 
 hope of succeeding, the gracious Amescha qpenta* sent a 
 youth across my path who seemed created by Angramainjus 
 himself to suit my plan. Gaumata, the brother of Oropastes, 
 came to Babylon to be present at the great new year's sacri- 
 fice. I saw him first in his brother's house, whither I had 
 been sent on a message from the king, and his likeness to 
 Bartja was so wonderful that I almost fancied I was looking 
 at an apparition. When I had finished my business with 
 Oropastes the youth accompanied me to my carriage. I 
 showed no signs of astonishment at this remarkable likeness, 
 treated him, however, with immense civility, and begged him 
 to pay me a visit. He came the very same evening. I sent 
 for my best wine, pressed him to drink, and experienced 
 not for the first time that the juice of the vine has one 
 quality which outweighs all the rest; it can turn even a 
 silent man into a chatterbox. The youth confessed that the 
 great attraction which had brought him to Babylon was, not 
 the sacrifice, but a girl who held the office of upper attendant 
 to the Egyptian princess. He said he had loved her since 
 he was a child; but his ambitious brother had higher views 
 for him, and in order to get the lovely Mandane out of the 
 way, had procured her this situation. At last he begged me 
 to arrange an interview with her. I listened good-naturedly, 
 made a few difficulties, and at last asked him to -come the 
 next day and see how matters were going on. He came and 
 I told him that it might be possible to manage it, but only 
 if he would promise to do what I told him without a question. 
 He agreed to everything, returned to Rhagae at my wish, 
 and did not come to Babylon again until yesterday, when 
 he arrived secretly at my house, where I concealed him. Mean- 
 while Bartja had returned from the war. The great point 
 now was to excite the king's jealousy again and ruin the 
 Egyptian at one blow. I roused the indignation of your rela- 
 tions through your public humiliation, and so prepared the 
 way for my plan. Events were wonderfully in my favor. 
 You know how Nitetis behaved at the birthday banquet, but 
 you do not know that that very evening she sent a gardener's 
 
 *Note p. 272.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 297 
 
 boy to the palace with a note for Bartja. The silly fellow 
 managed to get caught and was executed that very night by 
 command of the king, who was almost mad with rage; and 
 I took care that Nitetis should be as entirely cut off from 
 all communication with her friends as if she lived in the nest 
 of the simurg.* You know the rest." 
 
 "But how did Gaumata escape?" 
 
 "Through a trap-door of which nobody knows but myself 
 and which stood wide open waiting for him. Everything 
 turned out marvelously; I even succeeded in getting hold 
 of a dagger which Bartja had lost while hunting, and laying 
 it under Nitetis' window. In order to get rid of the prince 
 during these occurrences and prevent him from meeting the 
 king or anyone else w r ho might be important as a witness, I 
 asked the Greek merchant Kolaeus, who was then at Babylon 
 with a cargo of Milesian cloth, and who is always willing to 
 do me a favor because I buy all the woolen stuffs required 
 for the harem of him, to write a Greek letter begging Bartja, 
 in the name of her he loved best, to come alone to the first 
 station outside the Euphrates gate at the rising of the Tistar 
 star. But I had a misfortune with this letter, for the mes- 
 senger managed the matter clumsily. He declares that he 
 delivered the letter to Bartja; but there can be no doubt 
 that he gave it to someone else, probably to Gaumata, and 
 I was not a little dismayed to hear that Bartja was sitting 
 over the wine with his friends on that very evening. Still, 
 what had been done could not be undone, and I knew that 
 the witness of men like your father, Hystaspes, Croesus and 
 Intaphernes, would far outweigh anything that Darius, Gyges 
 and Araspes could say. The former would testify against their 
 friend, the. latter for him. And so, at last, everything went 
 as I would have had it. The young gentlemen are sentenced 
 to death and Croesus, who, as usual, presumed to speak 
 impertinently to the king, will have lived his last hour by this 
 time. As to the Egyptian princess, the secretary in chief has 
 just been commanded to draw up the following order. Now 
 listen and rejoice, my little dove! 
 
 *The simurg is the fabulous bird of the Persians, and may be com- 
 pared to the roc or griffin. Sal, the father of Rustem, was brought 
 up in its nest. It was not only spoken of as large and strong, but as 
 "wise." See Firdusi, "Book of Kings, Sal."
 
 298 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 " 'Nitetis, the adulterous daughter of the king of Egypt, 
 shall be punished for her hideous crimes according to the 
 extreme rigor of the law, thus: She shall be set astride upon 
 an ass and led through the streets of Babylon; and all men 
 shall see that Cambyses knows how to punish a king's daugh- 
 ter as severely as his magistrates would punish the meanest 
 beggar. To Boges, chief of the eunuchs, is intrusted the 
 execution of this order. 
 
 " 'By command of King Cambyses. 
 
 " 'ARIABIGNES, Chief of the Secretaries.' 
 
 "I had scarcely placed these lines in the sleeve of my robe 
 when the king's mother, with her garments rent and led by 
 Atossa, pressed hastily into the hall. Weeping and lamenta- 
 tion followed; cries, reproaches, curses, entreaties and prayers; 
 but the king remained firm, and I verily believe Kassandane 
 and Atossa would have been sent after Croesus and Bartja 
 in the other world if fear of Cyrus' spirit had not prevented 
 the son, even in this furious rage, from laying hands on his 
 father's widow. Kassandane, however, did not say one word 
 for Nitetis. She seems as fully convinced of her guilt as you 
 and I can be. Neither have we anything to fear from the 
 enamored Gaumata. I have hired three men to give him a 
 cool bath in the Euphrates before he gets back to Rhagae. 
 Ah, ha! the fishes and worms will have a jolly time!" 
 
 Phaedime joined in Boges' laughter, bestowed on him all 
 the flattering names which she had caught from his own smooth 
 tongue, and, in token of her gratitude, hung a heavy chain 
 studded with jewels round his neck with her own beautiful 
 arms.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Before the sun had reached his midday height the news 
 of what had happened and what was still to happen had 
 filled all Babylon. The streets swarmed with people, waiting 
 impatiently to see the strange spectacle which the punishment 
 of one of the king's wives who had proved false and faithless 
 promised to afford. The whip-bearers were forced to use 
 all their authority to keep this gaping crowd in order. Later 
 on in the day the news that Bartja and his friends were soon 
 to be executed arrived in the crowd; they were under the 
 influence of the palm wine which was liberally distributed 
 on the king's birthday and the following days, and could not 
 control their excited feelings; but these now took quite another 
 form. 
 
 Bands of drunken men paraded the streets, crying: "Bartja, 
 the good son of Cyrus, is to be executed !" The women heard 
 these words in their quiet apartments, eluded their keepers, 
 forgot their veils, and, rushing forth into the streets, followed 
 the excited and indignant men with their cries and yells. 
 Their pleasure in the thought of seeing a more fortunate sister 
 humbled vanished at the painful news that their beloved prince 
 was condemned to death. Men, women and children raged, 
 stormed and cursed, exciting one another to louder and louder 
 bursts of indignation. The work-shops were emptied, the 
 merchants closed their warehouses, and the school-boys and 
 servants, who had a week's holiday on occasion of the king's 
 birthday, used their freedom to scream louder than anyone 
 else, and often to groan and yell without in the least 
 knowing why. 
 
 At last the tumult was so great that the whip-bearers were 
 insufficient to cope with it, and a detachment of the body- 
 guard was sent to patrol the streets. At the sight of their 
 shining armor and long lances the crowd retired into the 
 side streets, only, however, to reassemble in fresh numbers 
 when the troops were out of sight. 
 
 At the gate, called the Bel gate, which led to the great 
 western highroad, the throng was thicker than at any other
 
 300 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 point, for it was said that through this gate, the one by which 
 she had entered Babylon, the Egyptian princess was to be 
 led out of the city in shame and disgrace. For this reason 
 a larger number of whip-bearers were stationed here in order 
 to make way for travelers entering the city. Very few people, 
 indeed, left the city at all on this day, for curiosity was stronger 
 than either business or pleasure; those, on the other hand, 
 who arrived from the country, took up their stations near 
 the gate on hearing what had drawn the crowd thither. 
 
 It was nearly midday, and only wanted a few hours to the 
 time fixed for Nitetis' disgrace, when a caravan approached 
 the gate with great speed. The first carriage was a so-called 
 Harmamaxa,* drawn by four horses decked out with bells 
 and tassels ; a two-wheeled cart followed, and last in the train 
 was a baggage wagon drawn by mules. A fine, handsome 
 man of about fifty, dressed as a Persian courtier, and another, 
 much older, in long white robes, occupied the first carriage. 
 The cart was filled by a number of slaves in simple blouses 
 and broad-brimmed felt hats, wearing the hair cut close to 
 the head. An old man dressed as a Persian servant rode by 
 the side of the cart. The driver of the first carriage had great 
 difficulty in making way for his gayly ornamented horses 
 through the crowd; he was obliged to come to a halt before 
 the gate and call some whip-bearers to his assistance. "Make 
 way for us!" he cried, to the captain of the police, who came 
 up with some of his men; "the royal post has no time to lose, 
 and I am driving someone who will make you repent every 
 minute's delay." 
 
 "Softly, my son," answered the official. "Don't you see 
 that it's easier to-day to get out of Babylon than to come in? 
 Whom are you driving?" 
 
 "A nobleman, with a passport from the king. Come, be 
 quick and make way for us." 
 
 "I don't know about that; your caravan does not look much 
 like royalty." 
 
 "What have you to do with that? The pass 
 
 "I must see it before I let you into the city." 
 
 These words were half meant for the traveler whom he was 
 scrutinizing very suspiciously. 
 
 *See note p. 155.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 301 
 
 While tlie man in the Persian dress was feeling in his sleeve 
 for the passport the whip-bearer turned to some comrades who 
 had just come up, and pointed out the scanty retinue of the 
 travelers, saying: "Did you ever see such a queer cavalcade? 
 There's something odd about these strangers, as sure as my 
 name's Giw. Why, the lowest of the king's carpet-bearers 
 travels with four times as many people, and yet this man has 
 a royal pass and is dressed like one of those who sit at th* 
 royal table." 
 
 At this moment the suspected traveler handed him a little 
 silken roll scented with musk,* sealed with the royal seal 
 and containing the king's own handwriting. 
 
 The whip-bearer took it and examined the seal. "It is all 
 in order," he murmured, and then began to study the char- 
 acters. But no sooner had he deciphered the first letters than 
 he looked even more sharply than before at the traveler, and 
 seized the horses' bridles, crying out: "Here, men, form a 
 guard round the carriage ! this is an impostor." 
 
 When he had convinced himself that escape was impossible 
 he went up to the stranger again and said: 
 
 "You are using a pass which does not belong to you. 
 Gyges, the son of Croesus, the man you give yourself out for, 
 is in prison and is to be executed to-day. You are not in the 
 least like him, and you will have reason to repent having tried 
 to pass for him. Get out of your carriage and follow me." 
 
 The traveler, however, instead of obeying, began to speak 
 in broken Persian, and begged the officer rather to take a 
 seat by him in the carriage, for that he had very important 
 news to communicate. The man hesitated a moment; but 
 on seeing a fresh band of whip-bearers come up, he nodded 
 to them to stand before the patient, chafing horses, and got 
 into the carriage. 
 
 The stranger looked at him with a smile and said: "Now, 
 do I look like an impostor?" 
 
 "No; your language proves that you are not a Persian, 
 but yet you look like a nobleman." 
 
 "I am a Greek, and have come hither to render Cambyses 
 an important service. Gyges is my friend and lent me his 
 
 *From Firdusi: 
 
 "And now he wrote on silken stuff so fine 
 A letter breathing fragrance, musk and wine."
 
 302 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 passport when he was in Egypt, in case I should ever come 
 to Persia. I am prepared to vindicate my conduct before the 
 king, and have no reason for fear. On the contrary, the news 
 I bring gives me reason to expect much from his favor. Let 
 me be taken to Croesus, if this is your duty; he will be surety 
 for me, and will send back your men, of whom you seem to 
 stand in great need to-day. Distribute these gold pieces among 
 them, and tell me without further delay what my poor friend 
 Gyges has done to deserve death, and what is the reason of 
 all this crowd and confusion." 
 
 The stranger said this in bad Persian, but there lay so much 
 dignity and confidence in his tone, and his gifts were on such 
 a large scale, that the cringing and creeping servant of despo- 
 tism felt sure he must be sitting opposite to a prince, crossed 
 his arms reverentially, and, excusing himself from his many 
 pressing affairs, began to relate rapidly. He had been on duty 
 in the great hall during the examination of the prisoners the 
 night before, and could, therefore, tell all that happened with 
 tolerable accuracy. The Greek followed his tale eagerly, with 
 many an incredulous shake of his handsome head, however, 
 when the daughter *of Amasis and the son of Cyrus were 
 spoken of as having been disloyal and false. That sentence 
 of death had been pronounced, especially on Croesus, dis- 
 tressed him visibly, but the sadness soon vanished from his 
 quickly changing features and 'gave place to thought; this in 
 its turn was quickly followed by a joyful look which could 
 only betoken that the thinker had arrived at a satisfactory 
 result. His dignified gravity vanished in a moment; he 
 laughed aloud, struck his forehead merrily, seized the hand 
 of the astonished captain, and said: 
 
 "Should you be glad if Bartja could be saved?" 
 
 "More than I can say." 
 
 "Very well; then I will vouch for it that you shall receive 
 at least two talents* if you can procure me an interview with 
 the king before the first execution has taken place." 
 
 "How can you ask such a thing of me, a poor captain?" 
 
 "Yes, you must you must!" 
 
 "I cannot." 
 
 "I know well that it is very difficult, almost impossible, for 
 
 *Four hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 303 
 
 a stranger to obtain an audience of your king; but my errand 
 brooks no delay, for I can prove that Bartja and his friends 
 are not guilty. Do you hear? I can prove it. Do you think, 
 now, you can procure me admittance?" 
 
 "How is it possible?'' 
 
 "Don't ask, but act. Didn't you say Darius was one of the 
 condemned?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I have heard that his father is a man of very high rank." 
 
 "He is the first in the kingdom, after the sons of Cyrus." 
 
 "Then take me to him at once. He will welcome me when 
 he hears I am able to save his son." 
 
 "Stranger, you are a wonderful being. You speak with so 
 much confidence that 
 
 "That you feel you may believe me. Make haste, then, 
 and call some of your men to make way for us and escort us 
 to the palace." 
 
 There is nothing, except a doubt, which runs more quickly 
 from mind to mind than a hope that some cherished wish 
 may be fulfilled, especially when this hope has been suggested 
 to us by someone we can trust. 
 
 The officer believed this strange traveler, jumped out of 
 the carriage, flourishing his scourge and calling to his men: 
 "This nobleman has come on purpose to prove Bartja's inno- 
 cence, and must be taken to the king at once. Follow me, 
 my friends, and make way for him !" 
 
 Just at that moment a troop of the guards appeared in 
 sight. The captain of the whip-bearers went up to their com- 
 mander, and, seconded by the shouts of the crowd, begged 
 him to escort the stranger to the palace. 
 
 During this colloquy the traveler had mounted his servant's 
 horse, and now followed in the wake of the Persians. 
 
 The good news flew like wind through the huge city. As 
 the riders proceeded the crowd fell back more willingly, and 
 louder and fuller grew the shouts of joy until, at last, their 
 march was like a triumphal procession. 
 
 In a few minutes they drew up before the palace; but, 
 before the brazen gates had opened to admit them, another 
 train came slowly into sight. {At the head rode a gray-headed 
 old man; his robes were brown, and rent, in token of mourn- 
 ing; the mane and tail of his horse had been shorn off and
 
 304 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the creature colored blue.* It was Hystaspes, coming to 
 entreat mercy for his son. 
 
 The whip-bearer, delighted at this sight, threw himself down 
 before the old man with a cry of joy, and with crossed arms 
 told him what confidence the traveler had inspired him with. 
 
 Hystaspes beckoned to the stranger; he rode up, bowed 
 gracefully and courteously to the old man, without dismount- 
 ing, and confirmed the words of the whip-bearer. Hystaspes 
 seemed to feel fresh confidence, too, after hearing the stranger, 
 for he begged him to follow into the palace and to wait outside 
 the door of the royal apartment, while he himself, conducted 
 by the head chamberlain, went in to the king. 
 
 When his old kinsman entered Cambyses was lying on his 
 purple couch, pale as death. A cup-bearer was kneeling on 
 the ground at his feet, trying to collect the broken fragments 
 of a costly Egyptian drinking-cup which the king had thrown 
 down impatiently because its contents had not pleased his 
 taste. At some distance stood a circle of court officials, in 
 whose faces it was easy to read that they were afraid of their 
 ruler's wrath, and preferred keeping as far from him as pos- 
 sible. The dazzling light and oppressive heat of a Babylo- 
 nian May day came in through the open windows, and not 
 a sound was to be heard in the great room, except the whin- 
 ing of a large dog of the Epirote breed, which had just received 
 a tremendous kick from Cambyses for venturing to fawn on 
 his master, and was the only being that ventured to disturb 
 the solemn stillness. Just before Hystaspes was led in by the 
 chamberlain Cambyses had sprung up from his couch. This 
 idle repose had become unendurable he felt suffocated with 
 pain and anger. The dog's howl suggested a new idea to 
 his poor, tortured brain, thirsting for forgetfulness. 
 
 "We will go hunting!" he shouted to the poor, startled 
 courtiers. The masters of the hounds, the equerries and 
 huntsmen hastened to obey orders. He called after them: 
 "I shall ride the unbroken horse Reksch;f get the falcons 
 
 *From the mourning for Iredsch. Firdusi, "Book of Kings." The 
 brown mourning garment is from Rosenmiiller, "Das Atle und Neue 
 Morgenland," i, p. 179. 
 
 tThe celebrated warhorse of Rustem has the same name. It signi- 
 fies "lightning."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 305 
 
 ready, let all the dogs out and order everyone to come who 
 can throw a spear. We'll clear the preserves!" 
 
 He then threw himself down on his divan again, as if these 
 words had quite exhausted his powerful frame, and did not 
 see that Hystapes had entered, for his sullen gaze was fixed 
 on the motes playing in the sunbeams that glanced through 
 the window. 
 
 Hystaspes did not dare to address him; but he stationed 
 himself in the window so as to break the stream of motes and 
 thus draw attention to himself. 
 
 At first Cambyses looked angrily at him and his rent gar- 
 ments, and then asked, with a bitter smile: "What do you 
 want?" 
 
 "Victory to the king. Your poor servant and uncle has 
 come to entreat his ruler's mercy." 
 
 "Then, rise and go! You know that I have no mercy for 
 perjurers and false swearers. 'Tis better to have a dead son 
 than a dishonorable one." 
 
 "But, if Bartja should not be guilty, and Darius " 
 
 "You dare to question the justice of my sentence?" 
 
 "That be far from me. Whatever the king does is good 
 and cannot be gainsaid; but still " 
 
 "Be silent! I will not hear the subject mentioned again. 
 You are to be pitied as a father; but have these last few hours 
 brought me any joy? Old man, I grieve for you, but I have 
 as little power to rescind his punishment as you to recall his 
 crime." 
 
 "But if Bartja really should not be guilty if the gods 
 
 "Do you think the gods will come to the help of perjurers 
 and deceivers?" 
 
 "No, my king; but a fresh witness has appeared." 
 
 "A fresh witness? Verily, I would gladly give half my king- 
 dom to be convinced of the innocence of men so nearly related 
 to me." 
 
 "Victory to my lord, the eye of the realm! A Greek is 
 waiting outside who seems, to judge by his figure and bearing, 
 one of the noblest of his race." 
 
 The king laughed bitterly. "A Greek! Ah, ha! perhaps 
 some relation to Bartja's faithful fair one! What can this 
 stranger know of my family affairs? I know/ these beggarly 
 lonians well. They are impudent enough to meddle in every-
 
 306 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 thing, and think they can cheat us with their sly tricks. How 
 much have you had to pay for this new witness, uncle? A 
 Greek is as ready with a lie as a Magian with his spells, and I 
 know they'll do anything for gold. I'm really curious to see 
 your witness. Call him in. But if he wants to deceive me he 
 had better remember that where the head of a son of Cyrus is 
 about to fall a Greek has but very little chance." And the 
 king's eyes flashed with anger as he said these words. Hys- 
 taspes, however, sent for the Greek. 
 
 Before he entered the chamberlains fastened the usual cloth 
 before his mouth and commanded him to cast himself on the 
 ground before the king. The Greek's bearing as he ap- 
 proached under the king's penetrating glance was calm and 
 noble. He fell on his face, and, according to the Persian 
 custom, kissed the ground. 
 
 His agreeable and handsome appearance, and the calm and 
 modest manner in which he bore the king's gaze, seemed 
 to make a favorable impression on the latter. He did not 
 allow him to remain long on the earth, and asked him in a by 
 no means unfriendly tone: 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 "I am a Greek nobleman. My name is Phanes, and Athens 
 is my home. I have served ten years as commander of the 
 Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and not ingloriously." 
 
 "Are you the man to whose clever generalship the Egyptians 
 were indebted for the victories in Cyprus?" 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "What has brought you to Persia?" 
 
 "The glory of your name, Cambyses, and the wish to devote 
 my arms and experience to your service." 
 
 "Nothing else? Be sincere, and remember that one single 
 lie can cost your life. We Persians have different ideas of 
 truth from the Greeks." 
 
 "Lying is hateful to me, too, if only because as a distortion 
 and corruption of what is noblest it seems to me unsightly in 
 my eyes." 
 
 "Then speak." 
 
 "There was certainly a third reason for my coming hither, 
 which I should like to tell you later. It has reference to mat- 
 ters of the gravest importance which it will require a longer 
 time to discuss; but to-day "
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 307 
 
 "Just to-day 1 should like to hear something new. Accom- 
 pany me to the chase. You come exactly at the right time, 
 for I never had more need of diversion than now." 
 
 "I will accompany you with pleasure, if " 
 
 "No conditions to the king! Have you had much practice 
 in hunting?" 
 
 "In the Libyan desert I have killed many a lion." 
 
 "Then come, follow me." 
 
 In the thought of the chase the king seemed to have thrown 
 off all his weakness and roused himself to action; he was just 
 leaving the hall, when Hystaspes once more threw himself at 
 his feet, crying, with upraised hands: "Is my son is your 
 brother to die innocent? By the soul of your father who 
 used to call me his truest friend, I conjure you to listen to 
 this noble stranger." 
 
 Cambyses stood still. The frown gathered on his brow 
 again, his voice sounded like a menace and his eyes flashed 
 as he raised his hand and said to the Greek: "Tell me what 
 you know; but remember that in every untrue word you utter 
 your own sentence of death." 
 
 Phanes heard this threat with the greatest calmness, and 
 answered, bowing gracefully as he spoke: "From the sun and 
 from my lord the king nothing can be hid. What power has 
 a poor mortal to conceal the truth from one so *?ughty? The 
 noble Hystaspes has said that I am able to prove yovir brother 
 innocent. I will only say that I wish and hope I may succeed 
 in accomplishing anything so great and beautiful. The gods 
 have at least allowed me to discover a trace which oeems calcu- 
 lated to throw light on the events of yesterday; but you your- 
 self must decide whether my hopes have been presumptuous 
 and my suspicions too easily aroused. Remember, however, 
 that throughout, my wish to serve you has been sincere, and 
 that if I have been deceived my error is pardonable; that 
 nothing is perfectly certain in this world and every man be- 
 lieves that to be infallible which seems to him the most prob 
 able." 
 
 "You speak well, and remind me of curse her! there, 
 speak and have done with it! I hear the dogs already in the 
 court." 
 
 "I was still in Egypt when your embassy came to fetch Nite- 
 tis. At the house of Rhodopis, my delightful, clever and cele-
 
 308 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 brated countrywoman, I made the acquaintance of Croesus 
 and his son ; I only saw your brother and his friends once or 
 twice, casually; still I remembered the young prince's hand- 
 some face so well, that some time later, when I was in the 
 workshop of the great sculptor Theodorus, at Samos, I recog- 
 nized his features at once." 
 
 "Did you meet him at Samos?" 
 
 "No, but his features had made such a deep and faithful 
 impression on Theodorus' memory, that he used them to beau- 
 tify the head of an Apollo which the Alkmaeonidae had ordered 
 for the new temple at Delphi." 
 
 "Your tale begins, at least, incredibly enough. How is it 
 possible to copy features so exactly when you have not got 
 them before you?" 
 
 "I can only answer that Theodorus has really completed 
 his master-piece, and if you wish for a proof of his skill would 
 gladly send you a second likeness of 
 
 "I have no desire for it. Go on with your story." 
 
 "On my journey thither, which, thanks to your father's ex- 
 cellent arrangements, I performed in an incredibly short time, 
 changing horses every sixteen or seventeen miles 
 
 "Who allowed you, a foreigner, to use the post-horses?" 
 
 "The pass drawn out for the son of Croesus, which came by 
 chance into my hands, when once, in order to save my life, 
 he forced me to change clothes with him." 
 
 "A Lydian can outwit a fox and a Syrian a Lydian, but an 
 Ionian is a match for both," muttered the king, smiling for the 
 first time; "Croesus told me this story poor Croesus!" and 
 then the old gloomy expression came over' his face and he 
 passed his hand across his forehead as if trying to smooth the 
 lines of care away. The Athenian went on: "I met with no 
 hindrance on my journey till this morning at the first hour after 
 midnight, when I was detained by a strange occurrence." 
 
 The king began to listen more attentively and reminded the 
 Athenian, w'lo spoke Persian with difficulty, that there was no 
 time" to lose. 
 
 "We had reached the last station but one," continued he, 
 "and hoped to be in Babylon by sunrise. I was thinking over 
 my past stirring life and was so haunted by the remembrance 
 of evil deeds unrevenged that I coulH not sleep ; the old Egyp- 
 tian at my side, however, slept and dreamed peacefully enough,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 309 
 
 lulled by the monotonous tones of the harness bells, the sound 
 of the horses' hoofs and the murmur of the Euphrates. It was 
 a wonderfully still, beautiful night; the moon and stars were so 
 brilliant that our road and the landscape were lighted up al- 
 most with the brightness of day. For the last hour we had not 
 seen a single vehicle, foot-passenger, cr horseman; we had 
 heard that all the neighboring population had assembled in 
 Babylon to celebrate your birthday, gaze with wonder at the 
 splendor of your court and enjoy your liberality. At last the 
 irregular beat of the horses' hoofs and the sound of bells 
 struck my ear, and a few minutes later I distinctly heard cries 
 of distress. My resolve was taken at once; I made my Per- 
 sian servant dismount, sprang into his saddle, told the driver 
 of the cart in which my slaves were sitting not to spare his 
 mules, loosened my dagger and sword in their scabbards, and 
 spurred my horse toward the place from whence the cries came. 
 They grew louder and louder. I had not ridden a minute 
 when I came on a fearful scene. Three wild-looking fellows 
 had just pulled a youth, dressed in the white robes of a Magian, 
 from his horse, stunned him with heavy blows, and, just as I 
 reached them, were on the point of throwing him into the 
 Euphrates, which at that place washes the roots of the palms 
 and fig-trees bordering the highroad. I uttered my Greek 
 war-cry, which has made many an enemy tremble before now, 
 and rushed on the murderers. Such fellows are always 
 cowards; the moment they saw one of their accomplices mor- 
 tally wounded they fled. I did not pursue them, but stooped 
 down to examine the poor boy, who was severely wounded. 
 How can I describe my horror at seeing, as I believed, your 
 brother Bartja? Yes, they were the very same features that 
 I had seen, first at Naukratis and then in Theodorus' workshop; 
 they were 
 
 "Marvelous!" interrupted Hystaspes. 
 
 "Perhaps a little too much so to be credible," added the 
 king. "Take care, Hellene! remember my arm reaches far. 
 I shall have the truth of your story put to the proof." 
 
 "I am accustomed," answered Phanes, bowing low, "to fol- 
 low the advice of our wise philosopher Pythagoras, whose 
 fame may perhaps have reached your ears, and always, before 
 speaking, to consider whether what I am going to say may not 
 cause me sorrow in the future."
 
 310 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "That sounds well; but, by Mithras, I knew someone. who 
 often spoke of that great teacher, and yet in her deeds turned 
 out to be a most faithful disciple of Angramainjus. You 
 know the traitoress whom we are going to extirpate from the 
 earth like a poisonous viper to-day?" 
 
 "Will you forgive me," answered Phanes, seeing the anguish 
 expressed in the king's features, "if I quote another of the great 
 master's maxims?" 
 
 "Speak." 
 
 "Blessings go as quickly as they come. Therefore, bear thy 
 lot patiently. Murmur not, and remember that the gods never 
 lay a heavier weight on any man than he can bear. Hast thou 
 a wounded heart? touch it as seldom as thou wouldst a sore 
 eye. There are only two remedies for heart-sickness hope 
 and patience." 
 
 Cambyses listened to this sentence borrowed from the golden 
 maxims of Pythagoras, and smiled bitterly at the word "pa- 
 tience." Still, the Athenian's way of speaking pleased him, and 
 he told him to go on with his story. 
 
 Phanes made another deep obeisance, and continued: "We 
 carried the unconscious youth to my carriage, and brought him 
 to the nearest station. There he opened his eyes, looked 
 anxiously at me, and asked who I was and what had happened 
 to him? The master of the station was standing by, so I was 
 obliged to give the name of Gyges in order not to excite his 
 suspicions by belying my pass, as it was only through this that 
 I could obtain fresh horses. 
 
 "The wounded man seemed to know Gyges, for he shook 
 his head and murmured: 'You are not the man you give your- 
 self out for.' Then he closed his eyes again and a violent 
 attack of fever came on." 
 
 "We undressed, bled him, and bound up his wounds. My 
 Persian servant, who had served as overlooker in Amasis' 
 stables and had seen Bartja there, assisted by the old Egyptian 
 who accompanied me, was very helpful, and asserted untiringly 
 that the wounded man could be no other than your brother 
 When we had cleansed the blood from his face the master of 
 the station, too, swore that there could be no doubt of his 
 being the younger son of your great father, Cyrus. Mean- 
 while, my Egyptian companion had fetched a potion from the
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 311 
 
 traveling medicine-chest* without which an Egyptian does not 
 care to leave his native country. The drops worked wonders; 
 in a few hours the fever was quieted, and at sunrise the patient 
 opened his eyes once more. We bowed down before him, 
 believing him to be your brother, and asked if he would like 
 to be taken to the palace in Babylon. This he refused vehe- 
 mently and asseverated that he was not the man we took him 
 for, but 
 
 "Who can be so like Bartja? tell me quickly," interrupted 
 the king; "I am very curious to know this." 
 
 "He declared that he was the brother of your high-priest, 
 that his name was Gaumata, and that this would be proved by 
 the pass which we should find in the sleeve of his Magian's 
 robe. The landlord found this document, and, being able to 
 read, confirmed the statement of the sick youth; he was, how- 
 ever, soon seized by a fresh attack of fever and began to speak 
 incoherently." 
 
 "Could you understand him?" 
 
 "Yes, for his talk always ran on the same subject. The hang- 
 ing-gardens seemed to fill his thoughts. He must have just 
 escaped some great danger, and probably had had a lover's 
 meeting there with a woman called Mandane." 
 
 "Mandane Mandane," said Cambyses, in a low voice; "if 
 I do not mistake, that is the name of the highest attendant on 
 Amasis' daughter." 
 
 These words did not escape the sharp ears of the Greek. 
 He thought a moment, and then exclaimed, with a smile: "Set 
 the prisoners free, my king; I will answer for it with my own 
 head that Bartja was not in the hanging-gardens." , 
 
 The king was surprised at this speech, but not angry. The 
 free, unrestrained, graceful manner of this Athenian toward 
 himself produced the same impression that a fresh sea breeze 
 makes when felt for the first time. The nobles of his own 
 court, even his nearest relations, approached him, bowing and 
 cringing, but this Greek stood erect in his presence; the Per- 
 sians never ventured to address their ruler without a thousand 
 flowery and flattering phrases, but the Athenian was simple, 
 open and straightforward. Yet his words were accompanied 
 
 *A similar traveling medicine-chest is to be seen in the Egyptian 
 museum at Berlin. It is prettily and compendiously fitted up.
 
 312 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 by such a charm of action and expression that the king could 
 understand them, notwithstanding the defective Persian in 
 which they were clothed, better than the allegorical speeches 
 of his own subjects. Nitetis and Phanes were the only human 
 beings who had ever made him forget that he was a king. With 
 them he was a man, speaking to his fellow-men, instead of 
 a despot, speaking with creatures whose very existence was 
 the plaything of his caprice. Such is the effect produced by 
 real manly dignity, superior culture and the consciousness 
 of a right to freedom on the mind even of a. tyrant. But there 
 was something besides all this that had helped to win Cam- 
 byses' favor for the Athenian. This man's coming seemed as if 
 it might possibly give him back the treasure he had believed 
 was lost and more than lost. But how could the life of such a 
 foreign adventurer be accepted as surety for the sons of the 
 highest Persians in the realm? The proposal, however, did 
 not make him angry. On the contrary, he could not help 
 smiling at the boldness of this Greek, who, in his eagerness, 
 had freed himself from the cloth which hung over his mouth 
 and beard, and exclaimed: "By Mithras, Greek, it really seems 
 as if you were to prove a messenger of good for us ! I accept 
 your offer. If the prisoners, notwithstanding your supposi- 
 tion, should still prove guilty, you are bound to pass your whole 
 life at my court and in my service ; but if, on the contrary, you 
 are able to prove what I so ardently long for, I will make you 
 richer than any of your countrymen." 
 
 Phanes answered by a smile which seemed to decline this 
 munificent offer, and asked: "Is it permitted me to put a few 
 * questions to yourself and to the officers of your court?" 
 
 "You are allowed to say and ask whatever you wish." 
 
 At this moment the master of the huntsmen, one of those 
 who daily ate at the king's table, entered, out of breath from his 
 endeavors to hasten the preparations, and announced that all 
 was ready. 
 
 "They must wait," was the king's imperious answer. "I a,m 
 not sure that we shall hunt at all to-day. Where is Bischen, 
 the captain of police?" 
 
 Datis, the so-called "eye of the king,"* who held the office 
 filled in modern days by a minister of police, hurried from the 
 
 *See note p. 173.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 313 
 
 room, returning- in a few minutes with the desired officer. 
 These moments Phanes made use of for putting various ques- 
 tions on important points to the nobles who were present. 
 
 "What news can you bring of the prisoners?" asked the king, 
 as the man lay prostrate before him. 
 
 "Victory to the king! They await death with calmness, for 
 it is sweet to die by thy will." 
 
 "Have you heard anything of their conversation?" 
 
 "Yes, my ruler." 
 
 "Do they acknowledge their guilt when speaking to each 
 other?" 
 
 "Mithras alone knows the heart; but you, my king, if you 
 could hear them speak w-ould believe in their innocence, even 
 as I the humblest of your servants." 
 
 The captain looked up timidly at the king, fearing lest these 
 words should have excited his anger. Cambyses, however, 
 smiled kindly instead of rebuking him. But a sudden thought 
 darkened his brow again directly, and in a low voice he 
 asked: "When was Croesus executed?" 
 
 The man trembled at this question, the perspiration stood 
 on his forehead, and he could scarcely stammer the words: 
 "He is he has we thought " 
 
 "What did you think?" interrupted Cambyses, and a new 
 light of hope seemed to dawn in his mind. "Is it possible that 
 you did not carry out my orders at once? Can Croesus still 
 be alive? Speak at once; I must know the whole truth." 
 
 The captain writhed like a worm at his lord's feet, and at last 
 stammered out, raising his hands imploringly toward the king: 
 "Have mercy, have mercy, my lord, the king! I am a poor man, 
 and have thirty children, fifteen of whom 
 ' "I wish to knoxv if Croesus is living or dead." 
 
 "He is alive! He has done so much for me, and I did not 
 think I was doing wrong in allowing him to live a few hours 
 longer, that he might 
 
 "That is enough," said the king, breathing freely, "This once 
 your disobedience shall go unpunished, and the treasury may 
 give you two talents as you have so many children. Now go 
 to the prisoners; tell Croesus to come hither, and the others to 
 be of good courage if they are innocent." 
 
 "My king is the light of the world and an ocean of mercy." 
 
 "Bartja and his friends need not remain any longer in con-
 
 314 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 finement; they can walk in the court of the palace, and you will 
 keep guard over them. You, Datis, go at once to the hanging- 
 gardens and order Boges to defer the execution of the sentence 
 on the Egyptian princess; and, further, I wish messengers sent 
 to the post-station mentioned by the Athenian, and the 
 wounded man brought hither under safe escort." 
 
 The "king's eye" was on the point of departure, but Phanes 
 detained him, saying: "Does my king allow me to make one 
 remark?" 
 
 "Speak." 
 
 "It appears to me that the chief of the eunuchs could give the 
 most accurate information. During his delirium the youth 
 often mentioned his name in connection with that of the girl 
 he seemed to be in love with." 
 
 "Go at once, Datis, and bring him quickly." 
 
 "The high-priest, Oropastes, Gaumata's brother, ought to 
 appear, too; and Mandane, who, I have just been assured 
 on the most positive authority, is the principal attendant of the 
 Egyptian princess." 
 
 "Fetch her, Datis." 
 
 "If Nitetis herself could " 
 
 . At this the king turned pale and a cold shiver ran through 
 his limbs. How he longed to see his darling again! But 
 the strong man was afraid of this woman's reproachful looks; 
 he knew the captivating power that lay in her eyes. So he 
 pointed to the door, saying: "Fetch Boges and Mandane; the 
 Egyptian princess is to remain in the hanging-gardens, under 
 strict custody." 
 
 The Athenian bowed deferentially, as if he would say: "Here 
 no one has a right to command but the king." 
 
 Cambyses looked well pleased, seated himself again on the 
 purple divan, and resting his forehead on his hand bent his eyes 
 on the ground and sank into deep thought. The picture of the 
 woman he loved so dearly refused to be banished; it came 
 again and again, more and more vividly, and the thought that 
 these features could not have deceived that Nitetis must be 
 innocent took a firmer root in his mind; he had already 
 begun to hope. If Bartja could be cleared there was no error 
 that might not be conceivable ; in that case he would go to the 
 hanging-gardens, take her hand and listen to her defense. 
 When love has once taken firm hold of a man in riper years
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 315 
 
 it runs and winds through his whole nature like one of his 
 veins and can only be destroyed with his life. 
 
 The entrance of Croesus roused Cambyses from his dream; 
 he raised the old man kindly from the prostrate position at his 
 feet into which he had thrown himself on entering, and said: 
 "You offended me, but I will be merciful; I have not forgotten 
 that my father, on his dying bed, told me to make you my 
 friend and adviser. Take your life back as a gift from me, and 
 forget my anger as I wish to forget your want of reverence. 
 This man says he knows you; I should like to hear your 
 opinion of his conjectures." 
 
 Croesus turned away much affected, and, after having hear- 
 tily welcomed the Athenian, asked him to relate his supposi- 
 tions and the grounds on which they were founded. 
 
 The old man grew more and more attentive as the Greek 
 went on, and when he had finished raised his hands to heaven, 
 crying, "Pardon me, oh, ye eternal gods, if I have ever ques- 
 tioned the justice of your decrees. Is not this marvelous, 
 Cambyses? My son once placed himself in great danger to 
 save the life of this noble Athenian, whom the gods have 
 brought hither to repay the deed tenfold. Had Phanes been 
 murdered in Egypt this hour might have seen our sons exe- 
 cuted." 
 
 And as he said this he embraced Hystaspes; both shared 
 one feeling; their sons had been as dead, and were now alive. 
 
 The king, Phanes, and all the Persian dignitaries watched 
 the old men with deep sympathy, and, though the proof of 
 Bartja's innocence were as yet only founded on conjecture, 
 not one of those present doubted it one moment longer. Wher- 
 ever the belief in a man's guilt is but slight his defender finds 
 willing listeners. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The sharp-witted Athenian saw clearly how matters lay in 
 this sad story; nor did it escape him that malice had had a hand 
 in the affair. How could Bartja's dagger have come into the 
 hanging-gardens except through treachery?
 
 316 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 While he was telling the king his suspicions Oropastes was 
 led into the hall. 
 
 The king looked angrily at him and without one preliminary 
 word, asked: "Have you a brother?" 
 
 "Yes, my king. He and I are the only two left out of a 
 family of six. My parents " 
 
 "Is your brother younger or older than yourself?" 
 
 "I was the eldest of the family; my brother, the youngest, 
 was the joy of my father's old age." 
 
 "Did you ever notice a remarkable likeness between him 
 and one of my relations?" 
 
 "Yes, my king. Gaumata is so like your brother, Bartja, 
 that in the school for priests at Rhagae, where he still is, he 
 was always called 'the prince.' " 
 
 "Has he been at Babylon very lately?" 
 
 "He was here for the last time at the new year's festival." 
 
 "Are you speaking the truth?" 
 
 "The sin of lying would be doubly punishable in one who 
 wears my robes and holds my office." 
 
 The king's face flushed with anger at this answer, and he 
 exclaimed: "Nevertheless you are lying; Gaumata was here 
 yesterday evening. You may well tremble." 
 
 "My life belongs to the king, whose are all things; never- 
 theless I swear I, the high-priest by the most high God, 
 whom I have served faithfully for thirty years, that I know 
 nothing of my brother's presence in Babylon yesterday." 
 
 "Your face looks as if you were speaking the truth." 
 
 "You know that I was not absent from your side the whole 
 of that high holiday." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 Again the doors opened; this time they admitted the trem- 
 bling Mandane. The high-priest cast such a look of astonish- 
 ment and inquiry on her that the king saw she must be in some 
 way connected with him, and, therefore, taking no notice of 
 the trembling girl who lay at his feet, he asked: "Do you 
 know this woman?", 
 
 "Yes, my king. I obtained for her the situation of upper 
 attendant to the may Auramazda forgive her! king of 
 Egypt's daughter." 
 
 "What led you a priest to do a favor to this girl?" 
 
 "Her parents died of the same pestilence which carried off
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 317 
 
 my brothers. Her father was a priest, respected, and a friend 
 of our family; so we adopted the little girl, remembering 
 the words: 'If thou withhold help from the man who is pure 
 in heart and from his widow and orphans, then shall the pure, 
 subject earth cast thee out unto the stinging nettles, to painful 
 sufferings, and to the most fearful regions.' Thus I became her 
 foster-father, and had her brought up with my youngest 
 brother until he was obliged to enter the school for priests." 
 
 The king exchanged a look of intelligence with Phanes 
 and asked: "Why did not you keep the girl longer with 
 you?" 
 
 "When she had received the ear-rings* I, as priest, thought 
 it more suitable to send such a young girl away from my house, 
 and to put her in a position to earn her own living." 
 
 "Has she seen your brother since she has been grown 
 up?" 
 
 "Yes, my king. Whenever Gaumata came to see me I al- 
 lowed him to be with her as with a sister; but on discovering 
 later that the passionate love of youth had begun to mingle 
 with the childish friendship of former days, I felt strengthened 
 in my resolution to send her away." 
 
 "Now we know enough," said the king, commanding the 
 high-priest by a nod to retire. He then looked down on the 
 prostrate girl, and said, imperiously: "Rise!" 
 
 Mandane rose, trembling with fear. Her fresh young face 
 was pale as death, and her red lips were blue from terror. 
 
 "Tell all you know about yesterday evening; but remember, 
 a lie and your death are one and the same." 
 
 The girl's knees trembled so violently that she could hardly 
 stand, and her fear entirely took away the power of speaking. 
 
 "I have not much patience," exclaimed Cambyses. 
 
 Mandane started, grew paler still, but could not speak. 
 Then Phanes came forward and asked the angry king to allow 
 him to examine the girl, as he felt sure that fear alone had 
 closed her lips and that a kind word would open them. 
 
 Cambyses allowed this, and the Athenian's words proved 
 true; no sooner had he assured Mandane of the good-will of 
 all present, laid his hand on her head and spoken kindly to her, 
 than the source of her tears was unlocked, she wept freely, 
 the spell which had seemed to chain her tongue vanished, and 
 
 *See note p. 168.
 
 318 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 she began to tell her story, interrupted only by low sobs. She 
 hid nothing, confessed that Boges had given her his sanction 
 and assistance to the meeting with Gaumata, and ended by say- 
 ing: "I know that I have forfeited my life, and am the worst 
 and most ungrateful creature in the world; but none of all this 
 would have happened if Oropastes had allowed his brother to 
 marry me." 
 
 The serious audience, even the king himself, could not resist 
 a smile at the longing tone in which these words were spoken 
 and the fresh burst of sobs which succeeded them. 
 
 And this smile saved her life. But Cambyses would not 
 have smiled after hearing such a story, if Mandane, with that 
 instinct which always seemed to stand at a woman's command 
 in the hour of her greatest danger, had not known how to seize 
 his weak side and use it for her own interests, by dwelling much 
 longer than was necessary on the delight which Nitetis had 
 manifested at the king's gifts. 
 
 "A thousand times," cried she, "did my mistress kiss the 
 presents which were brought from you, oh, king; but oftenest 
 of all did she press her lips to the nosegay which you plucked 
 with your own hands for her some days ago. And when it 
 began to fade she took every flower separately, spread out the 
 petals with care, laid them between woolen cloths, and, with 
 her own hands, placed her heavy, golden ointment-box upon 
 them that they might dry, and so she might keep them always 
 as a remembrance of your kindness." 
 
 Seeing Cambyses' awful features grow a little milder at 
 these words the girl took fresh courage, and, at last, began to 
 put loving words into her mistress' mouth, which the latter 
 had never uttered, professing that she herself had heard Nitetis 
 a hundred times murmur the word "Cambyses" in her sleep 
 with indescribable tenderness. She ended her confession by 
 sobbing and praying for mercy. 
 
 The king looked down at her with infinite contempt, though 
 without anger, and pushing her away with his foot, said: "Out 
 of my sight, you dog of a woman! Blood like yours would s6il 
 the executioner's ax. Out of my sight!" 
 
 Mandane needed no second command to depart. The words 
 "out of my sight" sounded like sweet music in her ears. She 
 rushed through the courts of the palace and out into the street, 
 crying like a mad woman: "I am free! I am free!"
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 319 
 
 She had scarcely left the hall when Datis, "the king's eye/' 
 reappeared with the news that the chief of the eunuchs was 
 nowhere to be found. He had vanished from the hanging- 
 gardens in an unaccountable manner; but he, Datis, had left 
 word with his subordinates that he was to be searched for and 
 brought, dead or alive. 
 
 The king went off into another violent fit of passion at this 
 news and threatened the officer of police, who prudently 
 concealed the excitement of the cro'wd from his lord, with a 
 severe punishment if Boges were not in his hands by the next 
 morning. 
 
 As he finished speaking a eunuch was brought in the hall, 
 sent by the king's mother to ask for an interview for herself 
 with her son. 
 
 Cambyses prepared at once to comply with his mother's 
 wish, at the same time giving Phanes his hand to kiss, a rare 
 honor, only shown to those \vho ate at the king's table, and 
 saying: "All the prisoners are to be set at liberty. Go to 
 your sons, you anxious, troubled fathers, and assure them of 
 my mercy and favor. I think we shall be able to find a satrapy 
 apiece for them as compensation for to-night's undeserved 
 imprisonment. To you, my Greek friend, I am deeply in- 
 debted. In discharge of this debt, and as a means of retaining 
 you at my court, I beg you to accept one hundred talents* 
 from my treasury." 
 
 "I shall scarcely be able to use so large a sum," said Phanes, 
 bowing low. 
 
 "Then abuse it," said the king, with a friendly smile, and 
 calling out to him: "We shall meet again at supper," he left 
 the hall accompanied by his court. 
 
 In the meantime there had been sadness and mourning in 
 the apartments of the queen-mother. Judging from the con- 
 tents of the letter to Bartja, Kassandane had made up her 
 mind that Nitetis was faithless and her own beloved son inno- 
 
 *Twenty-two thousand five hundred pounds sterling.
 
 320 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 cent. But in whom could she ever place confidence again, now 
 that this girl^whom she had looked upon as the very embodi- 
 ment of every womanly virtue, had proved reprobate and 
 faithless now that the noblest youths in the realm had proved 
 perjurers? 
 
 Nitetis was more than dead for her; Bartja, Croesus, Darius, 
 Gyges, Araspes, all so closely allied to her by relationship and 
 friendship, as good as dead. And yet she -dare not indulge her 
 sorrow; she had to restrain the despairing outbursts of grief 
 of her impetuous child. 
 
 Atossa behaved like one deprived of her senses when she 
 heard of the sentences of death. The self-control which she 
 had learned from Nitetis gave way, and her old impetuosity 
 burst forth again with double vehemence. 
 
 Nitetis, her only friend Bartja, the brother whom she loved 
 with her whole heart Darius, whom she felt now she not only 
 looked up to as her deliverer, but loved with all the warmth of 
 a first affection Croesus, to whom she clung like a father she 
 was to lose in one day everyone she loved. 
 
 She tore her dress and her hair, called Cambyses a monster, 
 and everyone who could possibly believe in the guilt of such 
 people infatuated' or insane. Then her tears would burst out 
 afresh, she would utter imploring supplications to the gods 
 for mercy, and a few minutes later, begin conjuring her mother 
 to take her to the hanging-gardens, that they might hear 
 Nitetis' defense of her own conduct. 
 
 Kassandane tried to soothe the violent girl, and assured her 
 every attempt to visit the hanging-gardens would be in vain. 
 Then Atossa began to rage again, until at last her mother was 
 forced to command silence, and, as morning had already begun 
 to dawn, sent her to her sleeping-room. 
 
 The girl obeyed, but, instead of going to bed, seated herself 
 at a tall window looking toward the hanging-gardens. Her 
 eyes filled with tears again, as she thought of her friend her 
 sister sitting in that palace alone, forsaken, banished, and 
 looking forward to an ignominious death. Suddenly her tear- 
 ful, weary eyes lighted up as if from some strong purpose, and, 
 instead of gazing into the distance, she fixed them on a black 
 speck which flew toward her in a straight line from Nitetis' 
 house, becoming larger and more distinct every moment, and 
 finally settling- on a cypress before her window. The sorrow
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 321 
 
 vanished at once from her lovely face, and with a deep sigh 
 of relief she sprang up, exclaiming: "Oh, there is the homa'i,* 
 the bird of good fortune! Now everything 1 will turn out 
 well." 
 
 It was the same bird of paradise which had brought so much 
 comfort to Nitetis that now gave poor Atossa fresh confidence. 
 
 She bent forward to see whether anyone was in the garden ; 
 and, finding that she would be seen by no one but the old gar- 
 dener, she jumped out, trembling like a fawn, plucked a few 
 roses and cypress twigs and took them to the old man. who had 
 been watching her performance with a doubtful shake of the 
 head. 
 
 She stroked his cheeks coaxingly, put her flowers in his 
 brown hand, and said: "Do you love me, Sabaces?" 
 
 "Oh, my mistress!" was the only answer the old man could 
 utter, as he pressed the hem of her robe to his lips. 
 
 "I believe you, my old friend, and I will show you how I 
 trust my faithful, old Sabaces. Hide these flowers carefully 
 and go quickly to the king's palace. Say that you had to bring 
 fruit for the table. My poor brother Bartja and Darius, the 
 son of the noble Hystaspes, are in prison, near the guard-house 
 of the immortals. You must manage that these flowers reach 
 them, with a warm greeting from me, but mind, the message 
 must be given with the flowers." 
 
 "But the guards will not allow me to see the prisoners." 
 
 "Take these rings, and slip them into their hands." 
 
 "I will do my best." 
 
 "I knew you loved me, my good Sabaces. Now, make haste, 
 and come back soon." 
 
 The old man went off as fast as he could. Atossa looked 
 thoughtfully after him, murmuring to herself: "Now they 
 will both know that I loved them to the last. The rose means 
 'I love you,' and the evergreen cypress 'true and steadfast.' " 
 The old man came back in an hour, bringing her Bartja's 
 favorite ring and from Darius an Indian handkerchief dipped 
 in blood. 
 
 Atossa ran to meet them; her eyes filled with tears as she 
 took the tokens, and, seating herself under a spreading plane- 
 tree, she pressed them by turns to her lips, murmuring: "Bart- 
 
 *The bird of paradise is called in Persian homa'i. See Malcolm, 
 "Persia," p. 53.
 
 322 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ja's ring means that he thinks of me ; the blood-stained hand- 
 kerchief that Darius is ready to shed his heart's blood for 
 me." 
 
 Atossa smiled as she said this, and her tears, when she 
 thought of her friends and their sad fate, were quieter, if not 
 less bitter, than before. 
 
 A few hours later a messenger arrived from Croesus with 
 news that the innocence of Bartja and his friends had been 
 proved, and that Nitetis was, to all intents and purposes, cleared 
 also. 
 
 Kassandane sent at once to the hanging-gardens, with a 
 request that Nitetis would come to her apartments. Atossa, as 
 unbridled in her joy as in her grief, ran to meet her friend's 
 litter and flew from one of her attendants to the other, crying: 
 "They are all innocent; we shall not lose one of them not 
 one!" 
 
 When, at last, the litter appeared, and her loved one, pale 
 as death, within it, she burst into loud sobs, threw her arms 
 round Nitetis as she descended, and covered her with kisses 
 and caresses till she perceived that her friend's strength was 
 failing, that her knees gave way, and she required a stronger 
 support than Atossa's girlish strength could give. 
 
 The Egyptian girl was carried insensible into the queen- 
 mother's apartments. When she opened her eyes, her head 
 more like a marble piece of sculpture than a living head 
 was resting on the blind queen's lap; she felt Atossa's warm 
 kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses, who had obeyed his 
 mother's call, was standing at her side. 
 
 She gazed on this circle, including all she loved best, with 
 anxious, perplexed looks, and at last, recognizing them one 
 by one, passed her hand across her pale forehead as if to 
 remove a veil, smiled at each, and closed her eyes once more. 
 She fancied Isis had sent her a beautiful vision and wished to 
 hold it fast with all the powers of her mind. 
 
 Then Atossa called her by her name, impetuously and lov- 
 ingly. She opened her eyes again, and again she saw those
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 323 
 
 loving looks that she fancied had only been sent her in a 
 dream. Yes, that was her own Atossa, this her motherly 
 friend, and there stood, not the angry king, but the man she 
 loved. And now his lips opened, too; his stern, severe eyes 
 rested on her so beseechingly, and he said: "O, Nitetis, awake! 
 you must not you cannot possibly be guilty!" She moved her 
 head gently, with a look of cheerful denial, and a happy smile 
 stole across her features, like a breeze of early spring over 
 fresh young roses. 
 
 "She is innocent! by Mithras, it is impossible that she can 
 be guilty/' cried the king again, and forgetful of the presence 
 of others he sank on his knees. 
 
 A Persian physician came up and rubbed her forehead with 
 a sweet-scented oil, and Nebenchari approached, muttering 
 spells, felt her pulse, shook his head, and administered a potion 
 from his portable medicine chest. This restored her to per- 
 fect consciousness; she raised herself with difficulty into a 
 sitting posture, returned the loving caresses of her two friends, 
 and then, turning to Cambyses, asked: "How could you believe 
 such a thing of me, my king?" There was no reproach in her 
 tone, but deep sadness, and Cambyses answered, softly: "For- 
 give me." 
 
 Kassandane's blind eyes expressed her gratitude for this 
 self-renunciation on the part of her son, and she said: "My 
 daughter, I need your forgiveness, too." 
 
 "But I never once doubted you," cried Atossa, proudly 
 and joyfully kissing her friend's lips. 
 
 "Your letter to Bartja shook my faith in your innocence," 
 added Kassandane. 
 
 "And yet it was all so simple and natural," answered Nitetis. 
 "Here, my mother, take this letter from Egypt. Croesus will 
 translate it for you. It will explain all. Perhaps I was impru- 
 dent. Ask your mother to tell you what you would wish to 
 know, my king. Pray do not scorn my poor, ill sister. When 
 an Egyptian girl once loves she cannot forget. But I feel so 
 frightened. The end must be near. The last hours have 
 been so very, very terrible. That horrible man Boges read 
 me the fearful sentence of death, and it was that which forced 
 the poison 1> nto my hand. Ah, my heart!" 
 
 And with these' words she fell back into the arms of Kas- 
 sandane.
 
 224 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Nebenchari rushed forward and gave her some more drops, 
 exclaiming: "I thought so! She has taken poison and her 
 life cannot be saved, though this antidote may possibly pro- 
 long it for a few days." 
 
 Cambyses stood by, pale and rigid, following the physician's 
 slightest movements, and Atossa bathed her friend's forehead 
 with tears.. 
 
 "Let some milk be brought," cried Nebenchari, "and my 
 large medicine chest; and let attendants be called to carry 
 her away, for quiet is necessary, above all things." 
 
 Atossa hastened into the adjoining room; and Cambyses 
 said to the physician, but without looking into his face: "Is 
 there no hope?" 
 
 "The poison which she has taken results in certain death." 
 
 On hearing this the king pushed Nebenchari away from 
 the sick girl, exclaiming: "She shall live. It is my will. 
 Here, eunuch ! summon all the physicians in Babylon assem- 
 ble the priests and the Mobeds!* She is not to die; do you 
 hear? She must live. I am the king, and I command it." 
 
 Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavoring to obey her lord. 
 Her face was turned toward the window, and the bird of par- 
 adise, with the gold chain on its foot, was still there, perched 
 on the cypress tree. Her eyes fell first on her lover, who had 
 sunk down at her side and was pressing his burning lips to 
 her right hand. She murmured, with a smile : "Oh, this is great 
 happiness!" Then she saw the bird, and pointed to it with 
 her left hand, crying: "Look, look, there is the Phoenix, the 
 bird of Ra!" 
 
 After saying this she closed her eyes and was soon seized 
 by a violent attack of fever. 
 
 *Mobeds are priests. They are not mentioned in the "Avesta." 
 Spiegel derives the name from nmana paiti. Rogge prefers, with 
 Tiele, Haug's derivation from magu pat, lord of the Magi.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 325 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Prexaspes, the king's messenger and one of the highest 
 officials at the court, had brought Gaumata, Mandane's lover, 
 whose likeness to Bartja was really most wonderful, to Baby- 
 lon, sick and wounded as he was. He was now awaiting his 
 sentence in a dungeon, while Boges, the man who had led 
 him into crime, was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding all 
 the efforts of the police. His escape had been rendered pos- 
 sible by the trap-door in the hanging-gardens, and greatly 
 assisted by the enormous crowds assembled in the streets. 
 Immense treasures were found in his house. Chests of gold 
 and jewels, which his position had enabled him to obtain with 
 great ease, were restored to the royal treasury. Cambyses, 
 however, would gladly have given ten times as much treas- 
 ure to secure possession of the traitor. 
 
 To Phaedime's despair the king ordered all the inhabitants 
 of the harem, except his mother, Atossa and the dying Nitetis, 
 to be removed to Susa, two days after the accused had been 
 declared innocent. Several eunuchs of rank were deposed 
 from their offices. The entire caste was to suffer for the sins 
 of him who had escaped punishment. 
 
 Oropastes, who had already entered on his duties as regent 
 of the kingdom, had clearly proved his non-participation in 
 the crime of which his brother had been found guilty, bestowed 
 the vacant places exclusively on the Magi. The demonstra- 
 tion made by the people in favor of Bartja did not come to 
 the king's ears until the crowd had long dispersed. Still, 
 occupied as he was almost entirely by his anxiety for Nitetis, 
 he caused exact information of this illegal manifestation to 
 be furnished him and ordered the ringleaders to be severely 
 punished. He fancied it was a proof that Bartja had been 
 trying to gain favor with the people, and Cambyses would, 
 perhaps, have shown his displeasure by some open act if a 
 better impulse had not told him that he, and not Bartja, was 
 the brother who stood in need of forgiveness. In spite of this, 
 however, he could not get rid of the feeling that Bartja had 
 been, though innocent, the cause of the sad events which had
 
 326 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 just happened, nor of his wish to get him out of the way 
 as far as might be, and he, therefore, gave a ready consent 
 to his brother's wish to start at once for Naukratis. 
 
 Bartja took a tender farewell of his mother and sister and 
 started two days after his liberation. He was accompanied 
 by Gyges, Zopyrus and a numerous retinue charged with 
 splendid presents from Cambyses for Sappho. Darius remained 
 behind, kept back by his love for Atossa. The day, too, was 
 not far distant when, by his father's wish, he was to marry 
 Artystone, the daughter of Gobryas. 
 
 Bartja parted from his friend with a heavy heart, advising him 
 to be very prudent with regard to Atossa. The secret had been 
 confided to Kassandane, and she had promised to take Darius' 
 part with the king. 
 
 If anyone might venture to raise his eyes to the daughter 
 of Cyrus assuredly it was the son of Hystaspes; he was closely 
 connected by marriage with the royal family; belonged like 
 Cambyses to the Pasargadae, and his family was a younger 
 branch of the reigning dynasty.* His father called himself the 
 highest noble in the realm, and as such governed the province' 
 of Persia proper, the mother country, to which this enormous 
 world-empire and its ruler owed their origin. Should the 
 family of Cyrus become extinct the descendants of Hystaspes 
 would have a well-grounded right to the Persian throne. 
 Darius, therefore, apart from his personal advantages, was 
 a fitting claimant for Atossa's hand. And yet no one dared 
 to ask the king's consent. In the gloomy state of mind into 
 which he had been brought by the late events it was likely 
 that he might refuse it, and such an answer would have to 
 be regarded as irrevocable. So Bartja was obliged to leave 
 Persia in anxiety about the future of these two who were 
 very dear to him. 
 
 Croesus promised to act as mediator in this case, also, and 
 before Bartja left made him acquainted with Phanes. 
 
 The youth had heard such a pleasant account of the Athe- 
 nian from Sappho that he met him with great cordiality a,nd 
 soon won the fancy of the older and more experienced man 
 who gave him many a useful hint, and a letter to Theopom- 
 
 *In the inscription of Behistan there is a pedigree of the family of 
 Darius which can be reconciled with the one for which we are prin- 
 cipally indebted to Herodotus. "Inscription of Behistan," i, sec. 2.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 327 
 
 pus, the Milesian, at Naukratis.* Phanes concluded by asking 
 for a private interview. 
 
 When Bartja returned to his friends he looked grave and 
 thoughtful; soon, however, he forgot his cause of anxiety 
 and joked merrily with them over a farewell' cup. Before 
 he mounted his horse the next morning Nebenchari asked to 
 be allowed an audience. He was admitted, and begged Bartja 
 to take the charge of a large writen roll for King Amasis. 
 It contained a detailed account of Nitetis' sufferings, ending 
 with these words: "Thus the unhappy victim of your ambi- 
 tious plans will end her life in a few hours by poison, to the 
 use of which she was driven by despair. The arbitrary caprices 
 of the mighty can efface all happiness from the life of a human 
 creature just as we wipe a picture from the tablet with a 
 sponge. Your servant, Nebenchari, is pining in a foreign 
 land, deprived of home and property, and the wretched daugh- 
 ter of the king of Egypt dies a miserable and lingering death 
 by her own hand. Her body will be torn to pieces by dogs 
 and vultures after the manner of the Persians. Woe unto 
 them who rob the innocent of happiness here and rest beyond 
 the grave!" 
 
 Bartja had not been told the contents of this letter, but 
 promised to take it with him; he then, amid the joyful shouts 
 of the people, set up outside the city gate the stones which, 
 according to Persian superstition,f were to secure him a pros- 
 perous journey and left Babylon. 
 
 Nebenchari, meanwhile, prepared to return to his post by 
 Nitetis' dying-bed. 
 
 *It is clear from different passages in the classics that the ancient 
 Greeks were accustomed to take introductions with them on their 
 journeys. These consisted sometimes of letters, sometimes merely of 
 the impression of a seal. Even as early as the Iliad, Glaukus men- 
 tions such a symbolon. Compare Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," xviii, and 
 especially Bockh, "Corp. Insc.," i, p. 126. "Marmor Oxon.," ii, 24. In 
 this inscription mention is made of the letter of recommendation or 
 token (<n>6o?.a) which Strato, the king of Sidon, might give, say, to 
 his ambassadors to Athens. A passport (aQpayif) abroad is also 
 spoken of in the "Birds of Aristophanes," 1212. This was provided 
 with the government seal. The Lokrian seal bore the evening-star; 
 the Samian a lyre, and so on. See note p. 219. 
 
 tThis superstition prevails even to the present day. Morier, 
 "Zweite, Reise," in Bertuch's "Neuer Bibliothek der Reisebeschrei- 
 bungen." See, also, de Wette, "Archaologie," sec. 192.
 
 328 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Just as he reached tne brazen gates between the harem 
 gardens and the courts of the large palace an old man in 
 white robes came up to him. The sight seemed to fill Neben- 
 chari with terror; he started as if the gaunt old man had 
 been a ghost. Seeing, however, a friendly and familiar smile 
 on the face of the other he quickened his steps, and, holding 
 out his hand with a heartiness for which none of his Persian 
 acquaintances would have given him credit, exclaimed in 
 Egyptian: "Can I believe my eyes? You in Persia, old Hib?* 
 I should as soon have expected the sky to fall as to have the 
 pleasure of seeing you on the Euphrates. But now, in the 
 name of Osiris, tell me what can have induced you, you old 
 ibis, to leave your warm nest on the Nile and set out on 
 such a long journey eastward." 
 
 While Nebenchari was speaking the old man listened in a 
 bowing posture, with his arms hanging down by his side, and 
 when he had finished looked up into his faee with indescrib- 
 able joy, touched his breast with trembling fingers, and then, 
 falling on the right knee, laying one hand on his heart and 
 raising the other to heaven, cried: "Thanks be unto thee, 
 great Isis, for protecting the wanderer and permitting him 
 to see his master once more in health and safety. Ah, child, 
 how anxious I have been! I expected to find you as wasted 
 and thin as a convict from the quarries; I thought you would 
 have been grieving and unhappy, and here you are, as well 
 and handsome and portly as ever. If poor old Hib had been 
 in your place he would have been dead long ago." 
 
 "Yes, I don't doubt that, old fellow. I did not leave home 
 of my own will, either, nor without many a heartache. These 
 foreigners are all the children of Seth.f The good and gra- 
 cious gods are only to be found in Egypt on the shores of the 
 sacred, blessed Nile." 
 
 "I don't, know much about its being so blessed," muttered 
 tfte old man. 
 
 "You frighten me, .father Hib. What has happened, then?" 
 
 "Happened! Things have come to a pretty pass there, 
 and you'll hear of it soon enough. Do you think I should 
 
 *In ancient Egyptian Hib signifies an ibis. Many of the ancient 
 Egyptians were called after sacred animals. 
 tSee note p. 89.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 329 
 
 have left house and grandchildren at my age going on for 
 eighty like any Greek or Phoenician vagabond, and come out 
 among these godless foreigners (the gods blast and destroy 
 them), if I could possibly have staid in Egypt?" 
 
 "But tell me what it's all about." 
 
 "Some other time, some other time. Now you must take 
 me to your own house, and I won't stir out of it as long as 
 we are in this land of Typhon." 
 
 The old man said this with so much emphasis that Neben- 
 chari could not help smiling and saying: "Have they treated 
 you so very badly then, old man?" 
 
 "Pestilence and kamsin!"* blustered the old man. "There's 
 not a more good-for-nothing Typhon's brood on the face of 
 the earth than these Persians. I only wonder they're not all 
 red-haired and leprous. Ah, child, two whole days I have 
 been in this hell already, and all that time I was obliged to 
 live among these blasphemers. They said no one could see 
 you ; you were never allowed to leave Nitetis' sick-bed. Poor 
 child ! I have always said this marriage with a foreigner would 
 come to no good, and it serves Amasis right if his children 
 give him trouble. His conduct to you alone deserves that." 
 
 "For shame, old man!" 
 
 "Xonsense; one must speak one's mind sometimes. I hate 
 a king who comes from nobody knows where. Why, when 
 he was a poor boy he used to steal your father's nuts and 
 wrench the name-plates off the house doors. I saw he was 
 a good-for-nothing fellow then. It's a shame that such people 
 should be allowed to '' 
 
 "Gently, gently, old man. We are not all made of the 
 same stuff, and if there was such a little difference between 
 you and Amasis as boys, it is your own fault that, now you 
 are old men, he has outstripped you so far." 
 
 "My father and grandfather 'were both servants in the tem- 
 ple, and of course I followed in their footsteps."f 
 
 *The southwest wind, which does so much injury to the crops in 
 the Nile valley. It is known to us as the simoon, the wind so perilous 
 to travelers in the desert. 
 
 tThe son was usually obliged to follow the same profession as his 
 father. "Diocl.," i. 74. Lepsius has discovered some remarkably long 
 family pedigrees in which every member belonged to the same calling. 
 Rut the castes among the Egyptians were not so rigidly circumscribed 
 ris in India, for we see from the monuments that the son of a priest
 
 330 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Quite right; it is the law of caste, and by that rule Amasis 
 ought never to have become anything higher than a poor 
 army captain at most." 
 
 "It is not everyone who's got such an easy conscience as 
 this upstart fellow." 
 
 "There you are again! For shame, Hib! As long as I can 
 remember, and that is nearly half a century, every other word 
 with you has been an abusive one. When I was a child your 
 ill-temper was vented on me, and now the king has the benefit 
 of it." 
 
 "Serves him right! Ah, if you only knew all! It's now 
 seven months since 
 
 "I can't stop to listen to you now. At the rising of the 
 seven stars I will send a slave to take you to my rooms. Till 
 then you must stay in your present lodging, for I must go 
 to my patient." 
 
 "You must? Very well then go and leave poor old Hib 
 here to die. I can't possibly live another hour among these 
 creatures." 
 
 "What would you have me do, then?" 
 
 "Let me live with you as long as we are in Persia." 
 
 "Have they treated you so very roughly?" 
 
 "I should think they had, indeed. It is loathsome to think 
 of. They forced me to eat out of the same pot with them 
 and cut my bread with the same knife. An infamous Persian, 
 who had lived many years in Egypt, and traveled here with 
 us, had given them a list of all the things and actions which 
 we consider unclean.* They took away my knife when I was 
 going to shave myself. A good-for-nothing wench kissed me 
 on the forehead before I could prevent it. There, you needn't 
 
 could enter the army, and vice versa; that sons of the same father 
 could devote themselves to different professions; and, also (on which 
 point we have favorable evidence in some hieratic manuscripts, the 
 contents of which are of a didactic character), that young men were 
 allowed to choose their own professions. Without question, however, 
 it was more usual, and considered preferable, to remain in the father's 
 calling. This, indeed, was the case among all ancient nations, not ex- 
 cepting the Greeks. 
 
 *0n the numerous methods of purification, by washing, shaving, 
 purging, etc., see "Herod.," ii, 37, 41, 47, 77. Plutarch, "Isis and 
 Osiris," 5. "Genesis," 41 and 43, Ebers, "Aegypten u, d. Bueher 
 Mose's," i, p. 350.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 331 
 
 laugh; it will be a month at least before I can get purified 
 from all these pollutions. I took an emetic, and when that 
 at last began to take effect they all mocked and sneered at 
 me. But that was not all. A cursed cook-boy nearly beat a 
 sacred kitten to death before my very eyes. Then an oint- 
 ment mixer, who heard that I was your servant, made that 
 godless Bubares ask me whether I could cure diseases of the 
 eye too. I said yes, because you know in sixty years it's 
 rather hard if one can't pick up something from one's master. 
 Bubares was interpreter between us, and the shameful fellow 
 told him to say that he was very much disturbed about a 
 dreadful disease in his eyes. I asked what it was, and received 
 for answer that he could not tell one thing from another in 
 the dark!" 
 
 "You should have told him that the best remedy for that 
 was to light a candle." 
 
 "Oh, I hate the rascals! Another hour among them will 
 be the death of me!" 
 
 "I am sure you behaved oddly enough among these for- 
 eigners," said Nebenchari, smiling; "you must have made 
 them laugh at you, for the Persians are generally very polite, 
 well-behaved people.* Try them again, only once. I shall 
 be very glad to take you in this evening, but I can't possibly 
 do it before." 
 
 "It is as I thought! He's altered, too, like everybody else! 
 Osiris is dead and Seth rules the world again." 
 
 "Farewell! When the seven stars rise our old Ethiopian 
 slave, Nebununf, will wait for you here." 
 
 "Xebununf, that old rogue? I never want to see him again." 
 
 "Yes, the very same." 
 
 "H'm well, it's a good thing when people stay as they 
 were. To be sure; I know some people who can't say so 
 much of themselves, and who, instead of minding their own 
 business, pretend to heal inward diseases, and when a faith- 
 ful old servant " 
 
 "Hold your tongue, and wait patiently till evening." 
 
 These last words were spoken seriously, and produced the 
 desired impression. The old man made another obeisance, 
 and, before his master left him, said: "I came here under 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 134.
 
 332 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the protection of Phanes, the former commander of the Greek 
 mercenaries. He wishes very much to speak with you. v 
 
 "That is his concern. He can come to me." 
 
 "You never leave that sick girl, whose eyes are as sound 
 as " 
 
 "Hib!"' 
 
 "For all I care she may have a cataract in both. May 
 Phanes come to you this evening?" 
 
 "I wished to be alone with you." 
 
 "So did I; but the Greek seems to be in a great hurry, 
 and he knows nearly everything that I have to tell you." 
 
 "Have you been gossiping, then?" 
 
 "No not exactly but 
 
 "I always thought you were a man to be trusted." 
 
 "So I was. But this Greek knows already a great deal of 
 what I know, and the rest 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "The rest he got out of me, I hardly know how myself. 
 If I did not wear this amulet against an evil eye I should 
 have been obliged " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know the Athenian I can forgive you. I 
 should like him to come with you this evening. But I see 
 the sun is already high in the heavens. I have no time to 
 >ose. Tell me in a few words what has happened." 
 
 "I thought this evening 
 
 "No, I must have, at least, a general idea of what has 
 happened before I see the Athenian. Be brief." 
 
 "You have been robbed!" 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Is not that enough?" 
 
 "Answer me. Is that all?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "Then farewell." 
 
 "But, Nebendiari " 
 
 The physician did not even hear this exclamation; the 
 gates of the harem had already closed behind him. 
 
 When the Pleiades had risen Nebenchari was to be found 
 seated alone in one of the magnificent rooms assigned to 
 his use on the eastern side of the palace, near to Kassandanr'-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 333 
 
 apartments. The friendly manner in which he had welcomed 
 his old servant had given place to the serious expression which 
 his face usually wore, and which had led the cheerful Persian? 
 to call him a morose and gloomy man. 
 
 Nebenchari was an Egyptian priest through and through; 
 a member of that caste which never indulged in a jest, and 
 never for a moment forgot to be dignified and solemn before 
 the public; but when among their relations and colleagues 
 completely threw off this self-imposed restraint, and gave way 
 at times even to exuberant mirth. 
 
 Though he had known Phanes in Sais, he received him 
 with cold politeness, and, after the first greeting was ended, 
 told Hib to leave them alone. 
 
 "I have to you," said the Athenian, "to speak about some 
 very important affairs." 
 
 "With which I am already acquainted," was the Egyptian's 
 curt reply. 
 
 "I am inclined to doubt that," said Phanes, with an incred- 
 ulous smile. 
 
 "You have been driven out of Egypt, persecuted and insulted 
 by Psamtik, and you have come to Persia to enlist Cambyses 
 as an instrument of revenge against my country/' 
 
 "You are mistaken. I have nothing against your country, 
 but all the more against Amasis and his house." 
 
 "In Egypt the state and the king are one, as you very well 
 know." 
 
 "On the contrary, my own observations have led me to 
 think that the priests considered themselves one with the 
 state." 
 
 "In that case you are better informed than I, who have 
 always looked on the kings of Egypt as absolute." 
 
 "So they are; but only in proportion as they know how 
 to emancipate themselves from the influence of your caste. 
 Amasis himself submits to the priests now." 
 
 "Strange intelligence!" 
 
 "With which, however, you have already long been made 
 acquainted." 
 
 "Is that your opinion?" 
 
 "Certainly it is. And I know with still greater certainty 
 that once vou hear me, once he succeeded in bending the 
 will of these rulers of his to his own."
 
 334 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "I very seldom hear news from home and do not under- 
 stand what you are speaking of." 
 
 "There, I believe you, for if you knew what I meant and 
 could stand there quietly without clinching your fist, you 
 would be no better than a dog who only whimpers when he's 
 kicked and licks the hand that torments him." 
 
 The physician turned pale. "I know that Amasis has injured 
 and insulted me," he said, "but at the same time I must tell 
 you that revenge is far too sweet a morsel to be shared with 
 a stranger." 
 
 "Well said! As to my own revenge, however, I can only 
 compare it to a vineyard where the grapes are so plentiful 
 that I am not able to gather them all myself." 
 
 "And you have come hither to hire good laborers?" 
 
 "Quite right, and I do not even yet give up the hope of 
 securing you to take a share in my vintage." 
 
 "You are mistaken. My work is already done. The gods 
 themselves have taken it in hand. Amasis has been severely 
 enough punished for banishing me from country, friends and 
 pupils into this unclean land." 
 
 "You mean by his blindness, perhaps?" 
 
 "Possibly." 
 
 "Then you have not heard that Petammon, one of your 
 colleagues, has succeeded in cutting the skin which covered 
 the pupil of the eye and so restoring Amasis' sight?" 
 
 The Egyptian started and ground his teeth; recovered his 
 presence of mind, however, in a moment, and answered: 
 "Then the gods have punished the father through the chil- 
 dren." 
 
 "In what way? Psamtik suits his father's present mood 
 very well. It is true that Tachot is ill, but she prays and 
 sacrifices with her father all the more for that; and, as to 
 Nitetis, you and I both know that her death will not touch 
 him very closely." 
 
 "I really do not understand you." 
 
 "Of course not, so long as you fancy that I believe your 
 beautiful patient to be Amasis' daughter." 
 
 The Egyptian started again, but Phanes went on without 
 appearing to notice his emotion: "I know more than you 
 suppose. Nitetis is the daughter of Hophra, Amasis' dethroned 
 predecessor. Amasis brought her up as his own child first,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 3S5 
 
 in order to make the Egyptians believe that Hophra had died 
 childless; secondly, in order to deprive her of her rights to 
 the throne; for you know women are allowed to govern on 
 the Nile."* 
 
 "These are mere suppositions." 
 
 "For which, however, I can bring irrefragable proofs. 
 Among the papers which your old servant Hib brought with 
 him in a small box there must be some letters from a certain 
 Sonnophre, a celebrated accoucheur,f your own father, 
 which " 
 
 "If that be the case those letters are my property, and I 
 have not the slightest intention of giving them up; besides 
 which you might search Persia from one end to the other 
 without finding anyone who could decipher my father's writ- 
 ing." 
 
 "Pardon me if I point out one or two errors into which 
 you have fallen. First, this box is at present in my hands, 
 and, though I am generally accustomed to respect the rights 
 of property, I must assure you that, in the present instance, 
 I shall not return the box until its contents have served my 
 purpose. Secondly, the gods have so ordained that just at 
 this moment there is a man in Babylon who can read every 
 kind of writing known to the Egyptian priests. Do you, per- 
 haps, happen to know the name of Onuphis?" 
 
 For the third time the Egyptian turned pale. "Are you 
 certain," he said, "that this man is still among the living?" 
 
 "I spoke to him myself yesterday. He was formerly, you 
 know, high-priest at Heliopolis, and was initiated into all your 
 mysteries there. My wise countryman, Pythagoras of Samos, 
 came to Egypt, and, after submitting to some of your cere- 
 
 *In the list of kings of Egypt the names of many queens occur who 
 reigned in their own right, and these are corroborated by the monu- 
 mental inscriptions. Lauth, indeed, in his "Manetho," is of opinion 
 that the divisions of the dynasties are connected with the reigns of 
 the queens. 
 
 tTo judge from the pictures on the monuments and from the first 
 chapter of Exodus it would seem that in ancient, as in modern Egypt, 
 midwives were usually called in to assist at the birth of children; but 
 it is also certain that in difficult cases physicians were employed also. 
 In the hieratic medical papyrus in Berlin women are often spoken of 
 as assisting at such times.
 
 336 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 monies,* was allowed to attend the lessons given in the schools 
 for priests. His remarkable talents won the love of the great 
 Onuphis and he taught him all the Egyptian mysteries,f 
 which Pythagoras afterward turned to account for the benefit 
 of mankind. My delightful friend Rhodopis and I are proud 
 of having been his pupils. When the rest of your caste heard 
 that Onuphis had betrayed the sacred mysteries the eccle- 
 siastical judges determined on his death. This was to be 
 caused by a poison extracted from peach kernels. The con- 
 demned man, however, heard of their machinations, and fled 
 to Naukratis, where he found a safe asylum in the house of 
 Rhodopis, whom he had heard highly praised by Pythagoras 
 
 *Iamblichus, "De Vita Pythagorae," ii, p. 18, ed. Kiessl. "Diod.," i, 
 98. Plutarch, "Quaest. Conv.," viii, 8, 2. Onuphis is also called Oinu- 
 phis. In connection with this subject much is to be found in Roth, 
 "Geschichte Unserer Abendlandischen Philosophic." It is a pity that 
 this clever book, which has been the result of such extended studies, 
 should lose in value by the reckless boldness of its combinations. 
 
 (Notwithstanding all the fables told about the Egyptian mysteries 
 by the later Greek writers, especially the Neo-Platonists, we can gel 
 no clear idea of them. Much on this subject has been preserved in 
 the papyri, but unfortunately whenever the mysteries are touched 
 upon the language of the priestly writers becomes so overloaded with 
 metaphors and is made purposely so obscure that it is very difficult 
 to discover their meaning. The mysteries seem to have been the ex- 
 clusive property of the priests (see, also, Pint., "Isis and Osiris," 4-11), 
 and to have comprehended what was symbolized in the sacred cere- 
 monies. The belief in only one god (as the ritual of the dead teaches, 
 also,) seems to have been at the root of these mysteries, and they 
 must have contained much that is noble and beautiful, as the wisest 
 Greek philosophers, Lycurgus, Solon, Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, 
 Plato and many others, borrowed much from them in their teaching 
 on political economy, geometry, astronomy, and philosophy. Moses, 
 too, owed many of his moral and sanitary laws to the acquaintance 
 with these mysteries, which he made as pupil of the Egyptian priests. 
 See note p. 189. A great deal of erudition has been spent by modern 
 scholars on this subject, with but very small result; as, for instance, 
 by I. G. Bremer, "Symbolische Weisheit der Aegypter," etc.; R. How- 
 ard, "Revelations of Egyptian Mysteries;" F. Nork. "Andeutungen 
 eines Systems der Priesterlichen Mysteriosophie und Hierologie," etc. 
 A thorough understanding of the ritual of the dead (already translated 
 by Birch in his English translation of Bunsen's "Egypt's Place in the 
 History of the World") and the publication of the existing hieratic 
 papyri, which, in the present advanced state of Egyptian philology, 
 must soon be compelled to yield their secrets to earnest students, will 
 in many ways clear up these mysteries of mysteries, if not do away 
 with them entirely. Much has been already gained in this direction.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 337 
 
 and whose dwelling was rendered inviolable by the king's 
 letter. Here he met Antimenidas, the brother of the poet 
 Alcaetis* of Lesbos, who, having been banished by Pittakus, 
 the wise ruler of Alitylene, had gone to Babylon, and there 
 taken service in the army of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of 
 Assyria. Antimenidas gave him letters to the Chaldaeans. 
 Onuphis traveled to the Euphrates, settled there, and was 
 obliged to seek for some means of earning his daily bread, 
 as he had left Egypt a poor man. He is now supporting him- 
 self in his old age by the assistance which his superior knowl- 
 edge enables him to render the Chaldaeans in their astronom- 
 ical observations from the tower of Bel. Onuphis is nearly 
 eighty, but his mind is as clear as ever, and when I saw him 
 yesterday and asked him to help me, his eyes brightened as 
 he promised to do so. Your father was one of his judges, but 
 he bears you no malice and sends you a greeting." 
 
 Nebenchari's eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the ground 
 during this tale. When Phanes had finished he gave him a 
 penetrating look and said: ''Where are my papers?" 
 
 "They are in Onuphis' hands. He is looking among them 
 for the document I want." 
 
 "I expected to hear that. Be so good as to tell me what 
 the box is like which Hib thought proper to bring over to 
 Persia." 
 
 "It is a small ebony trunk." 
 
 "That contains nothing but a few of my father's notices 
 and memorandums," said Xebenchari, drawing a deep breath 
 of relief. 
 
 "They will very likely be sufficient for my purpose. I do 
 not know whether you have heard that I stand as high as 
 possible in Cambyses' favor." 
 
 "So much the better for you. I can assure you, however, 
 that the papers which would have been most useful to you 
 have all been left behind in Egypt." 
 
 "They were in a large chest made of sycamore wood and 
 painted in colors." 
 
 "How do you know that?" 
 
 "Because now listen well to what I am going to say, 
 Nebenchari because I can tell you (I do not swear, for our 
 great master Pythagoras forbade oaths) that this very chest, 
 
 *See note, p. 9 (Alcaeus).
 
 338 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 with all it contained, was burned in the grove of the temple 
 of Neith, in Sais, by order of the king/' 
 
 Phanes spoke slowly, emphasizing every syllable, and the 
 words seemed to strike the Egyptian like so many flashes of 
 lightning. His quiet coolness and deliberation gave way to 
 violent emotion; his cheeks glowed and his eyes flashed. But 
 only for one single minute; then the strong emotion seemed 
 to freeze, his burning cheeks grew pale. "You are trying 
 to make me hate my friends in order to gain me as your ally," 
 1?ie said, coldly and calmly. "I know you Greeks very well. 
 You are so intriguing and artful that there is no lie, no fraud, 
 too base, if it will only help to gain your purpose." 
 
 "You judge me and my countrymen in true Egyptian 
 fashion; that is, they are foreigners and therefore must be 
 bad men. But this time your suspicions happen to be mis- 
 placed. Send for old Hib ; he will tell you whether I am right 
 or not." 
 
 Nebenchari's face darkened as Hib came into the room. 
 
 "Come nearer," said he, in a commanding tone, to the old 
 man. 
 
 Hib obeyed with a shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 "Tell me, have you taken a bribe from this man? Yes or 
 no? I must know the truth; it can influence my future for 
 good or evil. You are an old and faithful servant, to whom 
 I owe a great deal, and so I will forgive you if you were 
 taken in by his artifices, but I must know the truth. I con- 
 jure you to tell me, by the souls of your fathers gone to Osiris!" 
 
 The old man's sallow face turned ashy pale as he heard 
 these words. He gulped and wheezed some time before he 
 could find an answer, and, at last, after choking down the 
 tears which had forced their way to his eyes, said, in a half 
 angry, half whining tone: "Didn't I say so? they've bewitched 
 him they've ruined him in this wicked land. Whatever a 
 man would do himself he thinks others are capable of. Ay, 
 you may look as angry as you like; it matters but little to 
 me. What can it mattei, indeed, to an old man who has 
 served the same family faithfully and honestly for sixty years 
 if they call him at last a rogue, a knave, a traitor nay, even 
 a murderer, if it should take their fancy?" 
 
 And the scalding tears flowed down over the old man's 
 cheeks sorely against his will.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 339 
 
 The easily moved Phanes clapped him on the shoulder and 
 said, turning to Nebenchari: "Hib is a faithful fellow. I 
 give you leave to call me a rascal if he has taken one single 
 obolus from me." 
 
 The physician did not need Phanes' assurance; he had 
 known his old servant too well and too long not to be able to 
 read his simple, open features, on which his innocence was 
 written as clearly as in the pages of an open book. "I did 
 not mean to reproach you, old Hib," he said kindly, coming 
 up to him. "How can anyone be so angry at a simple ques- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Perhaps you expect me to be pleased at such a shameful 
 suspicion?" 
 
 "No, not that; but at all events now you can tell me what 
 has happened at our house since I left." 
 
 "A pretty story that is! Why, only to think of it makes 
 my mouth as bitter as if I were chewing wormwood." 
 
 "You said I had been robbed." 
 
 "Yes, indeed; no one was ever so robbed before. There 
 would have been some comfort if the knaves had belonged 
 to the thieves' caste,* for then we should have got the best 
 part of our property back again, and should not, after all, 
 have been worse off than many another;' but when " 
 
 "Keep to the point, for my time is limited." 
 
 "You need not tell me that; I see old Hib can't do any- 
 thing right here in Persia. Well, be it so, you're master; 
 you must give orders; I am only the servant, I must obey. 
 I won't forget it. Well, as I was saying, it was just at the 
 time when the great Persian embassy came over to Sais to 
 
 *The cunning son of the architect who robbed the treasure-house of 
 Rhampsinitus was, according to "Herodotus" (ii, 120), severely pun- 
 isi:ed; but in "Diod.," i, 80, and "Aul. Gell.," xi, 18, we see that when 
 thieves acknowledged themselves to the authorities to be such they 
 were not punished, though a strict watch was set over them. Accord- 
 ing to Diodorus, there was a president of the thieves' caste, from whom 
 the stolen goods could be reclaimed on relinquishment of afourthpart 
 of the same. This strange rule probably owed its rise to the law 
 which compelled every Egyptian to appear once in each year before 
 the authorities of his district and give an account of his means of 
 subsistence. Those who made false statements were punished with 
 death. "Diod.," i, 77. Thus no one who valued his life could escape . 
 the watchful eye of the police, and the thief sacrificed the best part of 
 his gains in order to save his life.
 
 340 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 fetch Nitetis, and made everybody stare at them as if they 
 were monsters or prodigies, that this shameful thing hap- 
 pened. I was sitting on the mosquito tower just as the sun 
 was setting, playing with my little grandson, my baner's* 
 eldest boy he's a- fine, strapping little lad now, wonderfully 
 sharp and strong for his age. The rogue was just telling me 
 how his father the Egyptians do that when their wives leave 
 the children too much alone had hidden his mother's shoes,f 
 and I was laughing heartily, because my baner won't let any 
 of the little ones live with me she always says I spoil them 
 and so I was glad she should have the trick played her when 
 all of a sudden there was such a loud knocking at the house 
 door that I thought there must be a fire and let the child drop 
 off my lap. Down the stairs I ran, three steps at a time, as 
 fast as my long legs would carry me and unbarred the door. 
 Before I had time to ask them what they wanted a whole 
 crowd of temple servants and policemen there must have 
 been, at least, fifteen of them forced their way into the house. 
 Pichi you know, that impudent fellow from the temple of 
 Neith pushed me back, barred the door inside and told the 
 police to put me in fetters if 1 refused to obey him. Of course 
 I got angry and did not use very civil words to them you 
 know that's my way when. I'm put out and what does that 
 bit of a fellow do by our god Thoth, the protector of knowl- 
 edge, who must know all, I'm speaking the truth but order 
 them to bind my hands, forbid me me, old Hib to speak, 
 and then tell me that he had been told by the high-priest to 
 order me five-and-twenty strokes if I refuse to do his bidding. 
 He showed me the high-priest's ring, and so I knew there 
 was nothing for it but to obey the villain, whether I would 
 or no. And what was his rnodest demand? Why, nothing 
 less than to give him all the written papers you had left behind. 
 But old Hib is not quite so stupid as to let himself be caught 
 in that way, though some people, who ought to know better, 
 do fancy that he can be bribed and is no better than the son of 
 
 *Baner signifies a palm tree. Lepsius, "Denkm.," iv, 74 c. 
 
 tPlutarch writes that to walk barefoot in the streets was considered 
 improper among the Egyptians. To make their wives domestic, there- 
 fore, the husbands hid their shoes. It was the women's duty, however, 
 according to "Herod.," ii, 35, to buy at market, which seems natural 
 enough to us, but not at all so to the Greeks, as in their native country 
 this duty was performed by the men.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 341 
 
 an ass. What did I do then? I pretended to be quite crushed 
 into submission by the sight of the signet ring, begged Pichi 
 as politely as I could to unfasten my hands, and told him I 
 would fetch the keys. They loosened the cords, I flew up the 
 stairs five steps at the time, burst open the door of your sleeping 
 room, pushed my little grandson, who was standing by it, 
 into the room and barred it within. Thanks to my long legs, 
 the others were so far behind that I had time to get hold of 
 the black box which you had told me to take so much care of, 
 put it into the child's arms, lift him through the win- 
 dow onto the balcony which runs round the house toward 
 the inner court, and tell him to put it at once 
 into the pigeon house. Then I opened the door as if nothing 
 had happened, told Pichi the child had had a knife in his 
 mouth and that that was the reason I had run upstairs in such 
 a hurry, and had put him out on the balcony to punish him. 
 That brother of a hippopotamus was easily taken in, and 
 then he made me show him over the house. First they found 
 the great sycamore chest which you had told me to take great 
 care of, then the papyrus rolls on your writing table, and so 
 by degrees every written paper in the house. They made no 
 distinction, but put all together into the great chest and car- 
 ried it downstairs; the little black box, however,' lay safe 
 enough in ihe pigeon house. My grandchild is the sharpest 
 boy in all Sais! 
 
 "When I saw them really carrying the chest downstairs 
 all the anger I'd been trying so hard too keep down burst out 
 again. I told the impudent fellows I would accuse them 
 before the magistrates nay, even before the king, if neces- 
 sary; and if those confounded Persians, who were having the 
 city shown them, had not come up just then and made every- 
 body stare at them, I could have roused the crowd to take my 
 side. The same evening I went to my son-in-law he is 
 employed in the temple of Neith, too, you know and begged 
 him to make every effort to find out what had become of the 
 papers. The good fellow has never forgotten the handsome 
 dowry you gave my baner when he married her, and in three 
 days he came and told me he had seen your beautiful chest 
 and all the rolls it contained burned to ashes. I was so angry 
 that I fell ill of the jaundice, but that did not hinder me from 
 sending in a written accusation to the magistrates. The
 
 342 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 wretches I suppose only because they were priests, too 
 refused to take any notice of me or my complaint. Then I 
 sent in a petition to the king, and was turned away there, too, 
 with the shameful threat that I should be considered guilty of 
 high treason if I mentioned the papers again. I valued my 
 tongue too much to take any further steps,* but the ground 
 burned under my feet; I could not stay in Egypt; I wanted 
 to see you, tell you what they had done to you, and call on 
 you, who are more powerful than your poor servant, to revenge 
 yourself. And, besides, I wanted to see the black box safe 
 in your hands, lest they should take that from me too. And 
 so, old man as I am, with a sad" heart I left my home and 
 my grandchildren to go forth into this foreign Typhon's land. 
 Ah, the little lad was too sharp! As I was kissing him, he 
 said: 'Stay with us, grandfather. If the foreigners make you 
 unclean they won't let me kiss you any more.' Baner sends 
 you a hearty greeting, and my son-in-law told me to say he 
 had found out that Psamtik, the crown-prince, and your rival, 
 Petammon, had been the sole causes of this execrable deed. 
 I could not make up my mind to trust myself on that Typhon's 
 sea, so I traveled with an Arabian trading caravan as far as 
 Tadmor, the Phoenician palm tree station in the wilderness,f 
 and thea on to Carchemish on the Euphrates, with merchants 
 from Sidon. The roads from Sardis and from Phoenicia meet 
 there, and as I was sitting very w^eary in the little wood before 
 the station, a traveler arrived with the royal post horses, and 
 I saw at once that it was the former commander of the Greek 
 mercenaries." 
 
 *The Egyptian law decreed the cutting out of the tongue as punish- 
 ment for high treason. "Diod.," i, 78. 
 
 tTadmor, afterward called Palmyra, was probably built by Solomon, 
 though the Arabian legends give it a still earlier date. Schultens, 
 "Index Geogr." Solomon's attention, as a wise king and enterprising 
 trader, was more likely directed to this oasis in the midst of the Syrian 
 deserts as a resting place for his caravans than as a place of defense 
 against the attacks of the Syrians and Arabians, as Winer imagines 
 in the third edition of his "Biblischen Realworterbuch." Palniyra 
 rose quickly from small beginnings to great splendor, and to this day 
 travelers are astonished at the size and beauty of its ruins. See 
 R. Wood, "The Ruins r>? rV..:^7 T 'a." Carchemish on the Euphrates, 
 famous for the battle Lcaween Necho an'? Nebuchadnezzar, "Jerem.," 
 46, 2 the Circesium of later times is nameu " a the principal station 
 on the road to Babylon by Palmyra. Josephus, Ar*-." viii, 6, x, 6. 
 Movers, "Das Phonizosische Alterthum," ii, 40. Ritter, 
 xi, p. 690.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 343 
 
 "And I," interrupted Phanes, "recognized just as soon in 
 you, the longest and most quarrelsome old fellow that had 
 ever come across my path. Oh, how often I've laughed to 
 see you scolding the children as they ran after you in the 
 street whenever you appeared behind your master with the 
 medicine chest. The minute I saw you, too, I remembered a 
 joke which the king once made in his own way as you were 
 both passing by. 'The old man/ he said, 'reminds me of a 
 fierce old owl followed by a flight of small teasing birds, and 
 Nebenchari looks as if he had a scolding wife who will some 
 day or other reward him for healing other people's eyes by 
 scratching out his own !' " 
 
 "Shameful!" said the old man, and burst into a flood of 
 execrations. 
 
 Nebenchari had been listening to his servant's tale in silence 
 and thought. He had changed color from time to time, and 
 on hearing that the papers which had cost him so many nights 
 of hard work had been burned, his fists clinched, and he shiv- 
 ered as if seized by biting frost. 
 
 Not one of his movements escaped the Athenian. He under- 
 stood human nature; he knew that a jest is often much harder 
 to be^ar than a grave affront, and, therefore, seized this oppor- 
 tunity to repeat the inconsiderate joke which Amasis had, it is 
 true, allowed himself to make in one of his merry moods. 
 Phanes had calculated rightly, and had the pleasure of seeing 
 that as he uttered the last words Nebenchari pressed his hands 
 on a rose which lay on the table before him and crushed it to 
 pieces. The Greek suppressed a smile of satisfaction, and did 
 not even raise his eyes from the ground, but continued speak- 
 ing: "Well, now, we must bring the traveling adventures of 
 good old Hib to a close. I invited him to share my carriage. 
 At first he refused to sit on the same cushion with such a 
 godless foreigner as I am, gave in, however, at last, had a good 
 opportunity at the last station of showing the world how many 
 clever processes of manipulation he had learned from you and 
 your father, in his treatment of Oropastes' wounded brother; 
 he reached Babylon at last safe and sound, and there, as we 
 could not get sight of you, owing to the melancholy poisoning 
 of your countrywoman, I succeeded to obtaining him a lodging 
 in the royal palace itself. The rest you know already." 
 
 Nebenchari bowed assent and gave Hib a sign to leave the
 
 344 AN EGYPTJAN PRINCESS. 
 
 room, which the old man obeyed, grumbling and scolding in 
 a low tone as he departed. When the door had closed on him, 
 Nebenchari, the man whose calling was to heal, drew nearer 
 to the soldier Phanes, and said: "I am afraid we cannot be 
 allies after all, Greek." 
 
 ''Why not?" 
 
 "Because I fear that your revenge will prove far too mild 
 when compared with that which I feel bound to inflict." 
 
 "On that head there is no need for solicitude," answered the 
 Athenian. "May I call you my ally then?'' 
 
 "Yes," answered the other, "but only on one condition." 
 
 "And that is ?" 
 
 "That you will procure me an opportunity of seeing our ven- 
 geance with my own eyes." 
 
 "That is as much as to say you are willing to accompany 
 Cambyses' army to Egypt?" 
 
 "Certainly I am; and when I see my enemies pining in dis- 
 grace and misery I will cry unto them: 'Ah, ha, ye cowards, 
 the poor, despised and exiled physician, Nebenchari, has 
 brought this wretchedness upon you!' Oh, my books, my 
 books ! They made up to me for my lost wife and child. Hun- 
 dreds were to have learned from them how to deliver the blind 
 from the dark night in which he lives, and to preserve to the 
 seeing the sweetest gift of the gods, the greatest beauty of the 
 human countenance, the receptacle of light, the seeing eye. 
 Now that my books are burned I have lived in vain; the 
 wretches have burned me in burning my books. Oh, my 
 books, my books!" And he sobbed aloud in his agony. 
 Phanes came up and took his hand, saying: "The Egyptians 
 have struck you, my friend, but me they have maltreated and 
 abused thieves have broken into your granaries, but my 
 hearth and home have been burned to ashes by incendiaries. 
 Do you know, man, what I have had to suffer at fheir hands? 
 In persecuting me, and driving me out of Egypt, they only 
 did what they had a right to do; by their law I was a cpn- 
 demned man; and I could have forgiven all they did to me 
 personally, for I loved Amasis as a man loves his friend. The 
 wretch knew that, and yet he suffered them to commit a mon- 
 strous, an incredible act an act that a man's brain refuses to 
 take in. They stole like wolves at night into a helpless 
 woman's house they seized my children, a girl and boy, the
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 345 
 
 pride, the joy, and comfort of my homeless, wandering life. 
 And, how think you, did they treat them? The girl they kept 
 in confinement, on the pretext that by so doing they should 
 prevent me from betraying Egypt to Cambyses. But the boy 
 my beautiful, gentle boy my only son has been murdered 
 by Psamtik's orders, and possibly with the knowledge of 
 Amasis. My heart was withered and shrunk with exile and 
 sorrow, but I feel that it expands it beats more joyfully now 
 that there is hope of vengeance." 
 
 Nebenchari's sullen but burning glance met the flashing eye 
 of the Athenian as he finished his tale; he gave him his hand 
 and said: "We are allies." , 
 
 The Greek clasped the offered hand and answered: "Our 
 first point now is to make sure of the king's favor." 
 
 "I will restore Kassandane's sight." 
 
 "Is that in your power?" 
 
 "The operation which removed Amasis' blindness was my 
 own discovery. Petammon stole it from my burned papers." 
 
 "Why did not you exert your skill earlier?" 
 
 "Because I am not accustomed to bestow presents on my 
 enemies." 
 
 Pha'nes shuddered slightly at these words, recovered himself, 
 however, in a moment, and said: ."And I am certain of the 
 king's favor, too. The Massagetan envoys have gone home 
 to-da> ; peace has been granted them and " 
 
 While he was speaking the door was burst open and one of 
 Kassandane's eunuch's rushed into the room, crying: "The 
 princess Nitetis is dying! Follow me at once, there is not a 
 moment to lose." 
 
 The physician made a parting sign to his confederate, and 
 followed the eunuch to the bed of the dying royal bride. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The sun was already trying to break a path for his rays 
 through the thick curtains that closed the window of the sick- 
 room, but Nebenchari had not moved from the Egyptian girl's 
 bedside. Sometimes he felt her pulse or spread sweet-scented 
 ointments on her forehead or chest, and then he would sit
 
 346 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 gazing dreamily into vacancy. Nitetis seemed to have sunk 
 into a deep sleep after an attack of convulsions. At the foot of 
 her bed stood six Persian doctors, murmuring incantations 
 under the orders of Nebenchari, whose superior science they 
 acknowledged, and who was seated at the bed's head. 
 
 Each time he felt the sick girl's pulse he shrugged his shoul- 
 ders, and the gesture was immediately imitated by his Persian 
 colleagues. From time to time the curtain was lifted and a 
 lovely head appeared, whose questioning blue eyes fixed at 
 once on the physician, but were always dismissed with the same 
 melancholy shrug. It was Atossa. Twice she had ventured 
 ijoto the room, stepping so lightly as hardly to touch the thick 
 carpet of Milesian wool, had stolen to her friend's bedside and 
 lightly kissed her forehead on which the pearly dew of death 
 was standing, but each time a severe and reproving glance 
 from Nebenchari had sent her back again into the next room, 
 where her mother, Kassandane, was lying awaiting the end. 
 
 Cambyses had left the sick-room at sunrise, on seeing that 
 Nitetis had fallen asleep; he flung himself onto his horse, and, 
 accompanied by Phanes, Prexaspes, Otanes, Darius, and a 
 number of courtiers, only just aroused from their sleep, took a 
 wild ride through the game-park. He knew by experience that 
 he could best overcome or forget any violent mental emotion 
 when mounted on an unmanageable horse. 
 
 Nebenchari started on hearing the sound of the horses' hoofs 
 in the distance. In a waking dream he had seen Cambyses 
 enter his native land at the head of immense hosts; he had seen 
 its cities and temples on fire, and its gigantic pyramids crum- 
 bling to pieces under the powerful blows of his mighty hand. 
 Women and children lay in the smoldering ruins, and plaintive 
 cries arose from the tombs in which the very mummies moved 
 like living beings; and all these priests, warriors, women and 
 children the living and the dead all had uttered his Ne- 
 benchari's name, and had cursed him as a traitor to his coun- 
 try. A cold shiver struck to his heart; it beat more convul- 
 sively than the blood in the veins of the dying girl at his side. 
 Again the curtain was raised; Atossa stole in once more and 
 laid her hand on his shoulder. He started and awoke. Neben- 
 chari had been sitting three days and nights with scarcely any 
 intermission by this sick-bed, and such dreams were the natural 
 consequence.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 347 
 
 Atossa slipped back to her mother. Not a sound broke the 
 sultry air of the sick-room, and Nebenchari's thoughts reverted 
 to his dream. He told himself that he was on the point of be- 
 coming a traitor and a criminal, the visions he had just beheld 
 passed before him again, but this time it was another, and a 
 different one which gained the foremost place. The forms of 
 Amasis who laughed at and exiled him of Psamtik and the 
 priests who had burned his works stood near him; they 
 were heavily fettered and besought mercy at his hands. His 
 lips moved, but this was not the place in which to utter the 
 cruel words which rose to them. And then the stern man wiped 
 away a tear as he remembered the long nights in which he had 
 sat, with the reed in his hand, by the dull light of the lamp, care- 
 fully painting every sign cf the fine hieratic character in which 
 he committed his ideas and experience to writing. He had 
 discovered remedies for many diseases of the eye spoken of in 
 the sacred books of Thoth as incurable, but, knowing that he 
 should be accused of sacrilege by his colleagues if he ventured 
 on a correction or improvement of his sacred writings, he had 
 entitled his work, "Additional writings on the treatment of dis- 
 eases of the eye by the great Thoth,* newly discovered by the 
 oculist Nebenchari/'f He had resolved on bequeathing his 
 works to the library at Thebes,! that his experience might be 
 
 *The discovery of nearly every science is attributed to the ibis- 
 headed god Thoth, the writer or clerk of heaven, whom the Greeks 
 compared to their god Hermes. Thoth, "the thrice-greatest" (Trisme- 
 gistus) was said to have written six books on the healing art, in which 
 anatomy, the doctrine of disease and the use of medicines are said to 
 have been treated, besides diseases of the eye. Clem. Alex., "Strom.," 
 vi, 260. See lamblichus, "De Myst. Aegypt.," vi, 4. Isis also was glor- 
 ified as a healing divinity, and in later times Serapis. "Diod.," i, 25. 
 Tacit. "Hist.," iv, 81. 
 
 fin the writings of the ancient Egyptians, which have come down 
 to us, we read constantly of books and documents which had been 
 found under this or that statue of a god. This was certainly intended 
 as a proof of their sanctity and divine authorship. It is true that in 
 some works the name of the author is given; as, for instance, the 
 "Legend of the Two Brothers" (Papyr. d'Orbiney) the author of which 
 was named Anana. One of the hermetic books was devoted entirely to 
 diseases of the eye. It was in Alexandria, too, in the third century 
 B. C., that Herophilus of Chalcedon discovered and named the retina 
 of the eye. 
 
 tThe library of Thebes, which, according to Diodorus, bore the in- 
 scription !/><-'. tw laTpdov, "the place of healing for the soul," con-
 
 348 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 useful to his successors and bring forth fruit for the whole body 
 of sufferers. This was to be his reward for the long nights 
 which he had sacrificed to science recognition after death, and 
 fame for the caste to which he belonged. And there stood his 
 old rival, Petammon, by the side of the crown prince in the 
 grove of Neith, and stirred the consuming fire, after having 
 stolen his discovery of the operation of couching. Their mali- 
 cious faces were ting*ed by the red glow of the flames, which 
 rose with their spiteful laughter toward heaven as if demanding 
 vengeance. A little farther off he saw in his dream Amasis 
 receiving his father's letters from the hands of the high-priest. 
 Scornful and mocking words were being uttered by the king; 
 Neith otep looked exultant. In these visions Nebenchari was 
 so lost that one of the Persian doctors was obliged to point out 
 to him that his patient was awake. He nodded in reply, point- 
 ing to his own weary eyes with a smile, felt the sick girl's pulse, 
 and asked her in Egyptian how she had slept. 
 
 "I do not know," she answered, in a voice that was hardly 
 audible. "It seemed to me that I was asleep, and yet I saw 
 and heard everything that happened in the room. I felt so 
 weak that I hardly knew whether I was awake or asleep. Has 
 not Atossa been here several times?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 tained according to lamblichus, "De Myst. Aegypt." viii, 1, twenty 
 thousand hermetic or sacerdotal books. It was in the Ramesseum, 
 which, according to Diodorus of Osymandyas, was erected to Rameses 
 Miamun ("the beloved of Ammon") of the monuments, in the four- 
 teenth century B. C. Champollion discovered what must formerly 
 have been the space occupied by the library in the ruins of the Ra- 
 messeum. At the entrance were representations of Thoth, the god of 
 wisdom, and Safech, the goddess of history. Many of the hieratic 
 papyri which we possess are dated from this library, and it is often 
 mentioned in the Egyptian books. Lepsius even discovered at Thebes 
 the tombs of two of the librarians under Rameses Miamun. Their 
 possessors were father and son, this office, like most others, having 
 been hereditary. They were called "governors of the books," and 
 "presidents of the books." See Lepsius, "Chronologic Einleitung," p. 
 39. The libraries seem always to have belonged to the temples. Thus, 
 in the ritual of the dead, 17, 47, 48, we read of the library of Osiris 
 Seb; Galen speaks of a library belonging to the temple of Ptah at 
 Memphis where medical manuscripts had also been preserved. Gal., 
 "De Comp., Med. Sec. Gen.," v, 2, and we know that there was one at- 
 tached to the Serapeum at Alexandria. See Parthey's "Monograph 
 des A]exandrinische Museum."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. ,349 
 
 "And Cambyses stayed with Kassandane until sunrise, then 
 he went out, mounted his horse Reksch and rode into the game 
 park." 
 
 "How do you know that?" 
 
 "I saw it." 
 
 Nebenchari looked anxiously into the girl's shining eyes. 
 She went on: "A great many dogs have been brought into the 
 court behind this house." 
 
 "Probably the king has ordered a hunt in order to deaden 
 the pain which he feels at seeing you suffer." 
 
 "Oh, no. I know better what it means. Oropastes taught 
 me that whenever a Persian dies dogs* are brought in that the 
 divs may enter into them." 
 
 "But you are living, my mistress, and " 
 
 "Oh, I know very well that I shall die. I knew that I had 
 not many hours more to live even if I had not seen how you 
 and the other physicians shrugged your shoulders whenever 
 you looked at me. That poison is deadly." 
 
 "You are speaking too much, my mistress; it will hurt 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, let me speak, Nebenchari ! I must ask you to do some- 
 thing for me before I die." 
 
 "I am your servant." 
 
 "No, Nebenchari, you must be my friend and priest. You 
 are not angrv with me for having prayed to the Persian gods? 
 Our own Hathor was always my best friend still. Yes, I see 
 by your face that you forgive me. Then you must promise not 
 to allow my corpse to be torn in pieces by dogs and vultures.f 
 The thought is so very dreadful. You will promise to embalm 
 my body and ornament it with amulets?" 
 
 "If the king allows." 
 
 *As soon as a Persian was dead the drukhs nagus, or unclean 
 demon of death rushed to the spot in the form of a fly and seated him- 
 self on the corpse and on one of the living who were present, bringing 
 destruction and taint. "Vendid." Farg.," vii, 2-24. Even to this day 
 the Parsees hold dogs before dying people. Ritter, "Erdkunde," iv, 
 p. 1092. Possibly they do this in the hopes that the specter of death 
 may enter into the animals; but the eyes of two especially spotted 
 dogs were said to have the power of scaring evil drukhs. The latter 
 remark is from the Dutch translator. See, also, Tiele, "Godsd. v. 
 Zarath.," p. 184. 
 
 fSee note p. 60.
 
 350* AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Of course he will. How could Cambyses possibly refuse my 
 last request?" 
 
 "Then my skill is at your service." 
 
 "Thank you; but I have still something else to ask." 
 
 "You must be brief. My Persian colleagues are already 
 making signs to me to enjoin silence on you." 
 
 "Can't you send them away for a moment?" 
 
 "I will try to do so." 
 
 Nebenchari then went urJ and spoke to the Magi for a few 
 minutes and they left the room. An important incantation at 
 which no one but the two concerned might be present and the 
 application of a new and secret antidotal poison were the pre- 
 texts which he had used in order to get rid of them. 
 
 When they were alone, Nitetis drew a breath of relief, and 
 said: "Give me your priestly blessing on my long journey into 
 the nether world and prepare me for my pilgrimage to Osiris." 
 
 Nebenchari knelt down by her bed and in a low voice re- 
 peated hymns, Nitetis making devotional responses. 
 
 The physician represented Osiris, the lord of the nether 
 world Nitetis, the soul, justifying itself beforeliim.* 
 
 When these ceremonies were ended the sick girl breathed 
 more freely. Nebenchari could not but feel moved in looking 
 at this young suicide. He felt confident that he had saved a 
 soul for the gods of his native land, had cheered the last sad 
 and painful hours of one of God's good creatures. During 
 these last moments compassion and benevolence had excluded 
 every bitter feeling; but when he remembered that this lovely 
 creature owed all her misery to Amasis, too, the old black cloud 
 of thought darkened his mind again. Nitetis, after lying silent 
 for some time, turned to her new friend with a pleasant smile 
 and said: "I shall find mercy with the judges of the dead, now, 
 shall not I?" 
 
 "I hope and believe so." 
 
 "Perhaps I may find Tachot before the throne of Osiris, and 
 my father 
 
 "Your father and mother are waiting for you there. Now 
 in your last hour bless those who begot you, and curse those 
 who have robbed you of vour parents, your crown and your 
 life." 
 
 *See note p. 189.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 351 
 
 "I do not understand you." 
 
 "Curse those who robbed you of your parents, crown and 
 life, girl!" cried the physician again, rising to his full height, 
 breathing hard as he said the words and gazing down on the 
 dying girl. "Curse those wretches, girl! that curse will do more 
 in gaining mercy from the judges of the dead than thousands 
 of good works!" And as he said this he seized her hand and 
 pressed" it violently. 
 
 Nitetis looked up uneasily into his indignant face and stam- 
 mered, in blind obedience, "I curse." 
 
 "Those who robbed my parents of their throne and their 
 lives!" 
 
 "Those who robbed my parents of their throne and their 
 lives," she repeated after him, and then, crying, "Oh, my 
 heart!" sank back exhausted on the bed. 
 
 Nebenchari bent down and before the royal physicians could 
 return kissed her forehead gently, murmuring, "She dies my 
 confederate. The gods hearken to the prayers of those who 
 die innocent. By carrying the sword into Egypt I shall avenge 
 king Hophra's wrongs as well as my own." 
 
 When Nitetis opened her eyes once more, a few hours later, 
 Kassandane was holding her right hand, Atossa kneeling at 
 her feet, and Croesus standing at the head of her bed, trying, 
 with the failing strength of old age, to support the gigantic 
 frame of the king, who was so completely overpowered by his 
 grief that he staggered like a drunken man. The dying girl's 
 eyes lighted up as she looked round the circle. She \vas won- 
 derfully beautiful. Cambyses came closer and kissed her lips ; 
 they were growing cold in death. It was the first kiss he had 
 ever given her and the last. Two large tears sprang to her 
 eyes; their light was fast growing dim; she murmured Cam- 
 byses' name softly, fell back in Atossa's arms and died. 
 
 We shall not give a detailed account of the next few hours; 
 it would be an unpleasant task to describe how, at a signal 
 from the principal Persian doctor, everyone, except Neben- 
 chari and Croesus, hastily left the room how dogs were
 
 352 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 brought in and their sagacious heads turned toward the corpse 
 in order to scare the demon of death* how, directly after 
 Nitetis' death, Kassandane, Atossa and their entire retinue 
 moved into another house in order to avoid defilement how 
 fire was extinguished throughout the dwelling, that the pure 
 element might be removed from the polluting spirits of death ;f 
 how spells and exorcisms were muttered,! and how every 
 person and thing, which had approached or been brought into 
 contact with the dead body, was subject to numerous purifica- 
 tions with water and pungent fluids. 
 
 The same evening Cambyses was seized by one of his old 
 epileptic attacks. Two days later he gave Nebenchari permis- 
 sion to embalm Nitetis' body in the Egyptian manner, accord- 
 ing to her last wish. The king gave way to the most immoder- 
 ate grief; he tore the flesh of his arms, rent his clothes and 
 strewed ashes on his head and on his couch. All the magnates 
 of his court were obliged to follow his example. The troops 
 mounted guard with rent banners and muffled drums. The 
 cymbals and kettle-drums of the "immortals" were bound 
 round with crape. The horses which Nitetis had used, as well 
 as all which were then in use by the court, were colored blue 
 and deprived of their tails; the entire court appeared in mourn- 
 ing robes of dark brown, rent to the girdle, and the Magi were 
 compelled to prav three days and nights unceasingly for the 
 soul of the dead,|[ which was supposed to be awaiting its sen- 
 tence for eternity at the bridge Chinvatfl on the third night. 
 
 Neither the king, Kassandane, nor Atossa shrank from sub- 
 mitting to the necessary purifications; they repeated, as if for 
 one of their nearest relations, thirty prayers for the dead, while, 
 in a house outside the city gates, Nebenchari began to embalm 
 
 *See note p. 52. 
 
 fin winter fire might be brought back to the deceased's dwelling 
 nine days after the death, in summer not until a month had passed. 
 "Vendid. Farg.," v, 130. 
 
 JThe entire tenth Fargard of the Vendidad is devoted to these spells. 
 
 See note p. 29. 
 
 ||The number of prayers to be said according to the degrees of re- 
 lationship with the deceased are to be found in "Vendidad Fare.," 
 xii, 1. 
 
 flSee note p. 271.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 852 
 
 her body in the most costly manner, and according to the strict- 
 est rules of his art.* 
 
 For nine days Cambyses remained in a condition which 
 seemed little short of insanity. At times furious, at others dull 
 and stupefied, he did not even allow his relations or the high- 
 priest to approach him. On the morning of the tenth day he 
 sent for the chief of the seven judges and commanded that as 
 lenient a sentence as possible should be pronounced on Gau- 
 mata. Nitetis, on her dying-bed, had begged him to spare the 
 life of this unhappy youth. 
 
 One hour later the sentence was submitted to the king for 
 ratification. It ran thus: "Victory to the king! Inasmuch as 
 Cambyses, the eye of the world and the son of righteousness, 
 hath, in his great mercy, which is as broad as the heavens and 
 as inexhaustible as the great deep, commanded us to punish the 
 crime of the son of the Magi, Gaumata, with the indulgence of 
 a mother instead of with the severity of a judge, we, the seven 
 judges of the realm, have determined to grant his forfeited life. 
 Inasmuch, however, as by the folly of this youth the lives of the 
 noblest and the best in this realm have been imperiled, and it 
 may reasonably be apprehended that he may again abuse the 
 marvelous likeness to Bartja, the noble son of Cyrus, in which 
 
 *Embalming was practiced in three different ways. The first cost a 
 talent of silver (two hundred and twenty-five pounds sterling); the 
 second twenty minae (sixty pounds sterling), and the third was very 
 inexpensive. "Herod.," ii, 86-88. "Diod.," i, 91. The brain was first 
 drawn out through the nose and the skull filled with spices. The in- 
 testines were then taken out and the body filled in like manner with 
 aromatic spices. When all was finished the corpse was left seventy 
 days in a solution of soda, and then wrapped in bandages of byssus 
 spread over with gum. The microscopical examinations of mummy- 
 bandages made by Dr. Ure and Prof. Czermak have proved that 
 byssus is linen, not cotton. The manner of embalming just described 
 is the most expensive, and the latest chemical researches prove that 
 the description given of it by the Greeks was tolerably correct. L. 
 Penicher maintains that the bodies were first somewhat dried in 
 ovens and that then resin of the cedar-tree, or asphalt, was poured into 
 every opening. "Traite sur les Embaumements Selon les Anciens 
 et les Modernes," Paris, 1699. According to Herodotus, female corpses 
 were embalmed by women. "Herod.," ii, 69. The subject is treated in 
 great detail by Pettigrew, "History of Egyptian Mummies," London, 
 1834. Czermak's microscopical examinations of Egyptian mummies 
 show how marvelously the smallest portions of the body were pre- 
 served, and confirm the statements of Herodotus on many points.
 
 354 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the gods have been pleased in their mercy to fashion his form 
 and face and thereby bring prejudice upon the pure and 
 righteous, we have determined to disfigure him in such wise 
 that in the time to come it will be a light matter to discern 
 between these two, the most worthless subject of the realm, and 
 him who is most worthy. We, therefore, by the royal will and 
 command, pronounce sentence that both the ears of Gaumata 
 be cut off, for the honor of the righteous and shame of the 
 impure." 
 
 Cambyses confirmed this sentence at once and it was exe- 
 cuted the same day. 
 
 Oropastes did not dare to intercede for his brother, though 
 this ignominious punishment mortified his ambitious mind 
 more than even a sentence of death could have done. As he 
 was afraid that his own influence and consideration might 
 suffer through this mutilated brother, he ordered him to leave 
 Babylon at once for a country-house of his own on Mount 
 Arakadris.* 
 
 During the few days which had just passed, a shabbily- 
 dressed and closely veiled woman had watched day and night 
 at the great gate of the palace; neither the threats of the 
 sentries nor the coarse jests of the palace servants could drive 
 her from her post. She never allowed one of the less important 
 officials to pass without eagerly questioning him, first as to the 
 state of the Egyptian princess, and then what had become of 
 Gaumata. When his sentence was told her, as a good joke, by 
 a chattering lamplighter, she went off into the strangest excite- 
 ment, and astonished the poor man so much by kissing his robe 
 that he thought she must be crazed and gave her an alms. 
 She refused the money, but remained at her post, subsisting on 
 the bread which was given to her by the compassionate dis- 
 tributors of food. Three days later Gaumata himself, with his 
 head bound up, was driven out in a closed Harmamaxa. She 
 rushed to the carriage and ran screaming by the side of it 
 
 "This mountain is mentioned in the inscription of "Behistan," i, 
 sec. ix. With reference to Gaumata's punishment, the same which 
 Herodotus says was inflicted on the pretended Smerdis, we would 
 observe that even Persians of high rank were sometimes deprived of 
 their ears. In the Behistan inscription ("Spiegel," pp. 15 and 21) 
 the ears, tongue, and nose of the man highest in rank among the 
 rebels, Fravartis (Phraortes), were cut off. Similar punishments are 
 quoted by Brisson. "De regn Persar," ii, pp. 334-5.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 355 
 
 until the driver stopped his mules and asked what she wanted. 
 She threw back her veil and showed the poor, suffering youth 
 her pretty face, covered with deep blushes. Gaumata uttered 
 a low cry as he recognized her, collected himself, however, 
 in a moment, and said: "What do you want with me, Man- 
 dane?" 
 
 The wretched girl raised her hands beseechingly to him, 
 crying: "Oh, do not leave me, Gaumata! Take me with you ! 
 I forgive you all the misery you have brought on me and my 
 poor mistress. 1 love you so much ; I will take care of you and 
 nurse you as if I were the lowest servant-girl." 
 
 A short struggle passed in Gaumata's mind. He was just 
 going to open the carriage-door and clasp Mandane his earli- 
 est love in his arms, when the sound of horses' hoofs coming 
 nearer, struck on his ear, and, looking round, he saw a carriage 
 full of. Magi, among whom were several who had been his 
 companions at the school for priests. He felt ashamed and 
 afraid of being seen by the very youths whom he had often 
 treated proudly and haughtily because he was the brother of 
 the high-priest, threw Mandane a purse of gold, which his 
 brother had given him at parting, and ordered the driver to go 
 on as fast as possible. The mules galloped off. Mandane 
 kicked the purse away, rushed after the carriage and clung to it 
 firmly. One of the wheels caught her dress and dragged her 
 down. With the strength of despair she sprang up, ran after 
 the mules, overtook them on a slight ascent, which had less- 
 ened their speed, and seized the reins. The driver used his 
 three-lashed whip, or scourge, the creatures reared, pulled the 
 girl down, and rushed on. Her last cry of agony pierced the 
 wounds of the mutilated man like a sharp lance-thrust. 
 
 On the twelfth day after Nitetis' death Cambyses went out 
 hunting, in the hope that the danger and excitement of the 
 sport might divert his mind. The magnates and men of high 
 rank at his court received him with thunders of applause, for 
 which he returned cordial thanks. These few days of grief 
 had worked a great change in a man so unaccustomed to suffer-
 
 356 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ing as Cambysi-s. His face was pale, his raven-black hair 
 and beard had grown gray, and the consciousness of victory 
 which usually shone in his eye was dimmed. Had he not, 
 only too painfully, experienced that there was a stronger will 
 than his own, and that, easily as he could destroy, it did not lie 
 in his power to preserve the life of the meanest creature? Be- 
 fore starting Cambyses mustered his troop of sportsmen, and, 
 calling Gobryas, asked why Phanes was not there. 
 
 "My king did not order " 
 
 "He is my guest and companion, once for all ; call him and 
 follow us." 
 
 Gobryas bowed, dashed back to the palace, and in half an 
 hour reappeared among the royal retinue with Phanes. 
 
 The Athenian was warmly welcomed by many of the group, 
 a fact which seems strange, when we remember that courtiers 
 are of all men the most prone to envy, and a royal favorite 
 always the most likely object to excite their ill-will. But 
 Phanes seemed a rare exception to this rule. He had met the 
 Achaemenidae in so frank and winning a manner, had excited 
 so many hopes by the hints he had thrown out of an expected 
 and important war, and aroused so much merriment by well- 
 told jests, such as the Persians had never heard before, that 
 there were very few who did not welcome his appearance 
 gladly; and when in company with the king he separated 
 from the rest in chase of a wild ass, they openly confessed to 
 one another that they had never before seen so perfect a man. 
 The clever way in which he had brought the innocence of the 
 accused to light, the finesse which he had shown in securing 
 the king's favor, and the ease with which he had learned the 
 Persian language in so short a time, were all subjects of 
 admiration. Neither was there one even of the Achaemenidae 
 themselves who exceeded him in beauty of face or symmetry 
 of figure. In the chase he proved himself a perfect horseman, 
 and in a conflict with a bear an exceptionally courageous and 
 skillful sportsman. On the way home, as the courtiers Were 
 extolling all the wonderful qualities possessed by the king's 
 favorite, old Araspes exclaimed: "I quite agree with you that 
 this Greek, who, by the way, has proved himself a better soldier 
 than anything else, is no common man, but I am sure you 
 would not praise him half as much if he were not a foreigner 
 and a novelty."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 357 
 
 Phanes happened to be only separated from the speaker by 
 some thick bushes, and heard these words. When the other 
 had finished he went up and said, smiling: "I understood what 
 you said and feel obliged to you for your kind opinion. The 
 last sentence, however, gave me even more pleasure than the 
 first, because it confirmed my own idea that the Persians are the 
 most generous people in the world they praise the virtues of 
 other nations as much, or even more, than theii own." 
 
 His hearers smiled, well pleased at this flattering remark, 
 and Phanes went on: "How different the Jews are now, for 
 instance ! They fancy themselves the exclusive favorites of the 
 gods, and by so doing incur the contempt of all wise men and 
 the hatred of the whole world. And, then, the Egyptians! You 
 have no idea of the perversity of that people. Why, if the 
 priests could have their way entirely (and they have a great deal 
 of power in their hands) not a foreigner would be left alive in 
 Egypt nor a single stranger allowed to enter the country. A 
 true Egyptian would rather starve than eat out of the same 
 dish with one of us. There are more strange, astonishing and 
 wonderful things to be seen in that country than anywhere 
 else in the world. And yet, to do it justice, 1 must say that 
 Egypt has been well spoken of as the richest and most highly 
 cultivated land under the sun. The man who possesses that 
 kingdom need not envy the very gods themselves. It would 
 be mere child's play to conquer that beautiful country. Ten 
 years there gave me a perfect insight into the condition of 
 things, and I know that their entire military caste would not be 
 sufficient to resist one such troop as your immortals. Well, 
 who knows \vhat the future may bring? Perhaps we may all 
 make a little trip to the Nile some day. In my opinion, your 
 good swords have been rather long idle." 
 
 These well-calculated words were received with such shouts 
 of applause that the king turned his horse to inquire the cause. 
 Phanes answered quickly that the Achaemenidae were rejoic- 
 ing in the thought that a war might possibly be near at hand. 
 
 "What war?" asked the king, with the first smile that had 
 been seen on his face for many days. 
 
 "We were only speaking in general of the possibility of such 
 a thing," answered Phanes, carelessly; then, riding up to the 
 king's side, his voice took an imnressive tone full of feeling, and 
 looking earnestly into his face, he began: "It is true, my sov-
 
 358 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ereign, that I was not born in this beautiful country as one 
 of your subjects, nor can I boast of a long acquaintance with 
 the most powerful of monarchs, but yet I cannot resist the 
 presumptuous, perhaps criminal, thought that the gods at my 
 birth appointed me to be your real friend. It is not your rich 
 gifts that have drawn me to you. I did not need them, for I 
 belong to the wealthier class of my countrymen, and I have no 
 son no heir to whom I can bequeath my treasures. Once I 
 had a boy a beautiful, gentle child but I was not going to 
 speak of that I are you offended at my freedom of speech, 
 my sovereign?" 
 
 "What is there to offend me?" answered the king, who had 
 never been spoken to in this manner before, and felt strongly 
 attracted to the original foreigner. 
 
 "Till to-day I felt that your grief was too sacred to be dis- 
 turbed, but now the time has come to rouse you from it and to 
 make your heart glow once more. You will have to hear 
 what must be very painful to you." 
 
 "There" is nothing more now that can grieve me." 
 
 "What I am going to tell you will not give yon pain ; on the 
 contrary, it will arouse your anger." 
 
 "You make me curious." 
 
 "You have been shamefully deceived you and that lovely 
 creature who died such an early death a few days ago." 
 
 Cambyses' eyes flashed a demand for further information. 
 
 "Amasis, the king of Egypt, has dared to make sport of you, 
 the lord of the world. That gentle girl was not his daughter, 
 though she herself believed that she was; she 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "It would seem so, and yet I am speaking the simple truth. 
 Amasis spun a web of lies, in which he managed to entrap, not 
 only the whole world, but you, too, my sovereign. Nitetis, the 
 most lovely creature ever born of woman, was the daughter of 
 a king, but not of the usurper Amasis. Hophra, the rightful 
 king of Egypt, was the father of this pearl among women. You 
 may well frown, my sovereign. It is a cruel thing to be be- 
 trayed by one's friends and allies." 
 
 Cambyses spurred his horse, and, after a silence of some 
 moments, kept by Phanes purposely, that his words might 
 make a deeper impression, cried: "Tell me more! I wish to 
 know everything."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 359 
 
 ''liophra had been living twenty years* in easy captivity 
 in Sais after his dethronement, when his wife, who had borne 
 him three children and buried them all, felt that she was about 
 to give birth to a fourth. Hophra, in his joy, determined to 
 offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving in the temple of Pacht,f the 
 Egyptian goddess supposed to confer the blessing of 
 children; when, on his way thither, a former magnate of the 
 court, named Patarbemis,$ whom, in a fit of unjust anger, he 
 had ignominiously mutilated, fell upon him with a troop of 
 slaves and massacred him. Amasis had the unhappy widow 
 brought to his palace at once, and assigned her an apartment 
 next to the one occupied by his own queen, Ladice, who was 
 also expecting soon to give birth to a child. A girl was born 
 to Hophra's widow, but the mother died in the same hour, and 
 two days later Ladice bore a child also. But I see we are in 
 the court of the palace. If you will allow, I will have the report 
 of the physician by whom this imposture was effected read be- 
 fore you. Several of his notes have, by a remarkable coinci- 
 dence of circumstances, which I will explain to you later, fallen 
 into my hands. A former high-priest of Heliopolis, Onuphis, is 
 now living in Babylon, and understands all the different styles 
 of writing in use among his countrymen. Nebenchari will, 
 of course, refuse to help in disclosing an imposture which must 
 inevitably lead to the ruin of his country." 
 
 "In an hour I expect to see you here with the 1 man you have 
 just spoken of. Croesus, Nebenchari, and all the Achaemenidae 
 who were in Egypt will have to appear also. I must have cer- 
 tainty before I can act, and your testimony alone is not suffi- 
 
 *According to "Herodotus," ii, 169, Amasis treated his dethroned 
 predecessor with great lenity, and spared his life until the Egyptians 
 fell upon him and hung him. On account of Nitetis' age we are 
 obliged to allow Hophra twenty years of life after his dethronement. 
 It is the only way in which we can rescue Herodotus' narrative, 
 which forms the basis of our tale. Amasis would scarcely have dared 
 to send Cambyses a bride of forty; for it must be remembered that 
 on the Nile a woman of forty is older than one of sixty in Europe. 
 This subject has already been mentioned in our preface. 
 
 tSee note pp. 28-29. 
 
 $"Herod.," ii, 162. 
 
 The three Egyptian styles of writing existed already at the time 
 of Amasis, though the demotic or popular style used for correspond- 
 ence does not seem much older than the dynasty to which he be- 
 longed (the twenty-sixth).
 
 360 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 cient, because I know from Amasis that you have cause to feel 
 a grudge against his house." 
 
 At the time appointed all were assembled before the king 
 in obedience to his command. 
 
 Onuphis, the former high-priest, was an old man of eighty. 
 A pair of large, clear, intelligent, gray eyes looked out of a 
 head so worn and wasted as to be more like a mere skull than 
 the head of a living man. He held a large papyrus roll in his 
 gaunt hand, and was seated in an easy chair, as his paralyzed 
 limbs did not allow of his standing, even in the king's presence. 
 His dress was snow-white, as beseemed a priest, but there were 
 patches and rents to be seen here and there. His figure might 
 perhaps once have been* tall and slender, but it was now so bent 
 and shrunk by age, privation and suffering as to look unnatural 
 and dwarfish, in comparison with the size of his head. 
 
 Nebenchari, who revered Onuphis, not only as a high-priest 
 deeply initiated in the most solemn mysteries, but also on 
 account of his great age,* stood by his side and arranged his 
 cushions. At his left stood Phanes, and then Croesus, Darius 
 and Prexaspes. 
 
 The king sat upon his throne. His face was dark and stern 
 as he broke the silence with the following words: "This noble 
 Greek, who, I am inclined to believe, is my friend, has brought 
 me strange tidings. He says that I have been basely deceived 
 by Amasis that my deceased wife was not his, but his prede- 
 cessor's daughter." 
 
 A murmur of astonishment ran through the assembly. 
 
 "This old man is here, to prove the imposture." 
 
 Onuphis gave a sign of assent. 
 
 "Prexaspes, my first question is to you. When Nitetis was 
 intrusted to your care was it expressly said that she was the 
 daughter of Amasis?" 
 
 "Expressly. Nebenchari had, it is true, praised Tachot to 
 the noble Kassandane as the most beautiful of the twin sis- 
 ters; but Amasis insisted on sending Nitetis to Persia:- I 
 imagined that, by confiding his most precious jewel to your 
 care, he meant to put you under a special obligation ; and as 
 
 *Among the Egyptians it was a sacred duty to honor the aged. 
 "Herod.," ii, 80. Cicero, "De Senectute," 18. The Egyptian remains 
 testify to the same. In the Prisse Papyrus, the fifth commandment of 
 the Mosaic law exists, even including the annexed promise.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 361 
 
 it seemed to me that Nitetis surpassed her sister, not only in 
 beauty but dignity of character, I ceased to sue for the hand 
 of Tachot. In his letter to you, too, as you will remember, 
 he spoke of confiding to you his most beautiful, his dearest 
 child." 
 
 "Those were his words." 
 
 "And Nitetis was, without question, the more beautiful and 
 the nobler of the two sisters," said Croesus, in confirmation 
 of the envoy's remark. "But it certainly did strike me that 
 Tachot was her royal parents' favorite." 
 
 "Yes," said Darius, "without doubt Once, at a revel, 
 Amasis joked Bartja in these words: 'Don't look too deep 
 into Tachot's eyes, for if you were a god I could not allow 
 you to take her to Persia!' Psamtik was evidently annoyed 
 at this remark and said to the king: 'Father, remember 
 Phanes.' " 
 
 "Phanes!" 
 
 "Yes, my sovereign," answered the Athenian. "Once, when 
 he was intoxicated, Amasis let out his secret to me, and Psam- 
 tik was warning him not to forget himself a second time." 
 
 "Tell the story as it occurred." 
 
 "On my return from Cyprus to Sais as a conqueror a great 
 entertainment was given at court. Amasis distinguished 
 me in every way, as having won a rich province for him, and 
 even, to the dismay of his own countrymen, embraced me. 
 His affection increased with his intoxication, and at last, as 
 Psamtik and I were leading him to his private apartments, 
 he stopped at the door of his daughter's room, and said: 
 'The girls sleep there. If you will put away your own wife, 
 Athenian, I will give you Nitetis. I should like to have you 
 for a son-in-law. There's a secret about that girl, Phanes; 
 she's not my own child.' Before his drunken father could 
 say more Psamtik laid his hand before his mouth and sent me 
 roughly away to my lodging, where I thought the matter over 
 and conjectured what I now from reliable sources know to be 
 the truth. I entreat you, command this old man to translate 
 those parts of the physician Sonnophre's journal which allude 
 to this story." 
 
 Cambyses nodded his consent, and the old man began to 
 read in a voice far louder than anyone could have supposed 
 possible from his infirm appearance: "On the fifth day of
 
 362 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the month Thoth* I was sent for to the king. I had expected 
 this, as the queen was near her confinement. With my assist- 
 ance she was easily and safely delivered of a child a weakly 
 girl. As soon as the nurse had taken charge of this child 
 Amasis led me behind a curtain which ran across his wife's 
 sleeping apartment. There lay another infant which I recog- 
 nized as the child of Hophra's widow, who herself had died 
 under my hands on the third day of the same month. The 
 king then said, pointing to this strong child: 'This little 
 creature has no parents, but, as it is written in the law that 
 we are to show mercy to the desolate orphans, f Ladice and 
 I have determined to bring her up as our own daughter. We 
 do not, however, 'wish that this deed should be made known, 
 either to the world or to the child herself, and I ask you to 
 keep the secret and spread a report that Ladice has given birth 
 to twins. If you accomplish this according to our wish you 
 shall receive to-day five thousand rings of gold$ and the fifth 
 part of this sum yearly during your life.' I made my obeisance 
 in silence, ordered everyone to leave the sickroom, and when 
 I again called them in announced that Ladice had given birth 
 to a second girl. Amasis' real child received the name of 
 Tachot the spurious one was called Nitetis." 
 
 At these words Cambyses rose from his seat and strode 
 through the hall, but Onuphis continued, without allowing 
 himself to be disturbed: "Sixth day of the month Thoth. 
 This morning I had just lain down to rest after the fatigues 
 of the night when a servant appeared with the promised gold 
 and a letter from the king, asking me to procure a dead child, 
 to be buried with great ceremony as the deceased daughter 
 of King Hophra. After a great deal of trouble I succeeded 
 an hour ago in obtaining one from a poor girl who had given 
 birth to a child secretly in the house of the old woman who 
 lives at the entrance to the city of the dead. The little one 
 
 "The month of Thoth, or Taut, lasted from August 29 till September 
 27. The 5th of Thoth was, therefore, equal to our 2d of September. 
 
 tWe gather, not only from the ritual of the dead, but from many 
 others of the Egyptian documents, that charity, especially toward 
 widows and orphans, was commanded by their religion. Thus, for 
 instance, a governor of high rank boasts on his tomb at Beni-hassan 
 (Lepsius, "Denkmaler," ii, vol. 22) that he has never injured a weak 
 child (orphan is perhaps meant), nor done evil to a widow. 
 
 JSee note pp. 111-112.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 363 
 
 had caused her shame and sorrow enough, but she would not 
 be persuaded to give up the body of her darling until I prom- 
 ised that it should be embalmed and buried in the most splen- 
 did manner. We put the little corpse into my large medicine 
 chest, my son Nebenchari carried it this time instead of my 
 servant Hib, and so it was introduced into the room where 
 Hophra's widow had died. The poor girl's baby will receive 
 a magnificent funeral. I wish I might venture to tell her 
 what a glorious lot awaits her darling after death. Neben- 
 chari has just been sent for to the king." 
 
 At the second mention of this name Cambyses stopped in 
 his walk and said: "Is our oculist, Nebenchari, the man whose 
 name is mentioned in this manuscript?" 
 
 "Xebenchari," returned Phanes, "is the son of this very 
 Sonnophre who changed the children." 
 
 The physician did not raise his eyes; his face was gloomy 
 and sullen. 
 
 Cambyses took the roll of papyrus out of Onuphis' hand, 
 looked at the characters with which it was covered, shook his 
 head, went up to Nebenchari and said: "Look at these char- 
 acters and tell me if it is your father's writing." 
 
 Nebenchari fell on his knees and raised his hands. 
 
 "I ask did your father paint these signs?" 
 
 "I do not know whether indeed 
 
 "I will know the truth. Yes, or no?" 
 
 "Yes, my king, but " 
 
 "Rise, and be assured of my favor. Faithfulness to his ruler 
 is the ornament of; a subject; but do not forget that I am your 
 king now. Kassandane tells me that you are going to under- 
 take a delicate operation to-morrow in order to restore her 
 sight. Are you not venturing too much?" 
 
 "I can depend on my own skill, my sovereign." 
 
 "One more question. Did you know of this fraud?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you allowed me to remain in error?" 
 
 "I have been compelled to swear secrecy, and an oath 
 
 "An oath is sacred. Gobryas, see that both these Egyp- 
 tians receive a portion from my table. Old man, you seem 
 to require better food." 
 
 "I need nothing beyond air to breathe, a morsel of bread 
 and a drop of water to preserve me from dying of hunger and
 
 364 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 thirst, a clean robe, that I may be pleasing in the eyes of the 
 gods and in my own, and a small chamber for myself that I 
 may be a hindrance to no man. I have never been richer 
 than to-day." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "I am about to give away a kingdom." 
 
 "You speak in enigmas." 
 
 "By my translation of to-day I have proved that your 
 deceased consort was the child of Hophra. Now, our laws 
 allow the daughter of a king to succeed to the throne when 
 there is neither son nor brother* living; if she should die child- 
 less her husband becomes her legitimate successor. Amasis 
 is a usurper, but the throne of Egypt is the lawful birthright 
 of Hophra and his descendants. Psamtik forfeits every right 
 to the crown the moment that a brother, son, daughter or son- 
 in-law of Hophra appears. I can, therefore, salute my present 
 sovereign as the future monarch of my own beautiful native 
 land." 
 
 Cambyses smiled self-complacently and Onuphis went on: 
 "I have read in the stars, too, that Psamtik's ruin and your own 
 accession to the throne of Egypt has beeji foreordained." 
 
 "We'll show that the stars were right," cried the king, "and 
 as for you, you liberal old fellow, I command you to ask me 
 any wish you like." 
 
 "Give me a conveyance and let me follow your army to 
 Egypt. I long to close my eyes on the Nile." 
 
 "Your wish is granted. Now, my friends, leave me, and . 
 see that all those who usually eat at my table are present at 
 this evening's revel. We will hold a council of war over the 
 luscious wine. Methinks a campaign in Egypt will pay better 
 than a contest with the Massagetae." 
 
 He was answered by a joyful shout of "Victory to the king!" 
 They all then left the hall, and Cambyses, summoning his 
 dressers, proceeded for the first time to exchange his mourn- 
 ing garments for the splendid royal robes. 
 
 Croesus and Phanes went into the green and pleasant gar- 
 den lying on the eastern side of the royal palace, which 
 abounded in groves of trees, shrubberies, fountains and flower 
 beds. Phanes was radiant with delight; Croesus full of care 
 and thought. 
 
 *See note p. 335.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 365 
 
 "Have you duly reflected,' 1 said the latter, "on the burning 
 brand that you have just flung out into the world?" 
 
 "It is only children and fools that act without reflection," 
 was the answer. 
 
 "You forget those who are deluded by passion." 
 
 "I do not belong- to that number." 
 
 "And yet revenge is the most fearful of all the passions." 
 
 "Only when it is practiced in the heat of feeling. My 
 revenge is as cool as this piece of iron ; but I know my duty." 
 
 "The highest duty of a good man is to subordinate his own 
 welfare to that of his country." 
 
 "That I know." 
 
 "You seem to forget, however, that with Egypt you are 
 delivering your own country over to the Persians." 
 
 "I do not agree with you there." 
 
 "Do you believe that, when all the rest of the Mediter- 
 ranean coasts belong to Persia, she will leave your beautiful 
 Greece untouched?" 
 
 "Certainly not, but I know my own countrymen; I believe 
 them fully capable of a victorious resistance to the hosts of 
 the barbarians, and am confident that their courage and great- 
 ness will rise with the nearness of the danger. It will unite 
 our divided tribes into one great nation and be the ruin of the 
 tyrants." 
 
 "I cannot argue with you, for I am no longer acquainted 
 with the state of things in your native country, and, besides, 
 I believe you to be a wise man not one who would plunge 
 a nation into ruin merely for the gratification of his own ambi- 
 tion. It is a fearful thing that entire nations should have to 
 suffer for the guilt of one man, if that man be one who wears 
 a crown. And now, if my opinion is of any importance to you, 
 tell me what the deed was which has roused your desire for 
 vengeance." 
 
 "Listen, then, and never try again to turn me from my 
 purpose. You know the heir to the Egyptian throne, and 
 you know Rhodopis, too. The former was, for many reasons, 
 my mortal enemy, the latter the friend of every Greek, but 
 mine especially. When I was obliged to leave Egypt Psamtik 
 threatened me with his vengeance; your son Gyges saved 
 my life. A few weeks later my two children came to Nau- 
 kratis, in order to follow me out to Sigeum. Rhodopis took
 
 306 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 them kindly under her protection, but some wretch had dis- 
 covered the secret and betrayed it to the prince. The very 
 night her house was surrounded and searched my children 
 found and taken captive. Amasis had meanwhile become 
 blind, and allowed his miserable son to do what he liked; the 
 wretch dared to 
 
 "Kill your only son?" 
 
 "You have said it." 
 
 "And your other child?" 
 
 "The girl is still in their hands." 
 
 "They will do her an injury when they hear 
 
 "Let her die. Better go to one's grave childless than unre- 
 venged." 
 
 "I understand. I cannot blame you any longer. The boy's 
 blood must be avenged." 
 
 And, so saying, the old man pressed the Athenian's right 
 hand. The latter dried his tears, mastered his emotion, and 
 cried: "Let us go to the council of war now. No one can 
 be so thankful for Psamtik's infamous deeds as Cambyses. 
 That man with his hasty passions was never made to be a 
 prince of peace." 
 
 "And yet the highest duty of a king seems to me to work 
 for the inner welfare of his kingdom. But human beings 
 are strange creatures; they praise their butchers more than 
 their benefactors. How many poems have been written on 
 Achilles! but did anyone ever dream of writing songs on the 
 wise government of Pittakus?"* 
 
 "More courage is required to shed blood than to plant 
 trees." 
 
 "But much more kindness and wisdom to heal wounds than 
 to make them. I have still one question which I should very 
 much like to ask you before we go into the hall. Will Bartja 
 be able to stay at Naukratis when Amasis is aware of the 
 king's intentions?" 
 
 "Certainly not. I have prepared him for this, and advised 
 his assuming a disguise and a false name." 
 
 "Did he agree?" 
 
 "He seemed willing to follow my advice." 
 
 "But, at all events, it would be well to send a messenger 
 to put him on his guard." 
 
 *See notes pp. 9, 10.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 367 
 
 "We will ask the king's permission." 
 
 "Now we must go. I see the wagons containing the viands 
 for the royal household just driving away from the kitchen." 
 
 "How many people are maintained from the kings table 
 daily?'' 
 
 "About fifteen thousand."* 
 
 'Then the Persians may thank the gods that their king 
 only takes one meal a day." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Six weeks after these events a little troop of horsemen might 
 have been seen riding toward the gates of Sardis. 
 
 The horses and their riders were covered with sweat and 
 dust. The former knew that they \vere drawing near a town, 
 where there w r ould be stables and mangers, and exerted all 
 their remaining powers; but yet their pace did not seem 
 nearly fast enough to satisfy the impatience of two men, dressed 
 in Persian costume, who rode at the head of the troop. 
 
 The well-kept royal road ran through fields of good black, 
 arable land, planted with trees of many different kinds. It 
 crossed the outlying spurs of the Tmolus range of mountains. 
 At their foot stretched rows of olive, citron and plane trees, 
 plantations of mulberries and vines, at a higher level grew 
 firs, cypresses and nut-tree copses. Fig trees and date palms, 
 covered with fruit, stood sprinkled over the fields; and the 
 woods and meadows were carpeted with brightly colored and 
 sweetly scented flowers. The road led over ravines and brooks, 
 now half dried up by the heat of summer, and here and there 
 the traveler came upon a well at the side of the road carefully 
 inclosed, with seats for the weary and sheltering shrubs. Ole- 
 anders bloomed in the more damp and shady places; slender 
 
 "This immense royal household is said to have cost four hundred 
 talents, that is, ninety thousand pounds sterling, daily. Athenaeus, 
 "Deipn.," p. 607.
 
 368 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 palms waved wherever the sun was hottest. Over this rich 
 landscape hung a deep blue, perfectly cloudless sky, bounded 
 on its southern horizon by the snowy peaks of the Tmolus 
 mountains, and on the west by the Sipylus range of hills, 
 which gave a bluish shimmer in the distance. 
 
 The road went down into the valley, passing through a 
 little wood of birches, the stems of which, up to the very tree 
 tops, were twined with vines covered with bunches of grapes. 
 
 The horsemen stopped at a bend in the road, for there, 
 before them, in the celebrated valley of the Hermus, lay the 
 golden Sardis, formerly the capital of the Lyclian kingdom 
 and residence of its king Croesus.* 
 
 Above the reed-thatched roofs of its numerous houses rose 
 a black, steep rock; the white marble buildings on its summit 
 could be seen from a great distance. These buildings formed 
 the citadel, round the threefold walls of which, many centuries 
 before, King Meles had carried a lion in order to render them 
 impregnable.f On its southern side the citadel rock was not 
 so steep, and houses had been built upon it. Croesus' former 
 palace lay to the north, on the golden-sanded Pactolus. This 
 reddish-colored river flowed above the market-place (which, 
 to our admiring travelers, looked like a barren spot in the 
 midst of a blooming meadow), ran on in a westerly direction, 
 and then entered a narrow mountain valley, where it washed 
 the walls of the temple of Cybele, 
 
 Large gardens stretched away toward the east, and in the 
 midst of them lay the lake Gygaeus, covered with gay boats 
 and snowy swans, and sparkling like a mirror. 
 
 A short distance from the lake were a great number of arti- 
 ficial mounds, three of which were especially noticeable from 
 their size and height4 
 
 *Aeschylus, "Pers.," v. 45. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 84 and 94, v. 101. 
 
 JThe lake of Gygaea was known as early as Homer's day. "Iliad," 
 ii, 863, xx, 386, 392. According to Prokesch it is three leagues long 
 and one broad. See, also, Hamitlon's "Asia Minor," i, p. 145. "Herod- 
 otus" (i, 93) calls the tombs of the Lydian kings the largest works of 
 human hands, next to the Egyptian and Babylonian. These cone- 
 shaped hills can be seen to this day standing near the ruins of Sardis, 
 not far from the lake of Gygaea. Hamilton ("Asia Minor," i, p. 45) 
 counted some sixty of them, and could not ride round the hill of 
 Alyattes in less than ten minutes. Prokesch saw one hundred such
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 369 
 
 "What can those strange-looking earth heaps mean?" said 
 Darius, the leader of the troop, to Prexaspes, Cambyses' envoy, 
 who rode at his side. 
 
 "They are the graves of former Lydian kings," was the 
 answer. "The middle one is in memory of the princely pair 
 Panthea and Abradatas,* and the largest, that one to the left, 
 was erected to the father of Croesus, Alyattes. It was raised 
 by the tradesmen, mechanics and girls, to their late king, and 
 on the five columns which stand on its summit you can read 
 how much each of these classes contributed to the work. The 
 girls were the most industrious.! Gyges' grandfather is said 
 to have been their especial friend." 
 
 "Then the grandson must have degenerated very much from 
 the old stock." 
 
 "Yes, and that seems the more remarkable, because Croesus 
 himself in his youth was by no means averse to women, and 
 the Lydians generally are devoted to such pleasures. You 
 see the white walls of that temple yonder in the midst of its 
 sacred grove? That is the temple of the goddess of Sardis,$ 
 
 tumuli ("Denkwiirdigkeiten und Erinnerungen aus dem Orient"). 
 The largest, the tomb of Alyattes, still measures three thousand four 
 hundred feet in circumference, and the height of its slope is six hun- 
 dred and fifty feet. According to Prokesch, gigantic Phallus columns 
 lie in some of these graves. Spiegelthal, the Prussian consul at 
 Smyrna, discovered a separate chamber in the tumulus of Alyattes. 
 "Monatsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften," Decem- 
 ber, 1854, p. 700. 
 
 *See note p. 282. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 93. 
 
 |The Greeks of Asia Minor adopted the worship of this goddess and 
 represented her either as riding on a lion or attended by lions. 0. 
 Miiller, "Archaol.," sec. 395, 387. In her hand she carried a tam- 
 bourine, which, according to Pindar, in "Strabo," p. 450, was struck at 
 her wild festivals. In his "Thekla" Paul Heyse has given a beautiful 
 description of a Cybele festival. This goddess was the personification 
 of nature's productiveness and fertility, and the worship offered to 
 her was of a voluptuous character. Among the Greeks this mother 
 of the inhabitants of Asia Minor was the wife of Kronos, the mother 
 of Zeus, and the grandmother of the gods. The myth of Cybele or 
 the fruitful earth probably lies at the root of the story of Niobe, who 
 is robbed of her children every autumn. M. Duncker, "Geschichte 
 des Alterthums," i, p. 252. The stone of Niobe looks, as Pausanias 
 tells us (i, 21), like a weeping woman. On the 4th of November, 1862, 
 v. Olfers laid some photographs before the Archaeological society at 
 Berlin, which prove that this figure of a woman had in some measure
 
 370 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Cybele or Ma, as they call her. In that grove there is mam 
 a sheltered spot where the young people of Sardis meet, as 
 they say, in honor of their goddess." 
 
 "Just as in Babylon, at the festival of Mylitta."* 
 
 "There is the same custom, too, on the coast of Cyprus."}" 
 When I landed there on the way back from Egypt I was met 
 by a troop of lovely girls, who, with songs, dances, and the 
 clang of cymbals conducted me to the sacred grove of their 
 goddess." 
 
 "Well, Zopyrus will not grumble at Bartja's illness." 
 
 "He will spend more of his time in the grove of Cybele 
 than at his patient's bedside. How glad I shall be to see 
 that jolly fellow again!" 
 
 "Yes, he'll keep you from falling into those melancholy fits 
 that you have been so subject to lately." 
 
 "You are quite right to blame me for those fits, and I must 
 not yield to them, but they are not without ground. Croesus 
 says we only get low-spirited when we are either too lazy or 
 too weak to struggle against annoyances, and I believe he is 
 right. But no one shall dare to accuse Darius of weakness 
 or idleness. If I can't rule the world, at least I will be my 
 own master." 
 
 And as he said these words, the handsome youth drew 
 himself up, and sat erect in his saddle. His companion gazed 
 in wonder at him. 
 
 "Really, you son of Hystaspes," he said, "I believe you 
 must be meant for something great. It was not by chance 
 that, when you were still a mere child, the gods sent their 
 favorite Cyrus that dream which induced him to order you 
 into safe keeping." 
 
 been obtained by the assistance of art. Cybele was worshiped at 
 Pessinus in the form of a middle-sized stone, which a man could lift. 
 This stone was brought to Rome at the end of the third century, B. C., 
 by command of the Sibylline books, and used to test -the suspected 
 chastity of the vestal virgins. "Livius," xxix, 14. Its priests were 
 eunuchs from Phrygia. The two last-named circumstances, in con- 
 nection with other information, prove that two different divinities 
 (the one friendly, the other hostile to production) must have been 
 denoted by the name of Cybele. Duncker very justly sees in her a 
 union of the Syrian Astarte and Ashera. 
 
 *"Herod.," i, 199. "Book of Baruch," vi, 43. "Strabo," 1058. 
 
 f'Herod.," i, 199. "Justin," xviii, 5. Movers, "Religion der Phoen- 
 izier, a. a. O."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 371 
 
 "And yet my wings have never appeared." 
 
 "Not bodily ones, certainly; but mental ones, likely enough. 
 Young man, young man, you're on a dangerous road." 
 
 "Have winged creatures any need to be afraid of preci- 
 pices?" 
 
 "Certainly, when their strength fails them." 
 
 "But I am strong." 
 
 "Stronger creatures than you will try to break your pin- 
 ions." 
 
 "Let them. I want nothing but what is right, and shall 
 trust to my star." 
 
 "Do you know its name?" 
 
 "It ruled in the hour of my birth, and its name is Anahita."* 
 
 "I think I know better. A burning ambition is the sun 
 whose rays guide all your actions. Take care; I tried that 
 way myself once; it leads to fame or to disgrace, but very 
 seldom to happiness. Fame to the ambitious is like salt water 
 to the thirsty; the more he gets the more he wants. I was 
 once only a poor soldier, and am now Cambyses' ambassador. 
 But you, what can you have to strive for? There is no man 
 in the kingdom greater than yourself, after the sons of Cyrus. 
 Do my eyes deceive me? Surely those two men riding to 
 meet us with a troop of horsemen must be Gyges and Zopyrus. 
 That Angare who left the inn before us must have told them 
 of our coming." 
 
 "To be sure. Look at that fellow Zopyrus, how he's waving 
 and beckoning with that palm leaf." 
 
 "Here, you fellows, cut us a few twigs from those bushes, 
 quick. We'll answer his green palm leaf with a purple pome- 
 granate branch." 
 
 In a few minutes the friends had embraced one another, 
 and the two bands were riding together into the populous 
 town, through the gardens surrounding the lake Gygaeus, the 
 Sardians' place of recreation. It was now near sunset, a cooler 
 breeze was beginning to blow, and the citizens were pouring 
 through the gates to enjoy themselves in the open air. Lydian 
 and Persian warriors, the former wearing richly ornamented 
 helmets, the latter tiaras in the form of a cylinder, were fol- 
 lowing girls who were painted and wreathed. Children were 
 
 *The planet Venus. Vullers, "Fragmente iiber die Religion des 
 Zoroaster."
 
 372 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 being led to the lake by their nurses to see the swans fed. 
 An old blind man was seated under a plane tree singing sad 
 ditties to a listening crowd and accompanying them on the 
 magadis, the twenty-stringed Lydian lute. Youths were enjoy- 
 ing themselves at games of ball, ninepins, and dice,* and half- 
 grown girls screaming with fright when the ball hit one of 
 their group or nearly fell into the water. 
 
 The travelers scarcely noticed this gay scene, though at 
 another time it would have delighted them. They were too 
 much interested in inquiring particulars of Bartja's illness and 
 recovery. 
 
 At the brazen gates of the palace which had formerly 
 belonged to Croesus they were met by Oroetes, the satrap of 
 Sardis, in a magnificent court dress overloaded with orna- 
 ment. He was a stately man, whose small, penetrating black 
 eyes looked sharply out from beneath a bushy mass of eye- 
 brows. His satrapy was one of the most important and profit- 
 able in the entire kingdom, and his household could bear a 
 comparison with that of Cambyses in richness and splendor. 
 Though he possessed fewer wives and attendants than the 
 king, it was no inconsiderable troop of guards, slaves, eunuchs 
 and gorgeously dressed officials which appeared at the palace 
 gates to receive the travelers. 
 
 The viceregal palace, which was still kept up with great 
 magnificence, had been, in the days when Croesus occupied 
 it, the most splendid of royal residences; after the taking of 
 Sardis, however, the greater part of the dethroned king's 
 .reasures and works of art had been sent to Cyrus' treasure- 
 house in Pasargadae. When that time of terror had passed 
 the Lydians brought many a hidden treasure into the light 
 of day once more, and by their industry and skill in art dur- 
 ing the peaceful years which they enjoyed under Cyrus and 
 Cambyses, recovered their old position so far that Sardis 
 was again looked upon as one of the wealthiest c ;t ies of Asia 
 Minor, and, therefore, of the world. 
 
 Accustomed as Darius and Prexaspes were to royal splen- 
 
 *The Lydians are said to have invented various games, among 
 others with dice and balls, but not the game of draughts. "Herod.," 
 i, 94. This last seems to have originated in Egypt, and it is highly 
 probable that the game of ball was known on the Nile earlier than in 
 Lydia.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 373 
 
 dor, they were still astonished at the beauty and brilliancy of 
 the satrap's palace. The marble work especially made a great 
 impression on them, as nothing of the kind was to be fqund 
 in Babylon, Susa or Ekbatana,* where burned brick and cedar 
 wood supply the place of the polished marble. 
 
 They found Bartja lying on a couch in the great hall; 
 he looked very pale, and stretched out his arms toward them. 
 
 The friends supped together at the satrap's table and then 
 retired to Bartja's private room, in order to enjoy an undis- 
 turbed conversation 
 
 "Well, Bartja, how did you come by this'dangerous illness?" 
 was Darius' first question after they were seated. 
 
 "I was thoroughly well, as you know/' said Bartja, "when 
 we left Babylon, and we reached Germa, a little town on the 
 Sangarius, without the slightest hindrance. The ride was 
 long and we were very tired, burned, too, by the scorching 
 May sun, and covered with dust; the river flows close by the 
 station, and its waves looked so clear and bright so inviting 
 for a bathe that in a minute Zopyrus and I were off our 
 horses, undressed, and in the water. Gyges told us we were 
 very imprudent, but we felt confident that we were too much 
 inured to such things to get any harm, and very much enjoyed 
 our swim in the cool, green water. Gyges, perfectly calm, 
 as usual, let us have our own way, waited till our bath was 
 over, and then plunged in himself. 
 
 "In two hours we were in our saddles again, pushing on 
 as if for our very lives, changing horses at every station, and 
 turning night into day. 
 
 "We were nearing Ipsus when I began to feel violent pain 
 in the head and limbs. I was ashamed to say anything about 
 it and kept upright in my saddle until we had to take fresh 
 horses at Bagis. Just as I was in the very act of mounting I 
 lost my senses and strength and fell down on the ground in 
 a dead faint." 
 
 "Yes, a pretty fright you gave us," interrupted Zopyrus, 
 
 "The palace of Persepolis did not exist at the date of our story. It 
 was built partly of black stone from Mount Rachmed, and partly of 
 white marble; it was probably begun by Darius. The palace of Susa 
 was built of brick ("Strabo," p. 728), that of Ekbatana of wood overlaid 
 with plates of gold of immense value and roofed with tiles made of 
 the precious metals. "Polyb.," x, 27.
 
 374 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "by dropping down in that fashion. It was fortunate that 
 Gyges was there, for I lost my wits entirely; he, of course, 
 kept his presence of mind, and, after relieving his "feelings in 
 words not exactly flattering to us two, he behaved like a cir- 
 cumspect general. A fool of a doctor came running up and 
 protested that it was all over with poor Bartja, for which I 
 gave him a good thrashing." 
 
 "Which he didn't particularly object to," said the satrap, 
 laughing, "seeing that you told them to lay a gold stater on 
 every stripe." 
 
 "Yes, yes, my pugnacity costs me very dear sometimes. 
 But to our story. As soon as Bartja had opened his eyes 
 Gyges sent me off to Sardis to fetch a good physician and an 
 easy-traveling carriage. That ride won't so soon be imitated. 
 An hour before I reached the gates my third horse knocked 
 up under me, so I had to trust to my own legs and began run- , 
 ning as fast as I could. The people must all have thought 
 me mad. At last I saw a man on horseback a merchant from 
 Kelaenae dragged him from his horse, jumped into the sad- 
 dle and before the next morning dawned I w T as back again 
 with our invalid, bringing the best physician in Sardis and 
 Oroetes' most commodious traveling carriage. We brought 
 him to this house at a slow foot pace, and here a violent fever 
 came on; he became delirious, talked all the nonsense that 
 could possibly come into a human brain and made us so 
 awfully anxious that the mere remembrance of that time brings 
 the big drops of perspiration to my forehead." 
 
 Bartja took his friend's hand. "I owe my life to him and 
 Gyges," said he, turning to Darius. "Till to-day, when they 
 set out to meet you, they have never left me for a minute ; a 
 mother could not have nursed her sick child more carefully. 
 And, Oroetes, I am much obliged to you, too; doubly so, 
 because your kindness subjected you to annoyance." 
 
 "How could that be?" asked Darius. 
 
 "That Polykrates of Samos, whose name we heard so often 
 in Egypt, has the beat physician that Greece has ever produced. 
 While I was lying here ill Oroetes wrote to this Democedes* 
 making him immense promises if he would only come Jo 
 Sardis, directly. The Samian pirates, who infest the whoi<2 
 
 *Se noto p. 42.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 376 
 
 
 
 Ionian coast, took the messenger captive and brought Oroetes' 
 letter to their master, Polykrates. He opened it and sent the 
 messenger back with the answer that Democedes was in his pay 
 and that if Oroetes* needed his advice he must apply to Poly- 
 krates himself. Our generous friend submitted for my sake 
 and asked the Samian to send his physician to Sardis." 
 
 "Well," said Prexaspes," and what followed?" 
 
 "The proud island prince sent him at once. He cured me 
 as you see, and left us a few days ago loaded with presents." 
 
 "Well," interrupted Zopyrus, "I can quite understand that 
 Polykrates likes to keep his physician near him. I assure you, 
 Darius, it would not be easy to find his equal. He's as hand- 
 some as Minutscher, as clever as Piran Wisa, as strong as 
 Rustem,f and as benevolent and helpful as the god Soma.J 
 I wish you could have seen how well he threw those round 
 metal plates he calls disks. I am no weakling, but when we 
 wrestled he soon threw me. And then he could tell such 
 famous stories stories that made a man's heart dance within 
 him." 
 
 "We know just such a fellow, too," said Darius, smiling at 
 his friend's enthusiasm. "That Athenian, Phanes, who came 
 to prove our innocence." 
 
 "The physician Democedes is from Crotona, a place which 
 must lie somewhere very near the setting sun." 
 
 "But is inhabited by Greeks, like Athens," added Oroetes. 
 "Ah, my young friends, you must beware of these fellows; 
 they're as cunning, deceitful and selfish as they are strong, 
 clever and handsome." 
 
 "Democedes is generous and sincere," cried Zopyrus. 
 
 "And Croesus himself thinks Phanes not only an able but 
 a virtuous man," added Darius. 
 
 "Sappho, too, has always and only spoken well of the Athe- 
 nian," said Bartja, in confirmation of Darius' remark. "But 
 don't let us talk any more about these Greeks," he went on. 
 
 *This very Oroetes afterward succeeded in enticing Polykrates to 
 Sardis and there crucified him. "Herod.," iii, 120-125. "Valerius 
 Maximufc,," vi, 9, 5. 
 
 fThese are the names of heroes from the oldest of the Persian 
 legends, preserved to us principally in the epic poems of Firdusi. 
 
 tSee note p. 201.
 
 376 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 
 
 "They give -Oroetes so much trouble by their refractory and 
 stubborn conduct that he is not very fond of them.'' 
 
 "The gods know that," sighed the satrap. "It's more diffi- 
 cult to keep one Greek town in order than all the countries 
 between the Euphrates and the Tigris." 
 
 While Oroetes was speaking Zopyrus had gone to the win- 
 dow. "The stars are already high in the heavens," he said, "and 
 Bartja is tired; so make haste, Darius, and tell us something 
 about home." 
 
 The son of Hystaspes agreed at once and began by relating 
 the events which we have-heard already. Bartja especially was 
 distressed at hearing of Nitetis' sad end, and the discovery of 
 Ama,sis' fraud filled them with astonishment. After a short 
 pause Darius went on: 
 
 "When once Nitetis' descent had been fully proved Cambyses 
 was like a changed man. He called a council of war, and 
 appeared at table in the royal robes instead of his mourning 
 garments. You can imagine what universal joy the idea of 
 war with Egypt excited. Even Croesus, who, you know, is 
 one of Amasis' well-wishers and advises peace whenever it is 
 possible, had not a word to say against it. The next morning, 
 as usual, what had been resolved on in intoxication was recon- 
 sidered by sober heads ; after several opinions had been given 
 Phanes asked permission to speak, and spoke, I should think, 
 for an hour. But how well! It was as if every word he said 
 came direct from the gods. He has learned our language in a 
 wonderfully short time, but it flowed from his lips like honey. 
 Sometimes he drew tears from every eye, at others excited 
 stormy shouts of joy, and then wild bursts of rage. His ges- 
 tures were as graceful as those of a dancing-girl, but at the 
 same time manly and dignified. I can't repeat his speech ; my 
 poor words, by the side of his, would sound like the rattle of a 
 drum after a peal of thunder. But when, at last, inspired and 
 carried away by his eloquence, we had unanimously decided -on 
 war, he begun to speak once more on the best ways and means 
 of prosecuting it successfully." 
 
 Here Darius was obliged to stop, as Zopyrus had fallen on < 
 his neck in an ecstasy of delight. Bartja, Gyges and Oroetes 
 were not less delighted, and they all begged him to go on with 
 his tale. 
 
 "Our army," began Darius, afresh, "ought to be at the bound-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 377 
 
 aries of Egypt by the month of Farwardin,* as the inundation 
 of the Nile, which would hinder the march of our infantry, be- 
 gins in Murdad. t Phanes is now on his way to the Arabians 
 to secure their assistance, $ in hopes that these sons of the 
 desert may furnish our army with water and guides through 
 their dry and thirsty land. He will also endeavor to win the 
 rich island of Cyprus, which he once conquered for Amasis, 
 over to our side. As it was through his mediation that the 
 kings of the island were allowed to retain their crowns they 
 will be willing to listen to his advice. In short, the Athenian 
 leaves nothing uncared for, and knows every road and path 
 as if he were the sun himself. He showed us a picture of the 
 world on a plate of copper." 
 
 Oroetes nodded and said: "I have such a picture of the 
 world, too. A Milesian named Hekataeus, who spends his 
 life in traveling, drew it, and gave it to me in exchange for a 
 free pass." 
 
 "What notions these Greeks have in their heads?" exclaimed 
 Zopyrus, who could not explain to himself what a picture of 
 the world could look like. 
 
 "To-morrow I will show you my copper tablet," said Oroetes, 
 "but now we must allow Darius to go on." 
 
 "So Phanes has gone to Arabia," continued Darius, "and 
 Prexaspes was sent hither not only to command you, Oroetes, 
 to raise as many forces as possible, especially lonians and 
 
 *Farwardin can be reckoned as our March, Murdad as July. Spiegel, 
 "A vesta, Einleitung," p. 98. 
 
 tFarwardin, March. Murdad, July. 
 
 f'Herod.," iii, 5. 
 
 Hekataeus of Miletus may be called "the father of geography," as 
 Herodotus was "the father of history." He improved the map made 
 by Anaximander, and his great work, "The Journey Round the 
 World," was much prized by the ancients; but, unfortunately, with 
 the exception of some very small fragments, has now perished. 
 Herodotus assures us (v, 36) that Hekataeus was intimately ac- 
 quainted with every part of the Persian empire, and has also traveled 
 over Egypt. He lived at the date of our narrative, having been born 
 at Miletus 550 B. C. He lived to see the fall of his native city in 496 
 B. C. His map has been restored by Klausen in the "Fragm. Hecat." 
 and can be seen, also, in Mure's "Lan. and Lit. of Ancient Greece," 
 vol. iv. Maps existed, however, much earlier, the earliest known 
 being one of the gold mines, drawn very cleverly by an Egyptian 
 priest, and so well sketched as to give a pretty clear idea of the part 
 of the country intended. It is preserved in the Egyptian museum at 
 Turin.
 
 378 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Carians, of whom Phanes has offered to undertake the com 
 mand, but also to propose terms of alliance to Polykrates." 
 
 "To that pirate?" asked Oroetes, and his face darkened. 
 
 "The very same," answered Prexaspes, not appearing to 
 notice the change in Oroetes' face. "Phanes has already re- 
 ceived assurances from this important naval power which 
 sound as if we might expect a favorable answer to my pro- 
 posal." 
 
 "The Phoenician, Syrian, and Ionian ships of war would be 
 quite sufficient to cope with the Egyptian fleet." 
 
 "There you are right; but if Polykrates were to declare 
 against us we should not be able to hold our own at sea; you 
 say yourself that he is all-powerful in the Aegean." 
 
 "Still I decidedly disapprove of entering into treaty with such 
 a robber." 
 
 "We want powerful allies, and Polykrates is very powerful 
 at sea. It will be time to humble him when we have used him 
 to help us in conquering Egypt. For the present I entreat you 
 to suppress all personal teeling and keep the success of our 
 great plan alone in view. I am empowered to say this in the 
 king's name, and to show his ring in token thereof." 
 
 Oroetes made a brief obeisance before the symbol of despo- 
 tism and asked: "What does Cambyses wish me to do?" 
 
 "He commands you to use every means in your power to 
 secure an alliance with the Samian; and also to send your 
 troops to join the main army on the plains of Babylon as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 The satrap bowed and left the room with a look betraying 
 irritation and defiance. ' 
 
 When the echo of his footsteps had died away among the 
 colonnades of the inner court Zopyrus exclaimed: "Poor fel- 
 low, it's really very hard for him to meet that proud man, who 
 has so often behaved insolently to him, on friendly terms. 
 Think of that story about the physician, for instance." 
 
 "You are too lenient," interrupted Darius. "I don't like 
 this Oroetes. He has no right to receive the king's commands 
 in that way. Didn't you see him bite his lips till they bled 
 when Prexaspes showed him the king's ling?" 
 
 "Yes," cried the envoy, "he's a defiant, perverse man. H?. 
 left the room so quickly, only because he could not keep down 
 his anger any longer."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 379 
 
 "Still," said Bartja, "I hope you'll keep his conduct a secret 
 from my brother, for he has been very good to me." 
 
 Prexaspes bowed, but Darius said: "We must keep an eye 
 on the fellow. Just here, so far from the king's gate and in the 
 midst of nations hostile to Persia, we want governors who are 
 more ready to obey the king than this Oroetes seems to be. 
 Why, he seems to fancy he is king of Lydia!" 
 
 "Do you dislike the satrap?" asked Zopyrus. 
 
 "Well, I think I do," was the answer. "I always take an 
 aversion or fancy to people at first sight, and very seldom find 
 reason to change my mind afterward. I disliked Oroetes be- 
 fore I heard him speak a word, and I remember having the 
 same feeling toward Psamtik, though Amasis took my fancy." 
 
 "There's no doubt that you're very different from the rest 
 of us," said Zopyrus, laughing; "but now, to please me, let 
 this poor Oroetes alone. I'm glad he's gone, though, because 
 we can talk more freely about home. How is Kassandane and 
 your worshiped Atossa? Croesus, too, how is he, and what 
 are the wives about? They'll soon have a new companion. 
 To-morrow I intend to sue for the hand of Oroetes' pretty 
 daughter. We've talked a good deal of love with our eyes 
 already. I don't know whether we spoke Persian or Syrian, 
 but we said the most charming things to one another." 
 
 The friends laughed, and Darius, joining in their merriment, 
 said: "Now you shall hear a piece of very good news. I have 
 kept it to the last, because it is the best I have. Now, Bartja, 
 prick up your ears. Your mother, the noble Kassandane, has 
 been cured of her blindness! Yes, yes; it is quite true. Who 
 cured her? Why, who should it be, but that crabbed old Ne- 
 benchari, who has become, if possible, moodier than ever. 
 Come, now, calm yourselves, and let me go on with my story, 
 or it will be morning before Bartja gets to sleep. Indeed, I 
 think we had better separate now; you've heard the best, and 
 have something to dream about. What, ydu will not? Then, 
 in the name of Mithras, I must go on, though it should make 
 my heart bleed. 
 
 "I'll begin with the king. As long as Phanes was in 
 Babylon he seemed to forget his grief for Nitetis. The Athe- 
 nian was never allowed to leave him. They were as inseparable 
 as Reksch and Rustem.* Cambyses had no time to think of 
 *See note p. 304,
 
 380 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 his sorrow, for Phanes had always some new idea or other, and 
 entertained us all, as well as the king, marvelously. And we 
 all liked him, too; perhaps because no one could really envy 
 him. Whenever he was alone the tears came into his eyes at 
 the thought of his boy, and this made his great cheerfulness 
 a cheerfulness which he always managed to impart to the 
 king, Bartja the more admirable. Every morning he went 
 down to the Euphrates with Cambyses and the rest of us, and 
 enjoyed watching the sons of the Achaemenidae at their exer- 
 cises.* When he saw them riding at full speed past the sand 
 hills and shooting the pots placed on them into fragments with 
 their arrows, or throwing blocks of wood at one another and 
 cleverly evading the blows,f he confessed that he could not 
 imitate them in these exercises, but at the same time he offered 
 to accept a challenge from any of us in throwing the spear 
 and in wrestling. In his quick way he sprang from his horse, 
 stripped off his clothes it was really a shame$ and, to the 
 delight of the boys, threw their wrestling master as if he had 
 been a feather. Then he knocked over a number of bragging 
 fellows, and would have thrown me, too, if he had not been 
 too fatigued. I assure you I am really stronger than he is, for 
 I can lift greater weights, but he is as nimble as an eel, and has 
 wonderful tricks by which he gets hold of his adversary. His 
 being naked, too, is a great help. If it were not so indecent, 
 we ought always to wrestle stripped, and anoint our skins, as 
 the Greeks do, with the olive oil. He beat us, too, in throwing 
 the spear, but the king, who you know is proud of being the 
 best archer in Persia, sent his arrow farther. Phanes was 
 especially pleased with our rule, that in a wrestling-match the 
 one who is thrown must kiss the hand of his victor. At last 
 
 *See note p. 181. 
 
 tNiebuhr, on his journey to Asia, saw several young men at 
 Shiraz playing very eagerly at these games. See, also, Hyde, "De 
 Ludis Orientalium." . 
 
 Jin the east nudity was, even in those days, held to be disgraceful, 
 while the Greeks thought nothing so beautiful as the naked human 
 body. The Hetaira Phryne was summoned before the- judges for an 
 offense against religion. Her defender, seeing that sentence was 
 about to be pronounced against his client, suddenly tore away the 
 garment which covered her bosom. The artifice was successful. The 
 judges pronounced her not guilty, being convinced that such won- 
 drous grace and beauty could only belong to a favorite of Aphrodite. 
 "Athen.," xiii, p. 590.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 381 
 
 he showed us a new exercise boxing. He refused, however, 
 to try his skill on anyone but a slave, so Croesus sent for the 
 biggest and strongest man among the servants my groom, 
 Bessus a giant who can bring the hind legs of a horse togethei 
 and hold them so firmly that the creature trembles all over and 
 cannot stir. This big fellow, taller by a head than Phanes, 
 shrugged his shoulders contemptuously on hearing that he was 
 to box with the little foreign gentleman. He felt quite sure of 
 victory, placed himself opposite his adversary, and dealt him 
 a blow heavy enough to kill an elephant. Phanes avoided it 
 cleverly, in the same moment hitting the giant with his naked 
 fist so powerfully under the eyes that the blood streamed from 
 his nose and mouth, and the huge, uncouth fellow fell on the 
 ground with a yell. When they picked him up his face looked 
 like a pumpkin of a greenish-blue color. The boys shouted 
 with delight at his discomfiture ; but we admired the dexterity 
 of this Greek, and were especially glad to see the king in such 
 good spirits; we noticed this most when Phanes was singing 
 Greek songs and dance-melodies to him accompanied by the 
 lute. 
 
 "Meanwhile Kassandane's blindness had been cured, and 
 this, of course, tended not a little to disperse the king's melan- 
 choly. 
 
 "In short, it was a very pleasant time, and I was just going to 
 ask for Atossa's hand in marriage when Phanes went off to 
 Arabia, and everything was changed. 
 
 "No sooner had he turned his back on the gates of Babylon 
 than all the evil divs seemed to have entered into the king. He 
 went about, a moody, silent man, speaking to no one; and to 
 drown his melancholy would begin drinking quantities of the 
 strongest Syrian wine at an early hour in the morning even. 
 By the evening he was generally so intoxicated that he had to 
 be carried out of the hall, and would wake up next morning 
 with headache and spasms. In the daytime he would wander 
 about as if looking for something, and in the night they often 
 heard him calling Nitetis. The physicians became very anxious 
 about his health, but when they sent him medicine he threw it 
 away. It was quite right of Croesus to say, as he did once: 
 'Ye Magi and Chaldaeans! before trying to cure a sick man 
 ye must discover the seat of his disease. Do you know it in 
 this case? No? Then I will tell you what ails the king. He
 
 382 _ A ^ EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 has 9u internal complaint and a wound. The former is called 
 enr.ui a::d *he latter is in his heart. The Athenian is a good 
 remedy for the first, bu'c for the second I know of none ; such 
 wound's either scar over of themselves or the patient bleeds to 
 death inwardly.' 
 
 " 'I know of a remtdy for the king, though/ exclaimed 
 Otanes, when he heard these words. 'We must persuade him 
 to send for the women; or at least for my daughter, Phaedime, 
 back from Susa. Love is good for dispersing melancholy, and 
 makes the blood flow faster.' We acknowledged that he was 
 right and advised him to remind the king of his banished wives. 
 He ventured to make the proposal while we were at supper, 
 but got such a harsh rebuff for his pains that we all pitied him. 
 Soon after this Cambyses sent one morning for all the Mobeds 
 and Chaldaeans and commanded them to interpret a strange 
 dream which he had had. In his dream he had been standing 
 in the midst of a dry and barren plain barren as a threshing- 
 floor it did not produce a single blade of grass. Displeased 
 at the desert aspect of the place, he was just going .to seek 
 other and more fruitful regions when Atossa appeared, and, 
 without seeing him, ran toward a spring which welled up 
 through the arid soil as if by enchantment. While he was gaz- 
 ing in wonder at this scene he noticed that wherever the foot 
 of his sister touched the parched soil, graceful terebinths* 
 sprang up, changing, as they grew, into cypresses whose tops 
 reached unto heaven. As he was going to speak to Atossa he 
 awoke. 
 
 "The Mobeds and Chaldaeans consulted together and inter- 
 preted the dream thus: Atossa would be successful in all she 
 undertook. 
 
 "Cambyses seemed satisfied with triis answer, but, as the 
 next night the vision appeared again, he threatened the wise 
 men with death unless they could give him another and a 
 different interpretation. They pondered long, and, at last, 
 answered that Atossa would become a queen and the mother 
 of mighty princes. 
 
 "This answer really contented the king, and he smiled 
 strangely to himself as he told us his dream. 
 
 "The same day Kassandane sent for me and told me to give 
 up all thoughts of her daughter as I valued my life. 
 
 *The kings of Persia had to eat a terebinth at their coronation 
 Plutarch, "Artaxerxes," 3.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 383 
 
 "Just as I was leaving the queen's garden I saw Atossa be- 
 hind a pomegranate bush. She beckoned. I went to her; and 
 in that hour we forgot danger and sorrow, but said farewell to 
 each other forever. Now you know all ; and now that I have 
 given her up now that I know it would be madness even to 
 think of her again I am obliged to be very stern with myself, 
 lest, like the king, I should fall into deep melancholy for the 
 sake of a woman. And this is the end of the story, the close of 
 which we were all expecting, when Atossa, as I lay under 
 sentence of death, sent me a rose, and made me the happiest of 
 mortals. If I had not betrayed my secret then, when we thought 
 our last hour was near, it would have gone with me to my 
 grave. But what am I talking about? I know I can trust to 
 your secrecy, but pray don't look at me so deplorably. I think 
 T am still to be envied, for I have had one hour of enjoyment 
 that would outweigh a century of misery. Thank you thank 
 you now let me finish my story as quickly as I can. 
 
 "Three days after I had taken leave of Atossa I had to marry 
 Artystone, the daughter of Gobryas. She is beautiful and would 
 make any other man happy. The day after the wedding the 
 Angare reached Babylon with the news of Bartja's illness. My 
 mind was made up at once ; I begged the king to let me go to 
 you. nurse you and warn you of the danger which threatens 
 your life in Egypt took leave of my bride, in spite of all my 
 father-in-law's protestations, and went off at full speed with 
 Prexaspes, never resting till I reached your side, my dear 
 Bartja. Now I shall go with you and Zopyrus to Egypt, for 
 Gyges must accompany the ambassador to Samos as inter- 
 preter. This is the king'? command; he has been in better 
 spirits the last few days; the inspection of the masses of troops 
 coming up to Babylon diverts him, besides which the Chaldae- 
 ans have assured him that the planet Adar,* which belongs to 
 their war-god Chanon, promises a great victory to the Persian 
 arms. When do you think you shall be able to travel, 
 Bartja?" 
 
 "To-morrow, if vou like," was the answer. "The doctors say 
 the sea voyage will do me good, and the journey by land to 
 Smyrna is very short." 
 
 "And I can assure you," answered Zopyrus, "that Sappho 
 will cure you sooner than all the doctors in the world." 
 
 *The planet Mars. "Chron. Pasch.," i, p. 18. Cedrenus, "Cbron./' 
 I, p. 29. Cicero, "De Nat, Deor.," ii, 20, 46.
 
 384 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Then we will start in three days," said Darius, after some 
 consideration ; "we have plenty to do before starting. Remem- 
 ber, we are going into what may almost be called an enemy's 
 country. I have been thinking the matter over, and it seems 
 to me that Bartja must pass for a Babylonian carpet-merchant, 
 I for his brother, and Zopyrus for a dealer in Sardian red."* 
 
 "Couldn't we be soldiers?" asked Zopyrus. "It's such an 
 ignominious thing to be taken for cheating peddlers. How 
 would it be, for instance, if we passed ourselves off for Lydian 
 soldiers, escaped from punishment, and seeking service in the 
 Egyptian army?" 
 
 "That's not a bad idea,'' said Bartja, "and I think, too, that 
 we look more like soldiers than traders." 
 
 "Looks and manners are no guide," said Gyges. "Those 
 great Greek merchants and ship-owners go about as proudly 
 as if the world belonged to them. But I don't find Zopyrus' 
 proposal a bad one." 
 
 "Then, so let it be/' said Darius, yielding. "In that case 
 Oroetes must provide us with the uniform of Lydian taxi- 
 archs."f 
 
 "You'd better take the splendid dress of the chiliarchs at 
 once, I think," cried Gyges. "Why, on such young men that 
 would excite suspicion directly." 
 
 "But we can't appear as common soldiers." 
 
 "No, but as hekatontarchs." 
 
 "All right," said Zopyrus, laughing. "Anything you like 
 except a shop-keeper. So in three days we are off. I am glad 
 I shall just have time to make sure of the satrap's little daughter 
 and to visit the grove of Cybele at last. Now, good-night, 
 Bartja; don't get up too early. What will Sappho say if you 
 come to her with pale cheeks?" 
 
 *A favorite color among the ancients, made from the blossoms of 
 the sandix tree. Aristoph. "Acharn.," 113. 
 
 tThe Persian army was decimally divided. Each division num- 
 bered ten thousand men, each regiment one thousand, each company 
 one hundred. The rank of taxiarch was similar to that of captain 
 with us, a hekatontarch commanded one hundred, and a chiliarch one 
 thousand men. Indeed, later the title of chiliarch betokened a very 
 high office among the Persians, the holder of which (r'/U^jw) is 
 said to have been next in rank to the kin&v "Diod.," xviii, 48. Aelian.* 
 "Var. Hist.," i, 21.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 385 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The sun of a hot midsummer day had risen on Naukratis. 
 The Nile had already begun to overflow its banks, and the 
 fields and gardens of the Egyptians were covered with water. 
 
 The harbor was crowded with craft of all kinds. Egyptian 
 vessels were there, manned by Phoenician colonists from the 
 coasts of the Delta,* and bringing fine woven goods from 
 Malta, metals and precious stones from Sardinia, wine and 
 copper from Cyprus; Greek triremes laden with oil, wine and 
 mastic-wood; metal- work and woolen wares from Chalcis, 
 Phoenician and Syrian craft with gayly colored sails, and 
 freighted with cargoes of purple stuffs, gems, spices, glass- 
 work, carpets, and cedar trees used in Egypt, where wood 
 was very scarce, for building purposes and taking back gold, 
 ivory, ebony, brightly plumaged tropical birds, precious stones 
 and black slaves the treasures of Ethiopia; but more espe- 
 cially the far-famed Egyptian corn, Memphian chariots, lace 
 from Sais and the finer sorts of papyrus. The time when 
 commerce was carried on merely by barter was now, however, 
 long past, and the merchants of Naukratis not seldom paid for 
 their goods in gold coin and carefully weighedf silver. 
 
 Large warehouses stood round the harbor of this Greek col- 
 ony, and slightly built dwelling-houses, into which the idle 
 mariners were lured by the sounds of music and laughter and 
 the glances and voices of painted and rouged damsels4 Slaves, 
 both white and colored, rowers and steersmen, in various cos- 
 tumes, were hurrying hither and thither, while the ships' cap- 
 
 *In another place (Ebers, "Aegypten," p. 127) we have endeavored to 
 prove that Phoenician colonies existed on the coasts of the Delta. 
 Egpto-Phoenician colonies can be proved to have existed in Sardinia, 
 Crete, Malta, Cyprus and in earlier times in Euboea and other places. 
 The discoveries which have been made in Sardinia are most instruct- 
 ive. Communicated by Canonicus Spano, Lamarmora, Neigebaur, in 
 Gerhard's "Archaol. Zeitung," in the Bulletino Sardo, and the latest 
 by H. v. Malzan. 
 
 tSee note pp. 111-112. 
 
 tSetting aside the fact that no large seaport of the ancient world 
 was without such houses of amusement, those on the canopic mouth 
 of the Nile are expressly mentioned by "Strabo," 801.
 
 J586 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 tains, either dressed in the Greek fashion or in Phoenician 
 garments of the most glaring colors, were shouting orders to 
 their crews and delivering up their cargoes to the merchants. 
 Whenever a dispute arose, the Egyptian police, with their long 
 staves, and the Greek warders of the harbor were quickly at 
 hand. The latter were appointed by the elders of the merchant- 
 body in this Milesian colony.* 
 
 The port was getting empty now, for the hour at which the 
 market opened was near,f and none of the free Greeks cared 
 to be absent from the market-place then. This time, however, 
 not a few remained behind, curiously watching a beautifully 
 built Samian ship, the Okeia,$ with a long prow like a swan's 
 neck, on the front of which a likeness of the goddess Hera was 
 conspicuous. It was discharging its cargo, but the public 
 attention was more particularly attracted by three handsome 
 youths, in the dress of Lydian officers, who left the ship, fol- 
 lowed by a number of slaves carrying chests and packages. 
 
 The handsomest of the three travelers, in whom, of course, 
 our readers recognize their young friends, Darius, Bartja and 
 Zopyrus, spoke to one of the harbor-police and asked for the 
 house of Theopompus, the Milesian, to whom they were bound 
 on a visit. 
 
 Polite and ready to do a service, like all the Greeks, tne 
 police functionary at once led the way across the market-place 
 where -the opening of business had just been announced by 
 the sound of a bell:]: to'a handsome house, the property of the 
 Milesian, Theopompus, cne of the most important and re- 
 spected men in Naukratis. 
 
 The party, however, did not succeed in crossing the market- 
 place without hindrance. They found it easy enough to evade 
 the importunities of impudent fish-sellers, and the friendly 
 invitations of butchers, bakers, sausage and vegetable sellers, 
 
 *See note p. 2. 
 
 tThe following little story told by "Strabo" (658) proves how eagerly 
 the Greeks thronged to market. A flute-player at Jasos was forsaken 
 by his audience the moment they heard the sound of the market-bell, 
 one man alone remaining behind. The musician thanked the man 
 for not having allowed the bell to distract his attention. "What!" 
 cried the other, "has it rung already?" and instantly departed, too. 
 
 t O^fia, "the swift." Bockh, "Staatshaushalt der Athener," iii, 93. 
 Not only the Greek, but also the Phoenician ships, were ornamented 
 with likenesses of the gods.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 38? 
 
 and potters. But, when they reached the part allotted* to the 
 flower-girls, Zopyrus was so enchanted with the scene that he 
 clapped his hands for joy. 
 
 Three wonderfully lovely girls, in white dresses of some half- 
 transparent material, with colored borders, were seated to- 
 gether on low stools, binding roses, violets and orange-blos- 
 soms into one long wreath. Their charming heads were 
 wreathed with flowers, too, and looked very like the lovely rose- 
 buds which one of them, on seeing the young men come up, 
 held out to their notice. 
 
 "Buy my roses, my handsome gentlemen," she said, in a 
 clear, melodious voice, "to put in your sweetheart's hair.'' 
 
 Zopyrus took the flowers, and, holding the girl's hand fast 
 in his own, answered: "I come from a far country, my lovely 
 child, and have no sweetheart in Naukratis yet; so let me put 
 the roses in your own golden hair, and this piece of gold in your 
 white little hand." 
 
 The girl burst into a merry laugh, showed her sister the 
 handsome present,f and answered: "By Eros, such gentlemen 
 as you cannot want for sweethearts. Are you brothers?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "That's a pity, for we are sisters." 
 
 "And you thought we would make three pretty couples?" 
 
 "I may have thought it, but did not say so." 
 
 "And your sisters?" 
 
 The girls laughed, as if they were but little averse to such a 
 connection, and offered Bartja and Darius rosebuds, too. 
 
 The young men accepted them, gave each a gold piece in 
 return, and were not allowed to leave these beauties until their 
 helmets had been crowned with laurel. 
 
 Meanwhile, the news of the strangers' remarkable liberality 
 had spread among the many girls who were selling ribbons, 
 
 *Separate portions of the market ( x^X^ 01 ) were set a*>art for the 
 sale of different goods. The part appointed for the flower-sellers, who 
 passed in general for no better than they should be, was called the 
 "myrtle-market." Aristoph., "Thesmoph.," 448. Becker, "Charikles," 
 ii, p. 156. 
 
 tA piece of gold was very high payment. In the Acharnae of Aris- 
 tophanes the slave of Lamachus is supposed to offer an absurdly high 
 price when he is willing to pay three drachmae (two shillings three 
 pence) for a fat eel from Kopai, and one drachma (ninepence) for a 
 brace of fieldfares.
 
 388 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 wreaths and flowers close by. They all brought roses, too, and 
 invited the strangers with looks and words to stay with them 
 and buy their flowers. 
 
 Zopyrus, like many a young gentleman in Naukratis, would 
 gladly have accepted their invitations, for most of these girls 
 were beautiful, and their hearts were not difficult to win; but 
 Darius urged him to come away, and begged Bartja to forbid 
 the thoughtless fellow's staying any longer. After passing the 
 tables of the money-changers and the stone seats on which the 
 citizens sat in the open air and held their consultations, they 
 arrived at the house of Theopompus. 
 
 The stroke given by the Greek guide with the metal 
 knocker on the house-door was answered at once by a slave. 
 As the master was at the market, the strangers were led by the 
 steward, an old servant grown gray in the service of Theo- 
 pompus, into the Andronitis,* and begged to wait there until 
 he returned. 
 
 They were still engaged in admiring the paintings on the 
 walls and the artistic carving of the stone floor, when Theo- 
 pompus, the merchant whom we first learned to know at the 
 house of Rhodopis, came back from the market, followed by a 
 great number of slaves bearing his purchases. f 
 
 He received the strangers with charming politeness, and 
 asked in what way he could be of use to them, on which Bartja, 
 having first convinced himself that no unwished-for listeners 
 were present, gave him the roll he had received from Phanes 
 at parting. 
 
 Theopompus had scarcely read its contents when he made 
 a low bow to the prince, exclaiming: "By Zeus, the father of 
 hospitality, this is the greatest honor that could have been con- 
 ferred upon my house ! All I possess is yours, and I beg you 
 to ask your companions' to accept with kindness what I can 
 offer. Pardon my not having recognized you at once in your 
 Lydian 'dress. It seems to me that your hair is shorter and 
 your beard thicker than when you left Egypt. Am I right in 
 imagining that you do not wish to be recognized? It shall be 
 
 *See note p. 15. The description of Rhodopis' house. 
 
 fMen of high rank among the Greeks did not disdain to make pur- 
 chases at market, accompanied by their slaves, but respectable women 
 could not appear there. Female slaves were generally sent to buy 
 what was needed. Becker, "Charikles," ii, p. 150.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS 389 
 
 exactly as you wish. He is the best host who allows his guests 
 the most freedom. Ah, now, I recognize your friends; but 
 they have disguised themselves and cut their curls also. In- 
 deed, I could almost say that you, my friend, whose name " 
 
 "My name is Darius." 
 
 "That you, Darius, have dyed your hair black. Yes? Then 
 you see my memory does not deceive me. But that is nothing 
 to boast of, for I saw you several times at Sais, and here, too, 
 on your arrival and departure. You ask, my prince, -whether 
 you would be generally recognized? Certainly not. The for- 
 eign dress, the change in your hair, and the coloring of your 
 eyebrows have altered you wonderfully. But excuse me for 
 a moment; my old steward seems to have some important 
 message to give." 
 
 In a few minutes Theopompus came back, exclaiming: "No, 
 no, my honored friends, you have certainly not taken the wisest 
 way of entering Naukratis incognito. You have been joking 
 with the flower-girls and paying them for a few roses, not like 
 runaway Lydian hekatontarchs, but like the great lords you 
 really are. All Naukratis knows the pretty, frivolous sisters, 
 Stephanion, Chloris and Irene, whose garlands have caught, 
 many a heart, and whose sweet glances have lured many a 
 bright obolus out of the pockets of our gay young men. 
 They're very fond of visiting the flower-girls at market-time 
 and agreements are entered into then for which more than 
 one gold piece must be paid later; but for a few roses and 
 good words they are not accustomed to be so liberal as you 
 have been. The girls have been boasting about you and your 
 gifts and showing your good red gold to their stingier suitors. 
 As rumor is a goddess who is very apt to exaggerate and to 
 make a crocodile out of a lizard, it happened that news reached 
 the Egyptian captain on guard at the market that some newly 
 arrived Lydian warriors had been scattering gold broadcast 
 among the flower-girls. This excited suspicion and induced 
 the toparch* to send an officer here to inquire from whence 
 you came and what is the object of your journey hither. I was 
 obliged to use.a little stratagem to impose upon him, and told 
 him, as I believe you wish, that you were rich young men from 
 Sardis who had fled on account of having incurred the satrap's 
 
 *See note pp. 82-83.
 
 390 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ill-will. But I see the government officer coming, and with 
 him the secretary who is to make out passports which will 
 enable you to remain on the Nile unmolested. I have prom- 
 ised him a handsome reward if he can help you in getting ad- 
 mitted into the king's mercenaries. He was caught and be- 
 lieved my story. You are so young that nobody would imagine 
 you were intrusted with a secret mission." 
 
 The talkative Greek had scarcely finished speaking when 
 the clerk, a lean, dry-looking man, dressed in white, came in, 
 placed himself opposite the strangers and asked them from 
 whence they came and what was the object of their journey. 
 
 The youths held to their first assertion, that they were Lydian 
 hekatontarchs, and begged the functionary to provide them 
 with passes and tell them in what way they might most easily 
 obtain admittance into the king's troop of auxiliaries. 
 
 The man did not hesitate long after Theopompus had under- 
 taken to be their surety, and the desired documents were made 
 out. 
 
 Bartja's pass ran thus: 
 
 "Smerdis, the son of Sandon, of Sardis, about twenty-two 
 years of age; figure, tall and slender; face, well formed; nose, 
 straight; forehead, high, with a small scar in the middle, is 
 hereby permitted to remain in those parts of Egypt in which 
 the law allows foreigners to reside, as surety has been given 
 for him. 
 
 "In the king's name. SACHONS, Clerk." 
 
 Darius and Zopyrus received passports similarly worded.* 
 When the government officials had left the house Theopom- 
 pus rubbed his hands and said: "Now, if you will follow my 
 advice on all points you can stay in Egypt safely enough. 
 Keep these little rolls as if they were the apple of your eye, and 
 never part from them. Now, however, I must beg of you to fol- 
 low me to breakfast and to tell me, if agreeable to you, whether 
 a report which has just been making the round of the market 
 is nof, as usual, entirely false. A trireme from Kolophon, 
 namely, has brought the news that your powerful brother, 
 nobie Bartja, is preparing to make war with Amasis." 
 
 *Similar descriptions have been preserved in the papyri. Wilkin- 
 son, in his "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," gives a 
 picture from Thebes in which a man, making obeisance, is being led
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 391 
 
 On the evening of the same day Bartja and Sappho saw each 
 other again. In that first hour surprise and joy together made 
 Sappho's happiness too great for words. When they were 
 once more seated in the acanthus-grove, whose blossoming 
 branches had so often seen and sheltered their young love, she 
 embraced him tenderly, but for a long time they did not speak 
 one word. They saw neither moon nor stars moving silently 
 above them in the warm summer night; they did not even hear 
 the nightingales, who were still repeating their favorite, flute- 
 like Itys call to one another; nor did they feel the dew, which 
 fell as heavily on their fair heads as on the flowers in the grass 
 around them. 
 
 At last Bartja, taking both of Sappho's hands in his own, 
 looked long and silently into her face, as if to stamp her likeness 
 forever on his memory. When he spoke, at last, she cast down 
 her eyes, for he said: "In my dreams, Sappho, you have always 
 been the most lovely creature that Auramazda ever created, 
 but, now I see you again, you are more lovely even than my 
 dreams." 
 
 And when a bright, happy glance from her had thanked 
 him for these words, he drew her closer to him, asking: "Do 
 you often think of me?" 
 
 "I thought only of you." 
 
 "And did you hope to see me soon?" 
 
 "Yes; hour after hour I thought, 'now he must be coming/ 
 Sometimes I went into the garden in the morning and looked 
 toward your home in the east, and a bird flew toward me from 
 thence and I felt a twitching in my right eyelid; or, when I was 
 putting my box to rights and found the laurel crown which I 
 put by as a remembrance, because you looked so well in it 
 Melitta says such wreaths are good for keeping true love*- 
 then I used to clap my hands with joy and think: 'to-day he 
 must come ;' and I would run down to the Nile and wave my 
 handkerchief to every passing boat; for every boat I thought 
 must be bringing you to me. But you did not come, and then 
 I went sadly home and would sit down by the fire on the hearth 
 
 before another, a clerk or secretary, who appears to be making out a 
 passport for him. 
 
 *A bird flying from the right side and a twitching of the right eye 
 were considered fortunate omens. "Theocritus," iii, 37. The wreath 
 put by. See Lucien., "fTox.," 30.
 
 392 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 in the women's room and sing and gaze into the fire until 
 grandmother would wake me out of my dream by saying: 
 'Listen to me, girl; whoever dreams by daylight is in danger 
 of lying awake at night, and getting up in the morning with a 
 sad heart, a tired brain and weary limbs. The day was not 
 given us for sleep, and we must live in it with open eyes, that 
 not a single hour may be idly spent. The past belongs to the 
 dead ; only fools count upon the future ; but wise men hold fast 
 by the ever-young present; by work they foster all the various 
 gifts which Zeus, Apollo, Pallas, Cypris lend; by work they 
 raise, and perfect and ennoble them, until their feelings, 
 actions, words and thoughts become harmonious like a well- 
 tuned lute. You cannot serve the man to whom you have 
 given your whole heart to whom in your great love you look 
 up as much higher than yourself you cannot prove the 
 steadfastness and faithfulness of that love better than by rais- 
 ing and improving your mind to the utmost of your power. 
 Every good and. beautiful truth that you learn is an offering 
 to him you love best, for in giving your whole self, you give 
 your virtues, too. But no one gains this victory in dreams. 
 The dew by which such blossoms are nourished is called the 
 sweat of man's brow.' So she would speak to me, and then I 
 started up ashamed and left the hearth, and either took my 
 lyre to learn new songs or listened to my loving teacher's words 
 she is wiser than most men attentively and still. And so 
 the time passed on; a rapid stream, just like our river Nile, 
 which flows unceasingly and brings such changing scenes upon 
 its waves sometimes a golden boat with streamers gay 
 sometimes a fearful, ravenous crocodile." 
 
 "But, now, we are sitting in the golden boat. Oh, if time's 
 wave would only cease to flow ! if this one moment could but 
 last for aye. You lovely girl, how perfectly you speak how 
 well you understand and remember all this beautiful teaching 
 and make it even more beautiful by your way of repeating it. 
 Yes, Sappho, I am very proud of you. In you I have a treas'ure 
 which makes me richer than my brother, though half the world 
 belongs to him." 
 
 "You proud of me? you, a king's son, the best and hand- 
 somest of your family?" 
 
 "The greatest worth that I can find in myself is that you 
 think me worthv of vour love."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 39? 
 
 "Tell me, ye gods, how can this little heart hold so much joy 
 without breaking? Tis like a vase that's overfilled with purest, 
 heaviest gold." 
 
 "Another heart will help you to bear it; and that is my 
 own, for mine is again supported -by yours, and with that 
 help I can laugh at every evil that the world or night may 
 bring." 
 
 "Oh, don't excite the envy of the gods; human happiness 
 often vexes them. Since you left us we have passed some very, 
 very sad days. The two poor children of our kind Phanes a 
 boy as beautiful as Eros, and a little girl as'fair and rosy as a 
 summer morning's cloud just lit up by the sun came for some 
 happy days to stay with us. Grandmother grew quite glad 
 and young again while looking on these little ones, and as for 
 me I gave them all my heart, though really it is yours, and 
 yours alone. But hearts, you know, are wonderfully made; 
 they're like the sun who sends his rays everywhere, and loses 
 neither warmth nor light by giving much, but gives to all their 
 due. I loved those little ones so very much. One evening we 
 were sitting quite alone with Theopompus in the women's 
 room, when suddenly we heard a loud, wild noise. The good 
 old Knakias, our faithful slave, just reached the door as all the 
 bolts gave way, and, rushing through the entrance-hall into the 
 peristyle, the andronitis, and so on to us, crashing the door 
 between, came a troop of soldiers. Grandmother showed them 
 the letter by which Amasis secured our house from all attack 
 and made it a sure refuge, but they laughed the writing to scorn 
 and showed us on their side a document with the crown-prince's 
 seal, in which we were sternly commanded to deliver up 
 Phanes' children at once to this rough troop of men. Theo- 
 pompus reproved the soldiers for their roughness, telling them 
 that the children came from Corinth and had no connection 
 with Phanes ; but the captain of the troop defied and sneered 
 at him, pushed my grandmother rudely away, forced his way 
 into her own apartment, where, among her most precious 
 treasures, at the head of her own bed, the two children lay 
 sleeping peacefully, dragged them out of their little beds, and 
 took them in an open boat through the cold night air to the 
 royal city. In a few days we heard the boy was dead. They 
 say he has been killed by Psamtik's orders; and the little girl, 
 so sweet and clear, is lying in a dismal dungeon, and pining for
 
 394 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 her father and for us. Oh, dearest, isn't it a painful thing that 
 sorrows such as these should come to mar our perfect happi- 
 ness? My eyes weep joy and sorrow in the same moment, and 
 my lips, which have just been laughing with you, have now to 
 tell you this sad story." 
 
 "I feel your pain with you, my child, but it makes my hand 
 clinch with rage instead of filling my eyes with tears. That 
 gentle boy whom you loved, that little girl who now sits weep- 
 ing in the dark dungeon, shall both be avenged. Trust me; 
 before the Nile has risen again a powerful army will have- 
 entered Egypt to demand satisfaction for this murder." 
 
 "Oh, dearest, how your eyes are glowing! I never saw you 
 look so beautiful before. Yes, yes, the boy must be avenged, 
 and none but you must be his avenger." 
 
 "My gentle Sappho is becoming warlike, too." 
 
 "Yes, women must feel warlike when wickedness is so tri- 
 umphant; women rejoice, too, when such crimes are punished. 
 Tell me has war been declared already?" 
 
 "Not yet; but hosts on hosts are marching to the valley of 
 the Euphrates to join our main army." 
 
 "My courage sinks as quickly as it rose. I tremble at the 
 word, the mere word, war. How many childless mothers Ares 
 makes, how many young fair heads must wear the widow's 
 veil, how many pillows are wet through with tears when Pallas 
 takes her shield." 
 
 "But a man develops in war; his heart expands, his arm 
 grows strong. And none rejoice more than you when he re- 
 turns a conqueror from the field. The wife of a Persian espe- 
 cially ought to rejoice in the thought of battle, for her hus- 
 band's honor and fame are dearer to her than his life." 
 
 "Go to the war. I shall pray for you there." 
 
 "And victory will be with the right. First we will conquer 
 Pharaoh's host, then release Phanes' little daughter 
 
 "And then Aristomachus, the brave old man who succeeded 
 Phanes when he fled. He has vanished, no one knows 
 whither, but people say that the crown-prince has either impris- 
 oned him in a dismal dungeon on account of his having uttered 
 threats of retaliating the cruelty shown to Phanes' children, or 
 what would be worse has had -him dragged off to some dis- 
 tant quarry. The poor old man was exiled from his home not 
 for his own fault, but by the malice of his enemies, and the very
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 395 
 
 day on which we lost sight of him an embassy arrived here from 
 the Spartan people recalling Aristomachus to the Eurotas with 
 all the honors Greece could bestow, because his sons had 
 brought great glory to their country. A ship wreathed with 
 flowers was sent to fetch the honored old man, and at the head 
 of the deputation was his own brave, strong son, now crowned 
 with glory and fame." 
 
 "I know him. He's a man of iron. Once he mutilated him- 
 self cruelly to avoid disgrace. By the Anahita star* which is 
 setting so beautifully in the east, he shall be avenged." 
 
 "Oh, can it be so late? To me the time has gone by like a 
 sweet breeze which kissed my forehead and passed away. Did 
 not you hear someone call? They will be waiting for us, and 
 you must be at your friend's house in the town before dawn. 
 Good-night, my brave hero." 
 
 "Good-by, my dearest one. In five days we shall hear our 
 marriage hymn. But you tremble as if we were going to battle 
 instead of to our wedding." 
 
 "I'm trembling at the greatness of our joy; one always 
 trembles in expectation of anything unusually great." 
 
 "Hark ! Rhodopis is calling again ; let us go. I have asked 
 Theopompus to arrange everything about our wedding with 
 her according to the usual custom; and I shall remain in his 
 house incognito until I can carry you off as my own dear wife." 
 
 "And I will go with you." 
 
 The next morning, as the three friends were walking with 
 their host in the garden, Zopyrus exclaimed: "Why, Bartja, 
 I've been dreaming all night of your Sappho. What a lucky 
 fellow you are! Why, I fancied my new wife in Sardis was 
 no end of a beauty until I saw Sappho, and now when I think 
 of her she seems like an owl. If Araspes could see Sappho he 
 would be obliged to confess that even Panthea had been out- 
 done at last. Such a creature was never made before. Aura- 
 mazda is an awful spendthrift; he might have made three 
 beauties out of Sappho. And how charmingly it sounded when 
 she said 'good-night' to us in Persian-" 
 
 *See note p. 370,
 
 396 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "While I was away," said Bartja, "she has been taking a 
 great deal of trouble to learn Persian from the wife of a Baby- 
 lonian carpet merchant, a native of Susa who is living in Nau- 
 kratis, in order to surprise me." 
 
 "Yes, she is a glorious girl," said Theopompus. "My late 
 wife loved the little one as if she had been her own child. She 
 would have liked to have had her as a wife for our son who 
 manages the affairs of my house at Miletus, but the gods have 
 ordained otherwise! Ah, how glad she would have been to 
 see the wedding garland at Rhodopis' door!" 
 
 "Is it the custom here to ornament the bride's house with 
 flowers?" said Zopyrus. 
 
 "Certainly," answered Theopompus. "When you see a door 
 hung with flowers you may always know that house contains a 
 bride; an olive branch is a sign that a boy has just come into 
 the world, and a strip of woolen cloth hanging over the gate 
 that a girl has been born ; but a vessel of water before the door 
 is a token of death.* But business-hour at the market is very 
 near, my friends, and I must leave you, as I have affairs of 
 great importance to transact." 
 
 "I will accompany you," said Zopyrus; "I want to order 
 some garlands for Rhodopis' house." 
 
 "Aha," laughed the Milesian. "I see, you want to talk to the 
 flower-girls again. Come, it's of no use to deny. Well, if you 
 like, you can come with me, but don't be so generous as you 
 were yesterday, and don't forget that if certain news of war 
 should arrive your disguise may prove dangerous." 
 
 The Greek then had his sandals fastened on by his slaves 
 and started for the market, accompanied by Zopyrus. In a few 
 hours he returned with such a serious expression on his usually 
 cheerful face that it was easy to see something very important 
 had happened. 
 
 "I found the whole town in great agitation," he said, to the 
 two friends who had remained at home; "there is a report that 
 Amasis is at the point of death. We had all met on the place of 
 exchangef in order to settle our business, and I was on the 
 
 *Schomann, "Privatalterthiimer." Water before a house. Schol. 
 Arist., "Nub.," v, 837. 
 
 tOn the so-called Adyna of the exchange the Greek wholesale 
 merchants were accustomed to sell their wares by samples, Bb'ckh, 
 "Staatshaushaltung der Athener," 1, pp. 84, 85,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 39? 
 
 point of selling all my stored goods at such high prices as to 
 secure me a first-rate profit, with which, when the prospect of 
 an important war had lowered the prices again, I could have 
 bought in fresh goods you see it stands me in good stead to 
 know your royal brothers intentions so early when, suddenly, 
 the toparch appeared among us and announced that Amasis 
 was not only seriously ill, but the physicians had given up all 
 hope, and he himself felt that he was very near death. We 
 must hold ourselves in readiness for this at any moment, and 
 for a very serious change in the face of affairs. The death of 
 Amasis is the severest loss that could happen to us Greeks; he 
 was always our friend and favored us whenever he could, 
 while his son is our avowed enemy and will do his utmost to 
 expel us from the country. If his father had allowed and he 
 himself had not felt so strongly the importance and value of 
 our mercenary troops, he would have turned us hateful for- 
 eigners out long ago. Naukratis and its temples are odious 
 to him. When Amasis is dead our town will hail Cambyses' 
 army with delight, for I have had experience already, in my 
 native town Miletus, that you are accustomed to show respect 
 to those who are not Persians and to protect their rights." 
 
 "Yes," said Bartja, "I will take care that all your ancient 
 liberties shall be confirmed by my brother and new ones 
 granted you." 
 
 "Well, I only hope he will soon be here," exclaimed the 
 Greek, "for we know that Psamtik, as soon as he possibly can, 
 will order our temples, which are an abomination to him, to be 
 demolished. The building of a place of sacrifice for the Greeks 
 at Memphis has long been put a stop to." 
 
 "But here," said Darius, "we saw a number of splendid tem- 
 ples as we came up from the harbor." 
 
 "Oh, yes, we have several.* Ah, there comes Zopyrus; the 
 slaves are carrying a perfect grove of garlands behind him. 
 He's laughing so heartily, he must have amused himself fam- 
 ously with the flower-girls. Good-morning, my friend. The sad 
 news which fills all Naukratis does not seem to disturb you 
 much." 
 
 "Oh, for anything I care, Amasis may go on living a hun- 
 dred years yet. But if he dies now, people will have something 
 
 *See note, p. 2.
 
 398 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 else to do besides looking after us. When do you set off for 
 Rhodopis' house, friends?" 
 
 "At dusk." 
 
 "Then, please, ask her to accept these flowers from me. I 
 never thought I could have been so taken by an old woman 
 before. Every word she says sounds like music, and though 
 she speaks so gravely and wisely it's as pleasant to the ear as a 
 merry joke. But I shan't go with you this time, Bartja; I 
 should only be in the way. Darius, what have you made up 
 your mind to do?" 
 
 "I don't want to lose one chance of a conversation with Rho- 
 dopis." 
 
 "Well, I don't blame you. You're all for learning and know- 
 ing everything, and I'm for enjoying. Friends, what do you 
 say to letting me off this evening? You see " 
 
 "I know all about it," interrupted Bartja, laughing; "you've 
 only seen the flower-girls by daylight as yet, and you would 
 like to know how they look by lamplight." 
 
 "Yes, that's it," said Zopyrus, putting on a grave face. "On 
 that point I am quite as eager after knowledge as Darius." 
 
 "Well, we wish you much pleasure with your three sisters." 
 
 "No, no, not all three, if you please ; Stephanion, the young- 
 est, is my favorite." 
 
 Morning had already dawned when Bartja, Darius and Theo- 
 pompus left Rhodopis' house. Syloson,* a Greek noble who 
 had been banished from his native land by his own brother, 
 Polykrates, the tyrant, had been spending the evening with 
 them, and was now returning in their company to Naukratis, 
 where he had been living many years. 
 
 This man, though an exile, was liberally supplied with mon- 
 ey by his brother ; kept the most brilliant establishment in Na'u- 
 kratis, and was as famous for his extravagant hospitality as for 
 his strength and cleverness. Syloson was a very handsome 
 man, too, and so remarkable for the good taste and splendor 
 of his dress that the youth of Naukratis prided themselves on the 
 cut and hang of his robes. Being unmarried, he spent many 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 39, 139, 141.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 399 
 
 of his evenings at Rhodopis' house, and had been told the 
 secret of her granddaughter's betrothal. 
 
 On that evening it had been settled that in four days the mar- 
 riage should be celebrated with the greatest privacy. Bartja 
 had formally betrothed himself to Sappho by eating a quince 
 with her, on the same day on which she had offered sacrifices 
 to Zeus, Hera, and the other deities who protected marriage.* 
 The wedding banquet was tc be given at the house of Theo- 
 pompus, which was looked upon as the bridegroom's."}' The 
 prince's costly bridal presents had been intrusted to Rhodopis' 
 care, and Bartja had insisted on renouncing the paternal in- 
 heritance which belonged to his bride and transferring it to 
 Rhodopis, notwithstanding her determined resistance. 
 
 Syloson accompanied the f-riends to Rhodopis' house, and 
 was just about to leave them, when a loud noise in the streets 
 broke the quiet stillness of the night, and soon after a troop of 
 the watch passed by, taking a man to prison. Their prisoner 
 seemed highly indignant, and the less his broken Greek oaths 
 and his utterances in some other totally unintelligible language 
 were understood by the Egyptian guards the more violent he 
 became. 
 
 Directly Bartja and Darius heard the voice they ran up, and 
 recognized Zopyrus at once. 
 
 Syloson and Theopompus stopped the guards and asked what 
 
 *Zeus and Hera are the only divinities mentioned by "Diodorus" (v, 
 73) as receiving marriage-offerings. Plutarch says ("Solon," 20) that 
 the Athenian brides were bound by one of Solon's laws to eat a quince 
 before the nuptial ceremony. The quince (jifaov xvfiamov) seems 
 in other respects also to have had significance for lovers. That a 
 period of betrothal existed among the Greeks, as with ourselves, is 
 certain. As an instance we need only remind our readers of Sopho- 
 cles' Antigone and her betrothal with Haemon. 
 
 tSee Bottiger "Aldobr. Hochzeit," p. 142, where the nuptial hymn, 
 or hymenaeus, is sung accompanied by the flute. It cannot be clearly 
 determined who carried the bridal torches. K. F. Hermann, "Privat- 
 alterthiimer," sec. 31. It is also uncertain whether the marriage-feast 
 was held in the house of the bride or the bridegroom, as passages can 
 be quoted to prove both. For want of the bridegroom's house we have 
 been unable to describe all the customs usual at a marriage, as, for 
 instance, the procession thither, when the carriage conveying the 
 bride was accompanied by a chorus singing the "carriage-song 
 (ap/xdraov /xtog) and preceded by female attendants carrying light 
 torches.
 
 400 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 their captive had done. The officer on duty recognized them 
 directly; indeed, every child in Naukratis knew the Milesian 
 merchant and the brother of the tyrant Polykrates by sight; and 
 he answered at once, with a respectful salutation, that the foreign 
 youth they were leading away had been guilty of murder. 
 
 Theopompus then took him on one side and endeavored by 
 liberal promises to obtain the freedom of the prisoner. The 
 man, however, would concede nothing but a permission to speak 
 with his captive. Meanwhile his friends begged Zopyrus to tell 
 them at once what had happened, and heard the following story. 
 The thoughtless fellow had visited the flower-girls at dusk and 
 remained till dawn. He had scarcely closed their house-door 
 on his way home, when he found himself surrounded by a num- 
 ber of young men, who had probably been lying in wait for him, 
 as he had already had a quarrel with one of them who called 
 himself the betrothed lover of Stephanion, on that very morn- 
 ing. The girl had told her troublesome admirer to leave her 
 flowers alone, and had thanked Zopyrus for threatening to use 
 personal violence to the intruder. When the young Achaemen- 
 ide found himself surrounded, he drew his sword and easily 
 dispersed his adversaries, as they were only armed with sticks, 
 but chanced to wound the jealous lover, who was more violent 
 than the rest, so seriously, that he fell to the ground. Mean- 
 while the watch had come up, and as Zopyrus' victim howled 
 "thieves" and "murder" incessantly they proceeded to arrest the 
 offender. This was not so easy. His blood was up, and, rush- 
 ing on them with his drawn sword, he had already cut his way 
 through the first troop when a second came up. He was not 
 to be daunted, attacked them, too, split the skull of one, wound- 
 ed another in the arm and was taking aim for a third blow when 
 he felt a cord round his neck. It was drawn tighter and tighter 
 till at last he could not breathe and fell down insensible. By the 
 time he came to his senses he was bound, and, notwithstanding 
 all his appeals to his pass and the name of Theopompus, was 
 forced to follow his captors. 
 
 When the tale was finished the Milesian did not attempt to 
 conceal his strong disapprobation, and told Zopyrus that his 
 most unseasonable love of fighting might be followed by the 
 saddest consequences. After saying this, he turned to the of- 
 ficer and begged him to accept his own personal security for the
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 401 
 
 prisoner. The other, however, refused gravely, saying he might 
 forfeit his own life by doing so, as a law existed in Egypt by 
 which the concealer of a murder was condemned to death/ 1 ' 
 He must, he assured them, take the culprit to Sais and deliver 
 him over to the Nomarchf for punishment. "He has mur- 
 dered an Egyptian," were his last words, "and must therefore 
 be tried by an Egyptian supreme court. In any other case I 
 should be delighted to render you any service in my power." 
 
 During this conversation Zopyrus had been begging his 
 friends not to take any trouble about him. ''By Mithras!" he 
 cried, when Bartja offered to declare himself to the Egyptians 
 as a means of procuring his freedom, "I vow- I'll stab myself 
 without a second thought if you give yourselves up to those 
 dogs of Egyptians. Why, the whole town is talking about 
 the war already, and do you think that if Psamtik knew he'd got 
 such splendid game in his net he would let you loose? He 
 would keep you as hostages, of course. No, no, my friends. 
 Good-by; may Auramazda send you his best blessings! and 
 don't quite forget the jovial Zopyrus, who lived and died for 
 love and war." 
 
 The captain of the band placed himself at the head of his men, 
 gave the order to march, and in a few minutes Zopyrus was out 
 of sight. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 According to the law of Egypt, Zopyrus had deserved death. 
 
 As soon as his friends heard this they resolved to go to Sais 
 and try to rescue him by stratagem. Syloson, who had friends 
 there and could speak the Egyptian language well, offered to 
 help them. 
 
 Bartja and Darius disguised themselves so completely, by 
 dyeing their hair and eyebrows and wearing broad-brimmed 
 
 *The man who concealed a murder was to be punished with the 
 knout (5 vcKrri-j-ovaOa/) and left three days and nights without food or 
 drink. "Diod.," i, 77. 
 
 fSee note pp. 82-83.
 
 402 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 felt hats,* that they could scarcely recognize each other. Theo- 
 pompus provided them with ordinary Greek dresses, and, an 
 hour after Zopyrus' arrest, they met the splendidly got-up Sylo- 
 son on the shore of the Nile, entered a boat belonging to him 
 and manned by his slaves, and, after a short sail, favored by the 
 wind, reached Sais which lay above the waters of the inunda- 
 tion like an island before the burning midsummer sun had 
 reached its noonday height. 
 
 They disembarked at a remote part of the town and walked 
 across the quarter appropriated to the artisans. The workmen 
 were busy at their calling, notwithstanding the intense noon- 
 day heat. The baker's men were at work, in the open court of 
 the bake-house, kneading bread the coarser kind of dough 
 with the feet, the finer with the hands. Loaves of various shapes 
 were being drawn out of the ovens round and oval cakes and 
 rolls in the form of sheep, snails and hearts. These were laid 
 in baskets and the nimble baker's boys would put three, four, 
 or even five, such baskets on their heads at once and carry them 
 off quickly and safely to the customers living in other quarters 
 of the city.f A butcher was slaughtering an ox before his house, 
 the creature's legs having been pinioned, and his men were busy 
 sharpening their knives to cut up a wild goat.J Merry cobblers 
 were calling out to the passers-by from their stalls; carpenters, 
 tailors, joiners and weavers)} were all there busy at their various 
 
 "These felt hats (TteTaaof. petasus) were used as protection from 
 the rays of the sun, first among the Greeks, later by the Romans, and, 
 as the sunlight of Egypt is especially dazzling, must certainly have 
 been adopted by the Hellenic settlers on the Nile. Almost all the 
 horsemen in the celebrated procession from the Parthenon (now in 
 the British museum) are represented with the petasus. It was most 
 generally used as a traveling-hat. A figure with broad-brimmed hat 
 on his back was meant to represent a traveler. Compare the way in 
 which pilgrims are represented in the pictures of the middle ages. 
 
 tThe life and manners of the working classes are often represented 
 on the ancient monuments and very vividly. See "Wilkinson," vols, 
 ii, iii. Rosellini, "Mon. Civil.," T. 41, etc. Especially for the bakers, 
 see "Genesis," xl, 16. "Herod.," ii, 36. Ebers, "Aegypten," i, p. 330. 
 
 JButchers. "Wilkinson," ii, 375. 
 
 Shoemakers. "Wilkinson," iii, 160. 
 
 1 1 Workers in wood. "Wilkinson," iii, 144, 174, 183. "Weavers," ii r 
 60, iii, 134, 135. Rosellini, "Mon. Civli.," T. 41, and following. Lep- 
 sius, "Denkmaler," ii, 126, from Benihassan. In the Berlin museum 
 there are some ancient Egyptian spindles, and in the museum at
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 403 
 
 callings. The wives of the work people were going out market- 
 ing, leading their naked children by the hand, and some sol- 
 diers were loitering near a man who was offering beer and wine 
 for sale.* 
 
 But our friends took very little notice of what was going on 
 in the streets through which they passed ; they followed Syloson 
 in silence. 
 
 At the Greek guard-house he asked them to wait for him. 
 Syloson, happening to know the taxiarch who was on duty that 
 day, went in and asked him if he had heard anything of a man 
 accused of murder having been brought from Naukratis to Sais 
 that morning. 
 
 "Of course," said the Greek. "It's not more than hplf an 
 hour since he arrived. As they found a purse full of money 
 in his girdle they think he must be a Persian spy. I suppose 
 you know that Cambyses is preparing for war with Egypt?" 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "No, no, it's a fact. The prince regent has already received 
 information. A caravan of Arabian merchants arrived yester- 
 day at Pelusium and brought the news." 
 
 "It will prove as false as their suspicions about this poor young 
 Lydian. I know him well and am very sorry for the poor fel- 
 low. He belongs to one of the richest families in Sardis, and 
 only ran away for fear of the powerful satrap Oroetes, with 
 whom he had had a quarrel. I'll tell you the particulars when 
 you come to see me next in Naukratis. Of course you'll stay 
 a few days and bring some friends. My brother has sent me 
 some wine which beats everything I ever tasted. It's perfect 
 nectar, and I confess I grudge offering, it to anyone who's not, 
 like you, a perfect judge in such matters." 
 
 Leyden is a beautiful thread-winder with red thread still wound round 
 It, besides several specimens of ancient Egyptian stuffs. 
 
 *The Egyptian beer, called by the Greeks ( {>0o?) Zythos (Zythum), 
 was well known among the ancients but not much esteemed by them. 
 It was said, like wine, to have been given to men by Osiris. "Diod.," 
 i, 34. The best was brewed in Pelusium. "Columella," x, 116. Phin. 
 "Hist. Nat," xxii, 82. This beer is often mentioned in the ancient 
 Egyptian writings and called "hek." It may be interesting to notice 
 that a connection has been found between Gambrinus and Egypt, the 
 earliest beer-drinking country. It is said, namely in the Aventinus, 
 "Annal. Boj.," i, 6, 11, that Gambrinus was the son of Isis. On intoxi- 
 cation, see note p. 77.
 
 404 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The taxiarch's face brightened up at these words and 
 grasping Syloson's hand, he exclaimed: "By the dog,* my 
 friend, we shall not wait to be asked twice; we'll come soon 
 enough and take a good pull at your wine-skins. How would 
 it be if you were to ask Archidice,f the three flower-sisters and 
 a few flute-playing girls to supper?" 
 
 "They shall all be there. By the bye, that reminds me that 
 the flower-girls were the cause of that poor young Lydian's 
 imprisonment Some jealous idiot attacked him before their 
 house with a number of comrades. The hot-brained young 
 fellow defended himself 
 . "And knocked the other down?" 
 
 "Yes; so that he'll never get up again." 
 
 "The boy must be a good boxer." 
 
 "He has a sword." 
 
 "So much the better for him." 
 
 "No, so much the worse; for his victim was an Egyptian." 
 
 "That's a bad job. I fear it can only have an unfortunate 
 end. A foreigner who kills an Egyptian is as sure of death 
 as if he had the rope already round his neck.| However, just 
 now he'll get a few days' grace ; the priests are all so busy pray- 
 ing for the dying king that they have no time to try criminals." 
 
 "I'd give a great deal to be able to save that poor fellow. I 
 know his father." 
 
 "Yes, and then, after all, he only did his duty. A man must 
 defend himself." 
 
 "Do you happen to know where he is imprisoned?" 
 
 "Of course I do. The great prison is under repair and so he 
 has been put for the present in the store-house between the prin- 
 cipal guard-house of the Egyptian bodyguard and the sacred 
 grove of the temple of Neith. I have only just come home 
 from seeing them take him there." 
 
 "He is strong and has plenty of courage; do you think he 
 could get away if we helped him?" 
 
 *See note p. 119. 
 
 tA celebrated Hetaira of Naukratis mentioned by "Herod.," ii, 135. 
 Flute-playing girls were seldom missing at the young Greeks' drink- 
 ing-parties. 
 
 ^Criminals in Egypt were often hung. "Genesis," xl, 20-23. Rose) 
 lini, "Mon. Civ.," T. 124.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 405 
 
 "No, it would be quite impossible; he's in a room two stories 
 high; the only window looks into the sacred grove, and that, 
 you know, is surrounded by a ten-foot wall, and guarded like the 
 treasury. There are double sentries at every gate. There's 
 only one place where it is left unguarded during the inundation 
 season, because, just there, the water washes the walls. These 
 worshipers of animals are as cautious as water-wagtails." 
 
 "Well, it's a great pity, but I suppose we must leave the poor 
 Sellow to his fate. Good-by, Daemones; don't forget my in- 
 vitation." 
 
 The Samian left the guard-room and went back directly to 
 the two friends who were waiting impatiently for him. 
 
 They listened eagerly to his tidings, and when he had finished 
 his description of the prison Darius exclaimed: "I believe a 
 little courage will save him. He's as nimble as a cat and as 
 strong as a bear. I have thought of a plan." 
 
 "Let us hear it," said Syloson, '"and let me give an opinion 
 as to its practicability." 
 
 "We will buy some rope-ladders, some cord and a good bow, 
 put all these into our boat, and row to the unguarded part of 
 the temple wall at dusk. You must, then, help me to clamber 
 over it. I shall take the things over with me and give the 
 eagle's cry. Zopyrus will know at once, because, since we were 
 children we have been accustomed to use it when we were riding 
 or hunting together. Then I shall shoot an arrow, with the 
 cord fastened to it, up into his window (I never miss), tell him 
 to fasten a weight to it and let it down again to me. I shall 
 then secure the rope-ladder to the cord, Zopyrus will draw the 
 whole affair up again and hang it on an iron nail which, by the 
 bye, I must not forget to send up with the ladder, for who 
 knows whether he may have such a thing in his cell. He will 
 then come down on it, go quickly with me to the part of the 
 wall where you will be waiting with the boat and where there 
 must be another rope-ladder, spring into the boat, and there he 
 is safe !" 
 
 "First-rate, first-rate!" cried Bartja. 
 
 "But very dangerous," added Syloson. "If we are caught in 
 the sacred grove, we are certain to be severely punished. The 
 priests hold strange nightly festivals there, at which everyone 
 but the initiated is strictly forbidden to appear. I believe, how-
 
 406 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 ever, that these take place on the lake, and that is at some dis- 
 tance from Zopyrus' prison." 
 
 "So much the better," cried Darius; "but now to the main 
 point We must send at once, and ask Theopompus to hire a 
 fast trireme for us, and have it put in sailing order at once. 
 The news of Cambyses' preparations have already reached 
 Egypt; they take us for spies, and will be sure not to let either 
 Zopyrus or his deliverers escape, if they can help it. It would 
 be a criminal rashness to expose ourselves uselessly to danger. 
 Bartja, you must take this message yourself, and must marry 
 Sappho this very day, for, come what may, we must leave 
 Naukratis to-morrow. Don't contradict me, my friend, my 
 brother! You know our plan, and you must see that as only 
 one can act in it, your part would be that of a mere looker-on. 
 As it was my own idea I am determined to carry it out myself. 
 We shall meet again to-morrow, for Auramazda protects the 
 friendship of the pure." 
 
 It was a long time before they could persuade Bartja to leave 
 his friends in the lurch, but their entreaties and representations 
 at last took effect, and he went down toward the river to take 
 a boat for Naukratis, Darius and Syloson going at the same 
 time to buy the necessary implements for their plan. 
 
 In order to reach the place where boats were to be hired 
 Bartja had to pass by the temple of Neith. This was not easy, 
 as an immense crowd had assembled at the entrance gates. He 
 pushed his way as far as the obelisks near the great gate of 
 the temple with its winged sun's disk and fluttering pennons, 
 but there the temple-servants prevented him from going farther ; 
 they were keeping the avenue of sphinxes clear for a procession.* 
 The gigantic doors of the Pylon opened, and Bartja, who, in 
 spite of himself, had been pushed into the front row, saw a bril- 
 liant procession come out of the temple. The unexpected sight 
 of many faces he had "formerly known occupied his attention 
 so much that he scarcely noticed the loss of his broad-brimmed 
 hat, which had been knocked off in the crowd. From the con- 
 versation of the two Ionian mercenaries behind him he learned 
 that the family of Amasis had been to the temple to pray for the 
 dying king. 
 
 *See note p. 93.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 407 
 
 The procession was headed by richly decorated priests, either 
 wearing long white robes or panther-skins. They were fol- 
 lowed by men holding office at the court, and carrying golden 
 staves, on the ends of which peacocks' feathers and silver lotus- 
 flowers were fastened, and these by pastophori,* carrying on 
 their shoulders a golden cow, the animal sacred to I sis. When 
 the crowd bowed down before this sacred symbol the queen 
 appeared. She was dressed in priestly robes and wore a costly 
 head-dress with the winged disk and the Uraesus. In her left 
 hand she held a sacred golden sistrumf the tones of which were 
 to scare away Typhon, and in her right some lotus-flowers. 
 The wife, daughter and sister of the high-priest followed her, in 
 similar but less splendid ornaments. $ Then came the heir to 
 
 These were priests whose duty it was to carry the sacred animals 
 and representations of the divinities at the religious processions. Ac- 
 cording to Clemens of Alexandria, "Strom," vi, 663, and the bilingual 
 stone of Rosetta, the priesthood was divided into high-priests, proph- 
 ets, stolists, to whom were intrusted the pictures and statues of the 
 gods, the sacrifices and the office of teaching; those who had a right to 
 wear the feather, writers of the sacred mystic cipher, hierogramma- 
 tists or sages (in Egyptian "things having knowledge") to which or- 
 der belonged the astronomers, astrologers, soothsayers and calendai;- 
 makers, -the holy fathers among" whom the singers were reckoned, 
 and those who kept the precepts and rules of the royal life and lastly, 
 the inferior priests, namely, the pastophori (bearers of the sacred pic- 
 tures, statues, and symbols in the processions), the taricheuti, or em- 
 balmers, the neokori, or temple-servants, etc. For details see Ebers, 
 "Aegypten," p. 341 and following. 
 
 tA musical instrument used in religious services and often orna- 
 mented with much skill and art. It consisted of a bow with bars, and 
 rings on the bars, which could be sounded together. Plutarch de- 
 scribes it very exactly ("Is.and Os., "63), says it was used to scare away 
 Typhon, and that on the rounded part of the metal was the likeness 
 of a cat with human features. His description is confirmed by a 
 bronze sistrum in the Berlin museum, on the bend of which is a cat 
 with a sun-disk over its head. On the handle of another is a double 
 Isis mask. See, also, "Wilkinson," i, 145. This instrument is said to 
 have been used in the Egyptian war-music also (Virgil, "Aen.," viii, 
 696), but the statement that it served instead of the trumpet is incor- 
 rect as we see from the monuments that the trumpet was also in use. 
 "Prop.," iii, 11, 43. 
 
 ^Similar processions of women are to be found on the monuments, 
 as, for example, at Thebes, where the wife of Rameses the Great and 
 the mother, daughter and sister of a priest are going up to prayer. 
 "Wilkinson," i, 260. The question whether these were priestesses or 
 not. has also been decided in the affirmative by the monuments.
 
 408 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the throne, in rich robes of state, as priest and prince; and 
 behind him four young priests in white carrying Tachot, the" 
 daughter of Amasis and Ladice and the pretended sister of 
 Nitetis, in an open litter. The heat of the day, and the earnest- 
 ness of her prayers, had given the sick girl a slight color. Her 
 blue eyes, filled with tears, were fixed on the sistrum which 
 her weak, emaciated hands had hardly strength to hold. 
 
 A murmur of compassion ran through the crowd; for they 
 loved their dying king, and manifested openly and gladly the 
 sympathy so usually felt for young lives from whom a brilliant 
 future has been snatched by disease. Such was Amasis' young. 
 fading daughter who was now being carried past them, and 
 many an eye grew dim as the beautiful invalid came in sight. 
 Tachot seemed to notice this, for she raised her eyes from the 
 sistrum and looked kindly and gratefully at the crowd. Sud- 
 denly the color left her face, she turned deadly pale, and the 
 golden sistrum fell onto the stone pavement with a clang, close 
 to Bartja's feet. He felt that he had been recognized and for 
 one moment thought of hiding himself in the crowd; but only 
 for one moment his chivalrous feeling gained the day, he 
 darted forward, picked up the'sistrum, and, forgetting the dan- 
 ger in which he was placing himSelf, held it out to the princess. 
 
 Tachot looked at him earnestly before taking the golden 
 sistrum from his hands, and then said, in a low voice, which 
 only he could understand: "Are you Bartja? Tell me in your 
 mother's name are you Bartja?" 
 
 "Yes, I am," was his answer, in a voice as low as her own, 
 "your friend, Bartja." 
 
 He could not say more, for the priests pushed him back 
 among the crowd. When he was in his old place he noticed 
 that Tachot, whose bearers had begun to move on again, was 
 looking round at him. The color had come back into her 
 cheeks, and her bright eyes were trying to meet his. He did not 
 avoid them ; she threw him a lotus-bud he stooped to pick it 
 up, and then broke his way through the crowd, for this hasty 
 act had roused their attention. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later he was seated in a boat which was 
 to take him to Sappho and to his wedding. He was quite at 
 ease now about Zopyrus. In Bartja's eyes his friend was al- 
 ready as good as saved, and, in spite of the dangers which
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 409 
 
 threatened himself, he felt strangely calm and happy, he could 
 hardly say why. 
 
 Meanwhile the sick princess had been carried home, had had 
 her oppressive ornaments taken off, and her couch carried onto 
 one of the palace balconies where she liked best to pass the hot 
 summer days, sheltered by broad-leaved plants* and a kind of 
 awning. 
 
 From this veranda she could look down into the great fore- 
 court of the palace which was planted with trees. To-day it 
 was full of priests, courtiers, generals and governors of prov- 
 inces. Anxiety and suspense were expressed in every face; 
 Amasis' last hour was drawing very near. 
 
 Tachot could not be seen from below; but, listening with 
 feverish eagerness, she could hear much that was said. Now 
 that they had to dread the loss of their king everyone, even the 
 priests, were full of his praises. The wisdom and circumspection 
 of his plans and modes of government, his unwearied industry, 
 the moderation he had always shown, the keenness of his wit, 
 were, each and all, subjects of admiration. "How Egypt has 
 prospered under Amasis' government!" said a Nornarch. 
 "And what glory he gained for our arms by the conquest of 
 Cyprus and the war with the Lybians!" cried one of the gen- 
 erals. "How magnificently he embellished our temples and 
 what great honors he paid to the goddess of Sais!" exclaimed 
 one of the singers of Neith. "And then how gracious and con- 
 descending he was!" murmured a courtier. "How cleverly he 
 managed to keep peace with the great powers!" said the secretary 
 of state, and the treasurer, wiping away a tear, cried: "How 
 thoroughly he understood the management of the revenue! 
 Since the reign of Rameses III the treasury has not been so 
 well filled as now."f "Psamtik comes into a fine inheritance," 
 
 ""'Wilkinson," ii, 121, 129. From representations found in Thebes. 
 
 tRhampsinit, of whose treasure-house "Herodotus" (ii, 121, 122) 
 tells the amusing story which has been dramatized by Count Platen. 
 We can hardly believe Appian when he says that the treasury of 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus contained seven hundred and forty thousand 
 Egyptian talents, for this, even if we reckon the Egyptian talent at 
 half the value of the Aeginetan, would give the sum of eighty-three 
 million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. Perhaps 
 Bockh ("Staatshaushalt d. Ath.," i, p. 14) is right in his conjecture that 
 this sum represented the total receipts of his reign of thirty-eight
 
 410 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 lisped the courtier, and the soldier exclaimed: "Yes, but it's to 
 be feared that he'll not spend it in a glorious war; he's too 
 much under the influence of the priests." "No, you ape wrong 
 there," answered the temple-singer. "For some time past our 
 lord and master has seemed to disdain the advice of his most 
 faithful servants." "The successor of such a father will find it 
 difficult to secure universal approbation," said the Nomarch. 
 "It is not everyone who has the intellect, the good fortune and 
 the wisdom of Amasis." "The gods know that!" murmured 
 the warrior, with a sigh. 
 
 Tachot's tears flowed fast. These words were a confirma- 
 tion of what they had been trying to hide from her; she was 
 to lose her dear father soon. 
 
 - After she had made this dreadful certainty clear to her own 
 mind and discovered that it was in vain to beg her attendants to 
 carry her to her dying father, she left off listening to the cour- 
 tiers below and began looking at the sistrum which Bart j a 
 himself had put into her hand, and which site had brought onto 
 the balcony with her, as if seeking comfort there. And she 
 found what she sought ; for it seemed to her as if the sound of 
 its sacred rings bore her away into a smiling, sunny landscape. 
 
 The faintness which often comes over people in decline had 
 seized her and was sweetening her last hours with pleasant 
 dreams. 
 
 The female slaves, who stood round to fan away the flies, said 
 afterward that Tachot had never looked so lovely. 
 
 She had lain about an hour in this state when her breath- 
 ing became more difficult, a slight cough made her breast heave, 
 and the bright red blood trickled down from her lips onto her 
 
 years. There is said, however, to have been an inscriptibn on the 
 treasury of Rameses the Great (Osymandyas) to the effect that the 
 gold and silver mines of Egypt yielded a yearly revenue of thirty-two 
 million minae, or ninety million pounds sterling. "Diod.," i, 49. Ac- 
 cording to the same historian (i, 62) the treasury of Rhampsinit con- 
 tained four million talents, which, reckoning as before in Egyptian 
 talents, would give four hundred and fifty million pounds sterling. By 
 a fortunate chance a representation of this rich king's treasure-house, 
 so celebrated through the before-mentioned tale, has come down to us. 
 It is in the temple of Medinet Haboo and has been published by Dii- 
 michen, in his "Historischen Inschriften Altagyptischer Denkmaler," 
 taf. xxx, and following. The mass of treasure represented is really 
 enormous in gold, silver, copper ond even Arabian spices. The pre- 
 vious metals are stored in sacks, vases and heaps; the baser in bars,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 411 
 
 white robe. She awoke, and looked surprised and disappointed 
 on seeing the faces round her. The sight of her mother, how- 
 ever, who came onto the veranda at that moment, brought a 
 smile to her face, and she said: "Oh, mother, I have had such 
 a beautiful dream." 
 
 ''Then our visit to the temple has done my dear child good?" 
 Basked the queen, trembling at the sight of blood on the sick 
 girl's lips. 
 
 "Oh, yes, mother, so much ! for I saw him again." 
 
 Ladice's glance at the attendants seemed to ask: "Has your 
 poor mistress lost her senses?" Tachot understood the look 
 and said, evidently -speaking with great difficulty: ''You think 
 I am wandering, mother. No, indeed, I really saw and spoke 
 to him. He gave me my sistrum again, and said he was my 
 friend and then he took my lotus bud and vanished. Don't 
 look so distressed and surprised, mother. What I say is really 
 true; it is no dream. There, you hear, Teutrut saw him, too. 
 He must have come to Sais for my sake and so the child oracle 
 in the temple court did not deceive me, after all. And now I 
 don't feel anything more of my illness; I dreamed 1 was lying- 
 in a field of blooming poppies, as red as the blood of the young 
 lambs that are offered in sacrifice ; Bartja was sitting by my side, 
 and Xitetis was kneeling close to us and playing wonderful 
 songs on a nabla,* made of ivory. And there was such a lovely 
 sound in the air that I felt as if Horus, the beautiful god of 
 morning, spring and the resurrection, was kissing me. Yes, 
 mother, I tell you he is coming soon, and when I am well, then 
 then ah, mother, what is this? I am dying!" 
 
 Ladice knelt down by her child's bed and pressed her lips in 
 burning kisses on the girl's eyes as they grew dim in death. 
 
 An hour later she was standing by another bedside her dying 
 husband's. 
 
 Severe suffering had disfigured the king's features, the cold 
 perspiration was standing on his forehead, and his hands grasped 
 the golden lionsf on the arms of the deep-seated invalid chair in 
 which he was resting, almost convulsively. 
 
 When Ladice came inl he opened his eyes; they were as keen 
 and intelligent as if he had never lost his sight. 
 
 *An ancient Egyptian stringed instrument. 
 
 tFrom Wilkinson and Rosellini. See, also, note p. 77,
 
 412 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Why do you not bring Tachot to me?" he asked, "in a dry 
 voice. 
 
 "She is too ill, and suffers so much that 
 
 "She is dead! Then it is well with her, for death is not pun- 
 ishment; it is the end and aim of life the only end that we can 
 attain without effort, but through sufferings! the gods alone 
 know how great. Osiris has taken her to himself, for she was 
 innocent. And Nitetis is dead, too. Where is Nebenchari's 
 letter? Here is the place: 'She took her own life, and died 
 calling down a heavy curse on thee and thine. The poor, 
 exiled, scorned and plundered oculist, Nebenchari, in Babylon, 
 sends thee this intelligence to Egypt. It is as true as his own 
 hatred of thee.' Listen to these words, Psamtik, and remem- 
 ber how, on his dying-bed, thy father told thee that for every 
 dram of pleasure purchased on earth by wrong-doing, the dy- 
 ing-bed will be burdened by a talent's weight of remorse. 
 Fearful misery is coming on Egypt for Nitetis' sake. Cambyses 
 is preparing to make war on us. He will sweep down on Egypt 
 like a scorching wind from the desert. Much which I have 
 staked my nightly sleep and the very marrow of my existence 
 to bring into existence will be annihilated. Still I have not 
 lived in vain. For forty years I have been the careful father 
 and benefactor of a great nation. Children and children's chil- 
 dren will speak of Amasis as a great, wise and humane king; 
 they will read my name on the great works which I have built 
 in vSais and Thebes and will praise the greatness of my power. 
 Neither shall I be condemned by Osiris and the forty-two 
 judges of the nether world ; the goddess of truth, who holds the 
 balances,* will find that my good deeds outweigh my bad." 
 Here the king sighed deeply and remained silent for some 
 time. Then, looking tenderly at his wife, he said: "Ladice, 
 thou hast been a faithful, virtuous wife to me. For this I thank 
 thee and ask thy forgiveness for much. We have often misun- 
 derstood one another. Indeed, it was easier for me to accustorn 
 myself to the Greek modes of thought than for a Greek to 
 understand our Egyptian ideas. Thou know'st my love of 
 
 *The goddess of truth was called the "mistress of the balances," be- 
 cause she weighed the souls of the dead in the lower world. This can 
 be seen in the books of the dead, in nearly all of which the weighing 
 Of the soul is represented in the largest vignette,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 413 
 
 Greek art thou know'st how I enjoyed the society of thy friend 
 Pythagoras, who was thoroughly initiated in all that we' believe 
 and know, and adopted much from us. He comprehended the 
 deep wisdom which lies in the doctrines that I reverence most, 
 and he took care not to speak lightly of truths which our priests 
 are perhaps too careful to hide from the people; for though the 
 many bow down before that which they cannot understand, 
 they would be" raised and upheld by those very truths, if ex- 
 plained to them. To a Greek mind our worship of animals 
 presents the greatest difficulty, but to my own the worship of 
 the Creator in his creatures seems more just and more worthy 
 of a human being than the worship of his likeness in stone. 
 The Greek deities are, moreover, subject to every human in- 
 firmity ; indeed, I should have made my queen very unhappy by 
 living in the same manner as her great God Zeus." 
 
 At these words the king smiled, and then went on: "And 
 what has given rise to this? The Hellenic love of beauty in 
 form, which, in the eye of a Greek, is superior to everything 
 else. He cannot separate the body from the soul, because he 
 holds it to be the most glorious of formed things, and, indeed, 
 believes that a beautiful spirit must necessarily inhabit a beauti- 
 ful body. Their gods, therefore, are only elevated human 
 beings, but we adore an unseen power working in nature and in 
 ourselves. The animal takes its place between ourselves and 
 nature; its actions are guided, not, like our own, by the letter, 
 but by the eternal laws of nature,* which owe their origin to the 
 deity, while the letter is a device of man's own mind. And 
 then, too, where among ourselves do we find so earnest a long- 
 ing and endeavor to gain freedom, the highest good, as among 
 animals? Where such a regular and well-balanced life from 
 generation to generation, without instruction or precept?" 
 
 Here the king's voice failed. He was obliged to pause for a 
 few moments, and then continued: "I know that my end is 
 near; therefore, enough of these matters. My son and suc- 
 cessor, hear my last wishes and act upon them; they are the 
 result of experience. - But, alas! how often have I seen that 
 rules of life given by one man to another are useless. Every 
 man must earn his own experience. His own losses make him 
 prudent, his own learning wise. Thou, my son, art coming to 
 
 *From Anacharsis in "Diodorus."
 
 414 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the throne at a mature age; thou hast had time and opportunity 
 to judge between right and wrong, to note what is beneficial and 
 what hurtful; to see and compare many things. I give thee, 
 therefore, only a few wholesome counsels, and only fear that, 
 though I offer them with my right hand, thou wilt accept them 
 with the left. 
 
 "First, however, I must say that, notwithstanding my blind- 
 ness, my indifference to what has been going on during the past 
 months has been only apparent. I left you to your own devices 
 with a good intention. Rhodopis told me once one of her 
 teacher Aesop's fables: 'A traveler, meeting a man on his road, 
 asked him how long it would be before he reached the nearest 
 town. "Go on, go on," cried the other. "But I want to know 
 first when I shall get to the town." "Go on, only go on," was 
 the answer. The traveler left him with angry words and abuse ; 
 but he had not gone many steps when the man called after 
 him : "You will be there in an hour. I could not answer your 
 question until I had seen your pace." ' 
 
 "I bore this fable in mind for my son's sake and watched in 
 silence at what pace he was ruling his people. Now I have dis- 
 covered what I wish to know, and this is my advice: Examine 
 into everything yourself. It is the duty of every man, but es- 
 pecially of a king, to acquaint himself intimately with all that 
 concerns the weal or woe of his people. You, my son, are in 
 the habit of using the eyes and ears of other men instead of 
 going to the fountain-head yourself. I am sure that your ad- 
 visers, the priests, only desire what is good ; but Neithotep, I 
 must beg you to leave us alone for a few moments." 
 
 When the priest was gone the king exclaimed: "They wish 
 for what is good, but good only for themselves. But we are 
 not kings of priests and aristocrats only, we are kings of a na- 
 tion. Do not listen to the advice of this proud caste alone, but 
 read every petition yourself, and by appointing Nomarchs de- 
 voted to the king and beloved by the people make yourself ac- 
 quainted with the needs and wishes of the Egyptian nation. It 
 is not difficult to govern well if you are aware of the state of 
 feeling in your land. Choose fit men to fill the offices of state. 
 I have taken care that the kingdom shall be properly divided. 
 The laws are good, and have proved themselves so; hold fast 
 by these laws, and trust no one who sets himself above them,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 415 
 
 for the law is invariably wiser than the individual man and its 
 transgressor deserves his punishment. The people understand 
 this well and are ready to sacrifice themselves for us when they 
 see that we are ready to give up our own will to the law. You do 
 not care for the people. I know their voice is often rude and 
 rough, but it utters wholesome truths, and no one needs to hear 
 truth more than a king. The Pharaoh who chooses priests and 
 courtiers for his advisers will hear plenty of flattering words, 
 while he who tries to fulfill the wishes of the nation will have 
 much to suffer from those around him ; but the latter will feel 
 peace in his own heart and be praised in the ages to come. I 
 have often erred, yet the Egyptians will weep for me as one 
 who knew their needs and considered their welfare like a father. 
 A king who really knows his duties finds it an easy and beautiful 
 task to win the love of the people an unthankful one to gain 
 the applause of the great almost an impossibility to content 
 both. 
 
 "Do not forget I say it again that kings and priests exist 
 for the people, and not the people for their kings and priests. 
 Honor religion for its own sake and as the most important 
 means of securing the obedience of the governed to. their 
 governors; but at the same time show its promulgators that 
 you look on them not as receptacles but as servants of the 
 deity. Hold fast as the law commands by what is old; but 
 never shut the gates of your kingdom against what is new if 
 better. Bad men break at once with the old traditions; fools 
 only care for what is new and fresh ; the narrow-minded and the 
 selfish privileged class cling indiscriminately to all that is old 
 an<i pronounce progress to be a sin; but the wise endeavor to 
 retain all that has approved itself in the past, to remove all that 
 has become defective, and to adopt whatever is good, from 
 whatever source it may have sprung. Act thus, my son. The 
 priests will try to keep you back the Greeks to urge you 
 forward. Choose one party or the other, but beware of inde- 
 cision of yielding to the one to-day, to the other to-morrow. 
 Between two stools a man falls to the ground. Let the one 
 party be your friends, the other your enemies; by trying to 
 please both you will have both opposed to you. Human beings 
 hate the man who shows kindness to their enemies. In the last 
 few months, during which you have ruled independently, both 
 parties have been offended by your miserable indecision. The
 
 416 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 man who runs backward and forward like a child makes no 
 progress and is soon weary. I have till now till I felt that 
 death was near always encouraged the Greeks and opposed 
 the priests. In the active business of life, the clever, brave 
 Greeks seemed to me especially serviceable; at death, I want 
 men who can make me out a pass into the nether regions. The 
 gods forgive me for not being able to resist words that sound 
 so like a joke, even in my last hour! They created me and 
 must take me as I am. I rubbed my hands for joy when I be- 
 came king; with thee, my son, coming to the throne is a graver 
 matter. Now call Niethotep back; I have still something to 
 say to you both." 
 
 The king gave his hand to the high-priest as he entered, say- 
 ing: "I leave you, Neithotep, without ill-will, though my opin- 
 ion that you have been a better priest than a servant of your 
 king remains unaltered. Psamtik will probably prove a more 
 obedient follower than I have been, but one thing I wish to 
 impress earnestly on you both : Do not dismiss the Greek mer- 
 cenaries until the war with the Persians is over, and has ended 
 we will hope in victory for Egypt. My former predictions 
 are not worth anything now; when death draws near we get 
 depressed and things begin to look a little black. Without the 
 auxiliary troops we shall be hopelessly lost, but with them vie - 
 tory is not impossible. Be clever; show the lonians that they 
 are fighting on the Nile for the freedom of their own country 
 that Cambyses, if victorious, will not be contented with Egypt 
 alone, while his defeat may bring freedom to their own enslaved 
 countrymen in Ionia. I know you agree with me, Neithotep, 
 for in your heart you mean well to Egypt. Now read me the 
 prayers. I feel exhausted; my end must be very near. If I 
 could only forget that poor Nitetis! had she the right to curse 
 us? May the judges of the dead may Osiris have mercy 
 on our souls! Sit down by me, Ladice; lay thy hand on- my 
 burning forehead. And Psamtik, in presence of these witnesses, 
 swear to honor and respect thy step-mother, as if thou wert 
 her own child. My poor wife! Come and seek me soon before 
 the throne of Osiris. A widow and childless, what hast thou 
 to do with this world? We brought up Nitetis as our own 
 daughter, and yet we are so heavily punished for her sake. 
 But her curse rests on us and only on us; not on thee.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 417 
 
 Psamtik, nor on thy children. Bring my grandson. Was that 
 a. tear? perhaps; well, the little things to which one has accus- 
 tomed one's self are generally the hardest to give up." 
 
 Rhodopis entertained a fresh guest that evening Kallias, the 
 son of Phaenippus,* the same who first appeared in our tale 
 as the bearer of news from the Olympic games. 
 
 The lively, cheerful Athenian had just come back from his 
 native country, and, as an old and tried friend, was not only 
 received by Rhodopis, but made acquainted with the secret of 
 Sappho's marriage. 
 
 Knakias, her old slave, had, it is true, taken in the flag, which 
 was the sign of reception, two days ago, but he knew that 
 Kallias was always welcome to his mistress, and, therefore, ad- 
 mitted him just as readily as he refused everyone else. 
 
 The Athenian had plenty to tell, and, when Rhodopis was 
 called away on business, he took his favorite Sappho into the 
 garden, joking and teasing her gayly as they looked out for her 
 lover's coming. But Bartja did not come, and Sappho began 
 to be so anxious that Kallias called old Melitta, whose longing 
 looks in the direction of Naukratis were, if possible, more anx- 
 ious even than those of her mistress, and told her to fetch a 
 musical instrument which he had brought with him. 
 
 It was a rather large lute, made of gold and ivory, and, as 
 he handed it to Sappho, he said, with a smile: "The inventor 
 of this glorious instrument, the divine Anacreon, had it made 
 expressly for me, at my own wish. He calls it a barbiton,f and 
 brings wonderful tones from its chords tones that must echo 
 on even into the land of shadows.^ I have told this poet, who 
 offers his life as one great sacrifice to the muses, Eros and 
 
 *See notes pp. 35, 38. 
 
 tBarbitos and barbiton ( /3dp6irog and pdpdirov). A stringed in- 
 strument in use among the Greeks larger than the ordinary lyre 
 ("Jul. Poll.," iv, 59) and which seems, as Anthony Rich appropriately 
 says, to have borne the same relation to the usual lute that the violon- 
 cello does to the violin. Anacreon accompanied his songs on this in- 
 strument, and is said to have invented it (?). 
 
 JSee note p. 20 and "Athen.," iv, p. 175.
 
 418 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Dionysus,* a great deal about you, and he made me promise to 
 bring you this song, which he wrote on purpose for you, as a 
 gift from himself. Now, listen : 
 
 " 'The Phrygian rock that braves the storm 
 Was once a weeping matron's form; 
 And Prokne, hapless, frantic maid, 
 Is now a swallow in the shade. 
 
 " 'Oh! that a mirror's form were mine 
 To sparkle with that smile divine; 
 And like my heart I then should be 
 Reflecting thee, and only thee! 
 
 " 'Or were I, love, the robe which flows 
 O'er every charm which secret glows, 
 In many a lucid fold to swim, 
 And cling and grow to very limb! 
 
 " 'Oh! could I, as the streamlet's wave, 
 Thy warmly mellowing beauties lave, 
 Or float as perfume on thine hair, 
 And breathe my soul in fragrance there! 
 
 " 'I wish I were the zone that lies 
 
 Warm to thy breast and feels its sighs! 
 Or like those envious pearls that show 
 So faintly on that neck of snow; 
 Yes, I would be a happy gem, 
 Like them to hang, to fade like them. 
 
 " 'What more would thy Anacreon be? 
 O! anything that touches thee. 
 Nay, sandals for those airy feet 
 Thus to be pressed by thee were sweet.' 
 
 Translated by Moore. 
 
 "Are you angry with the poet for his presumption?" 
 "How could I be? Poets must always be allowed a certain 
 freedom." 
 
 *See Antipater of Sidon. "Epigram on Anacreon," Griech. "Blu 
 menlese," iii, 52, and also the following translation by Moore: 
 
 "To beauty's smile and wine's delight, 
 
 To joys he loved on earth so well, 
 Still shall his spirit all the night 
 Attune the wild aerial shell."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 419 
 
 "And, especially, such a poet!" 
 
 "Who chooses such a master in the art of song as bearer of 
 his verses." 
 
 "You little flatterer! Well, when I was twenty years younger, 
 they had some right to praise my voice and style of singing; 
 but now 
 
 "Now you're trying to get some more praise; you shall not 
 succeed in extorting another word. But I should like to know 
 whether this barbiton, as you say it is called, with its soft tones, 
 would do as accompaniment for other songs besides Ana- 
 creon's?" 
 
 "Of course. Take the plectrum* and try its chords your- 
 self; though I. fear your delicate ringers will find them a little 
 unmanageable." 
 
 "I cannot sing. I feel too anxious at Bartja's remaining so 
 long away." 
 
 "Or, in other words, longing for him has taken away your 
 voice. There is a song by your Lesbian aunt, the great Sappho, 
 which just describes the state of mind you are probably in at this 
 moment. Do you know it?" 
 
 "No, I think" not." 
 
 "Then listen. It used to be the song I liked best to show off 
 ito. One would think Eros himself, and not a woman, had 
 written it: 
 
 " 'Blest as the immortal gods is he 
 The youth who fondly sits by thee, 
 And hears and sees thee all the while 
 Softly speak and sweetly smile. 
 
 " ' 'Twas that deprived my soul of rest 
 And raised such tumults in my breast; 
 For while I gazed, in transport toss'd, 
 My breath was gone, my voice was lost. 
 
 " 'My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame 
 Ran quick through all my vital frame; 
 On my dim eyes a darkness hung 
 My ears with hollow murmurs rung. 
 
 *A little ivory stick which was used in playing on the stringed in- 
 struments.
 
 420 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 " 'With dewy damp my limbs were chill'd; 
 My blood with gentle horrors thrilled; 
 My feeble pulse forgot to play; 
 I fainted, sank and died away.'* 
 
 "Now, what do you say to this song? But, by Hercules, 
 child, how pale you are! Have the verses affected you so much, 
 or are you frightened at this likeness of your own longing heart? 
 Calm yourself, girl. Who knows what may have happened to 
 keep your lover?" 
 
 "Nothing has happened nothing," cried a gay, manly voice, 
 and in a few seconds Sappho was in the arms of him she loved. 
 
 Kallias looked on quietly, smiling at the wonderful beauty 
 of these two young lovers. 
 
 "But now," said the prince, after Sappho had made him 
 acquainted with Kallias, "I must go at once to your grand- 
 mother. We dare not wait four days for our wedding. It must 
 be to-day! There is danger in every hour of delay. Is Theo- 
 pompus here?" 
 
 "I think he must be," said Sappho. "I know of nothing else 
 that could keep my grandmother so long in the house. But 
 tell me, what is this about our marriage? It seems to me 
 
 "Let us go in first, love. I fancy a thunderstorm must be 
 coming on. The sky is so dark, and it's so intolerably sultry." 
 
 "As you like, only make haste, unless you mean me to die 
 of impatience. There is not the slightest reason to be afraid 
 of a storm. Since I was a child there has not been either light- 
 ning or thunder in Egypt at this time of the year."f 
 
 "Then you will see something new to-day," said Kallias, laugh- 
 ing; "for a large drop of rain has just fallen on my bald head 
 the Nile swallows were flying close to the water as I came here, 
 and you see there is a cloud coming over the moon already. 
 Come in quickly or you will get wet. Ho, slave, see that a black 
 lamb is offered to the gods of the lower world.":): 
 
 *This song is the second of the only two odes of Sappho which have 
 reached us entire. It was preserved by Longinus and imitated in Lat- 
 in by Catullus. The English version is by Ambrose Phillips. 
 
 {Thunderstorms do occur in Egypt, though very rarely. One hap- 
 pened when Lepsius was there. "Briefe aus Aegypten," p. 26. That 
 rain had fallen in Upper Egypt at the date of our tale is related by 
 "Herodotus" (iii, 10) as a miracle. 
 
 JWhen a thunderstorm threatened the Greeks were accustomed to
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 421 
 
 They found Theopompus sitting in Rhodopis' own apart- 
 ments, as Sappho had supposed. He had finished telling her the 
 story of Zopyrus' arrest and of the journey which Bartja and 
 his friends had taken on his behalf. 
 
 Their anxiety on the matter was beginning to be so serious 
 tfhat Bartja's unexpected appearance was a great relief. His 
 words flew as he repeated the events of the last few hours and 
 begged Theopompus to look out, at once, for a ship in sailing 
 order, to convey himself and his friends from Egypt." 
 
 "That suits famously," exclaimed Kallias. "My own trireme 
 brought me to Naukratis to-day; it is lying now, fully 
 equipped for sea, in the port, and is quite at your service. I 
 have only to send orders to the steersman to keep the crew 
 together and everything in sailing orders. You are under no 
 obligations to me; on the contrary it is I who have to thank 
 you for the honor you will confer on me. Ho, Knakias tell 
 my slave, Philomelus, he's waiting in the hall to take a boat 
 to the port and order my steersman, Nausarchus, to keep the 
 ship in readiness for starting. Give him this seal ; it empowers 
 him to do all that is necessary." 
 
 "And my slaves?" said Bartja. 
 
 "Knakias can tell my old steward to take them to Kallias' 
 ship," answered Theopompus. 
 
 "And when they see this," said Bartja, giving the old servant 
 his ring, "they will obey without a question." 
 
 Knakias went away with many a deep obeisance, and the 
 prince went on: "Now, my mother, I have a great petition to 
 ask of you." 
 
 "I guess what it is," said Rhodopis, with a smile. "You wish 
 your marriage to be hastened, and I see that I dare not oppose 
 your wish." 
 
 "If I'm not mistaken," said Kallias, "we have a remarkable 
 case here. Two people are in great peril and find that very peril 
 a matter of rejoicing." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right there," said Bartja, pressing Sappho's 
 
 offer a black lamb to the storms, who were reckoned among the divin- 
 ities of the lower regions. In the "Frogs of Aristophanes," when Aes- 
 chylus is beginning a frightfully violent attack on Euripides Dio- 
 nysus calls out: "Slaves, bring a limb, a black lamb; a fearful storm 
 is coming!" "Frogs of Aristophanes," 853.
 
 422 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 hand unperceived. And then, turning to Rhodopis again, he- 
 begged her to delay no longer in trusting her dearest treasure 
 to his care a treasure whose worth he knew so well. 
 
 Rhodopis rose, she laid her right hand on Sappho's head 
 and her left on Bartja's, and said: "There is a myth which tells 
 of a blue lake in the land of roses; its waves are sometimes 
 calm and gentle, but at others they rise into a stormy flood; 
 the taste of its waters is partly sweet as honey, partly bitter as 
 gall. . Ye will learn the meaning of this legend in the marriage 
 land of roses. Ye will pass calm and stormy sweet and bitter 
 hours there. So long as thou wert a child, Sappho, thy life 
 passed on like a cloudless spring morning, but when thou 
 becam'st a maiden, and hadst learned to love, thine heart was 
 opened to admit pain; and during the long months of separa- 
 tion pain was a frequent guest there. This guest will seek ad- 
 mission as long as life lasts. Bartja, it will be your duty to 
 keep this intruder away from Sappho, as far as it lies in your 
 power. I know the world. I could perceive even betore 
 Croesus told me of your generous nature that you were wor- 
 thy of my Sappho. This justified me in allowing you to eat 
 the quince* with her; this induces me now to intrust to you, 
 without fear, what I have always looked upon as a sacred pledge 
 committed to my keeping. Look upon her, too, only as a loan. 
 Nothing is more dangerous to love than a comfortable assurance 
 of exclusive possession. I have been blamed for allowing such 
 an inexperienced child to go forth into your distant country, 
 where custom is so unfavorable to women, but I know what 
 Jove is I know that a girl who loves knows no home but the 
 heart of her husband the woman whose heart has been touched 
 by Eros no misfortune but that of separation from him whom 
 she has chosen. And besides, I would ask you, Kallias and 
 Theopompus, is the position of your own wives so superior to 
 that of the Persian women? Are not the women of Ionia and 
 Attica forced to pass their lives in their own apartments, thank- 
 ful if they are allowed to cross the street accompanied by sus- 
 picious and distrustful slaves? As to the custom which prevails 
 in Persia of taking many wives, I have no fear either for Bartja 
 or Sappho. He will be more faithful to his wife than are many 
 Greeks, for he will find in her what you are obliged to seek, 
 on the one hand in marriage, on the other in the houses of the 
 
 *See note p. 399,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 423 
 
 cultivated Hetaere* in the former, housewives and mothers, 
 in the latter, animated and enlivening intellectual society. Take 
 her, my son. I give her to you as an old warrior gives his 
 sword, his best possession, to his stalwart son he gives it glad- 
 ly and with confidence. Whithersoever she may go she will 
 always remain a Greek, and it comforts me to think that in her 
 new home she will bring honor to the Greek name and friends 
 to our nation. Child, I thank thee for those tears. I can com- 
 mand my own, but fate has made me pay an immeasurable price 
 for the power of doing so. The gods have heard your oath, 
 my noble Bartja. Never forget it, but take her as your own 
 your friend your wife. Take her away as soon as your friends 
 return ; it is not the will of the gods that the 'Hymenaeus' should 
 be sung at Sappho's nuptial rites."f 
 
 As she said these words she laid Sappho's hand in Bartja's, 
 embraced her with passionate tenderness, and breathed a light 
 kiss on the forehead of the young Persian. Then, turning to 
 her Greek friends, who stood by, much affected: 
 
 "That was a quiet nuptial ceremony," she said; "no songs, 
 no torchlight! May their union be so much the happier. Me- 
 litta, bring the bride's marriage ornaments, the bracelets and 
 necklaces which lie in the bronze casket on my dressing-table, 
 that our darling may give her hand to her lord attired as be- 
 seems a future princess."^: 
 
 "Yes, and do not linger on the way," cried Kallias, whose 
 old cheerfulness had now returned. "Neither can we allow the 
 
 *See note p. 7. 
 
 tThe "Hymenaeus" was the wedding-song, so called because of its 
 refrain "Hymen, O! Hymenaei, O!" The god of marriage, Hymen, 
 took his origin and name from the hymn, was afterward decked out 
 richly with myths, and finally, according to Catullus, received a seat 
 on Mount Helikon with the muses. Kochly ("Sappho," p. 195) thinks 
 that these Hymenaei may be called a kind of lyric drama, as they were 
 composed of different portions like the acts of a play, in which the 
 characteristic parts of the marriage ceremony were described in song 
 and accompanied by appropriate action. 
 
 |A Greek bride was beautifully adorned for her marriage, and her 
 bridemaids received holiday garments. Homer, "Odyss.," vi, 27. Be- 
 sides which, after the bath, which both bride and bridegroom were 
 obliged to take, she was annotated with sweet-smelling essences. 
 "Thucyd.," ii, 15. Xenoph., "Symp.." ii. 3, Bottiger, "Aldobr. Hoch- 
 zeit," p. 42.
 
 424 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 niece of the greatest of Hymen's poets* to be married without 
 the sound of song and music. The young husband's house is, 
 to be sure, too far off for our purpose, so we will suppose that 
 the andronitis is his dwelling. We will conduct the maiden 
 thither by the center door, and there we will enjoy a merry wed- 
 ding-feast by the family hearth. Here, slave-girls, come and 
 form yourselves into two choruses. Half of your number take 
 the part of the youths ; the other half, that of the maidens, and 
 sing us Sappho's 'Hymenaeus.' I will be the torch-bearer ;f 
 that dignity is mine by right. You must know, Bartja, that 
 my family has an hereditary right to carry the torches at the 
 Eleusinian mysteries and we are, therefore, called daduchi, or 
 torch-bea.rers4 Ho, slave ! see that the door of the andronitis 
 is hung with flowers, and tell your comrades to meet us with 
 a shower of sweetmeats as we enter. That's right, Melitta; why 
 how did you manage to get those lovely violet and myrtle mar- 
 riage-crowns made so quickly? The rain is streaming through 
 the opening above. You see, Hymen has persuaded Zeus to 
 help him; so that not a single marriage-rite shall be omitted. 
 You could not take the bath which ancient custom prescribes 
 for the bride and bridegroom on the morning of their wedding- 
 day, so you have only to stand here a moment and take the rain 
 of Zeus as an equivalent for the waters of the sacred spring. 
 Now, girls, begin your song. Let the maidens bewail the rosy 
 days of childhood and the youths praise the lot of those who 
 marry young." 
 
 Five well-practiced treble voices now began to sing the chorus 
 of virgins in a sad and plaintive tone: 
 
 "When in the garden's fenced and cultured ground, 
 Where browse no flocks, where plowshares never wound, 
 By sunbeams strengthen'd, nourished by the shower, 
 And sooth'd by zephyr, blooms the lovely flower; 
 Maids long to place it in their modest zone, 
 And youths enraptur'd wish it for their own. 
 
 *The Lesbian Sappho. 
 
 fThe mother of the bride lighted the torch. "Iphig. a. Aulis," 722. 
 The torch-bearer was probably intended to represent Hymen. "Ald- 
 obr. Hochzeit," p. 142. Becker, "Charikles," iii, p. 306. 
 
 tSee note p. 38. 
 
 A custom also in vogue at Rome. "Pchol. Aristoph." "Plutarch, 
 768. Becker, "Charikles" iii, p. 306. '
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 425 
 
 But from the stem once plucked, in dust it lies, 
 Nor youth nor maid will then desire a prize. ' 
 The virgin thus her blushing beauty rears, 
 Loved by her kindred and her young compeers; 
 But if her simple charm, her\naiden grace, 
 Is sullied by one spoiler's rude embrace, 
 Adoring youths no more her steps attend, 
 Nor loving maidens greet the maiden friend, 
 O, Hymen, hear! O, sacred Hymen, haste! 
 Come, god and guardian of the fond and chaste!" 
 
 And the second chorus returned answer in deeper voices and 
 jieerful tones: 
 
 "As in the naked field the vine's weak shoot 
 Nor lifts its languid stem nor glows with fruit; 
 But, by itself weighed down, it lonely strays 
 And on its roots its highest tendril lays. 
 The herdsman then, the passing binds, neglect 
 The lonely vine, nor cherish nor protect. 
 If by some happy chance its feeble boughs 
 Twined round the trunk shall make the elm a spouse; 
 No herdsman then, nor passing hinds, neglect 
 The wedded vine, but cherish and protect. 
 So is the fair beloved who binds her fate 
 In wedlock chaste to some accordant mate 
 She gives the joys that warm her husband's breast, 
 And doting parents by her bliss are blessed. 
 O, Hymen, hear! O, sacred Hymen, haste! 
 Come, god and guardian of the fond and chaste!"* 
 
 Then the two choruses joined in repeating the call on Hymen 
 again and again, in tones of mingled desire and exultation. 
 
 Suddenly the song was hushed, for a flash of lightning had 
 shone down through the aperture beneath which Kallias had 
 stationed the bride and bridegroom, followed by a loud peal of 
 thunder. "See!" cried the daduchus, raising his hand to heaven ; 
 "Zeus himself has taken the nuptial-torch, and sings the 'Hy- 
 menaeus' for his favorites." 
 
 At dawn the next morning Sappho and Bartja left the house 
 and went into the garden. After the violent storm which had 
 
 *0nly the first two verses of this song have come down to us as 
 Sappho wrote them ; for the latter part we are obliged to make use of 
 the imitation, by Catullus, which, however, judging by the original 
 verses which we do possess, may almost be called a translation, The 
 English version is by Lamb.
 
 426 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 raged all night the garden was looking as fresh and cheerful in 
 the morning light as the faces of the newly married pair. 
 
 Bartja's anxiety for his friends, whom he had almost forgot- 
 ten in the excitement of his marriage, had roused them so early. 
 
 The garden had been laid out on an artificial hill, and over- 
 looked the inundated plain beneath. On the smooth surface of 
 the water lay blue and white lotus-blossoms, and different kinds 
 of water-birds were swimming and flying round them or set- 
 tling a moment on the tops of the palm-trees, only to fly off 
 again, screaming and chattering, as soon as a gay sail appeared 
 in sight. The air had been cooled by the storm, a fresh north 
 wind was blowing, and, notwithstanding the early hour, there 
 were a number of boats sailing over the deluged fields before 
 the breeze. The songs of the rowers, the plashing strokes of 
 their oars and the cries of the birds, all contributed tone to 
 enliven the watery landscape of the Nile valley, which, though 
 varied in color, was somewhat monotonous. 
 
 Bartja and Sappho stood leaning on each other by the low 
 wall which -ran round Rhodopis' garden, exchanging tender 
 words and watching the scene below, till at last Bartja's quick 
 eye caught sight of a boat making straight for the house and 
 coming on fast by the help of the breeze and powerful rowers. 
 
 A few minutes later the boat put into shore and Zopyrus with 
 his deliverers stood before them. 
 
 Darius' plan had succeeded perfectly, thanks to the storm, 
 which by its violence and the unusual time of its appearance, 
 had scared the Egyptians; but still there was no time to be lost, 
 as it might reasonably be supposed that the men of Sais would 
 pursue their fugitive with all the means at their command. 
 
 Sappho, therefore, had to take a short farewell of her grand- 
 mother all the more tender, however, for its shortness and 
 then, led by Bartja and followed by old Melitta, who was to ac- 
 company her to Persia, she went on board Syloson's boat. After 
 an hour's sail they reached a beautifully built and fast-sailing 
 vessel, the Hygieia, which belonged to Kallias. 
 
 He was waiting for them on board his trireme. The leave- 
 taking between himself and his young friends was especially af- 
 fectionate. Bartja hung a heavy and costly gold chain round 
 the neck of the old man in token of his gratitude, while Syloson, 
 in remembrance of the dangers they had shared together, tnrcw
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 427 
 
 his purple cloak over Darius' shoulders. It was a master-speci- 
 men of Tyrian dye, and had taken the latter's fancy. Darius 
 accepted the gift with pleasure, and said, as he took his leave; 
 "You must never forget that 1 am indebted to you, my Greek 
 friend, and as soon as possible give me an opportunity of doing 
 you service in return." 
 
 "You ought to come to me first, though," exclaimed Zopyrus, 
 embracing his deliverer. "I am perfectly ready to share my 
 last gold piece with you ; or, what is more, if it would do you 
 service, to sit a whole week in that infernal hole from which 
 you saved me. Ah! they're weighing anchor. Farewell, you 
 brave Greek! Remember me to the flower-sisters, especially 
 to the pretty little Stephanion, and tell her her long-legged lover 
 won't be able to plague her again for some time to come at 
 3east. And then, one more thing take this purse of gold for 
 the wife and children of that impertinent fellow whom I struck 
 too hard in the heat of the fray." 
 
 The anchors fell rattling onto the deck, the wind filled the 
 sails, the trieraules* took his flute and set the measure of the 
 monotonous keleusma, or rowing song, which echoed again 
 from the hold of the vessel. f The beak of the ship bearing the 
 statue of Hygieia$ carved in wood began to move. Bartja and 
 Sappho stood at the helm and gazed toward Naukratis until the 
 shores of the Nile vanished and the green waves of the Hellenic 
 sea splashed their foam over the deck of the trireme. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Our young bride and bridegroom had not traveled farther 
 than Ephesus when the news reached them that Amasis was 
 dead. From Ephesus they went to Babylon and thence to 
 Pasargadae, which Kassandane, Atossa and Croesus had made 
 their temporary residence. Kassandane was to accompany the 
 army to Egypt, and wished, now that Nebenchari had restored 
 
 *Flute-player to a trireme. 
 
 tSee note p. 154. 
 
 IThe goddess of health.
 
 428 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 her sight, to see the monument which had lately been built to 
 her great husband's memory after Croesus' design before leav- 
 ing for so long a journey. She rejoiced in finding it worthy 
 of the great Cyrus, and spent hours every day in the beautiful 
 gardens which had been laid out round the mausoleum. 
 
 It consisted of a gigantic sarcophagus made of solid marbk 
 blocks and resting like a house on a substructure composed of 
 six high marble steps. The interior was fitted up like a room 
 and contained, besides the golden coffin in which were preserved 
 such few remains of Cyrus as had been spared by the dogs, vul- 
 tures and elements, a silver bed and a table of the same metal, on 
 which were golden drinking-cups and numerous garments or- 
 namented with the rarest and most costly jewels. 
 
 The building was forty feet high. The shady paradises* and 
 colonnades by which it w r as surrounded had been planned by 
 Croesus, and in the midst of the sacred grove was a dwelling 
 house for the Magi appointed to watch over the tomb. 
 
 The palace of Cyrus could be seen in the distance a palace in 
 which he had appointed that the future kings of Persia should 
 pass at least some months of every year. It was a splendid 
 building in the style of a fortress, and so inaccessibly placed that 
 it had been fixed on as the royal treasure-house. f 
 
 Here in the fresh mountain air of a place dedicated to the 
 memory of the husband she had loved so much, Kassandane 
 felt well and at peace ; she was glad, too, to see that Atossa was 
 recovering the old cheerfulness which she had so sadly lost 
 since the death of Nitetis and the departure of Darius. Sappho 
 soon became the friend of her new mother and sister, and all 
 three felt very loath to leave the lovely Pasargadae. 
 
 Darius and Zopyrus had remained with the army which was 
 assembling in the plains of the Euphrates, and Bartja, too, had 
 to return thither before the march began. 
 
 *Persian pleasure-gardens. 
 
 f'Strabo," 730, according to Aristobulus, Arrian, "Anab.," vi, "Cur- 
 tius,"x, 1. "Pliny," vi, 29. Kugler, "Geschichte der Baukunst," i. p. 99. 
 Schnaase, "Kunstgeschichte," i, 213. Rich., "Narrative of a Journey to 
 the Site of Babylon." Ritter, "Erdkunde," viii, p. 492. Neibur, "Rei- 
 sen," etc. This building, without question, suggests a connection 
 with the rules of architecture held by the Greeks. Herder and An- 
 quetil are also of the opinion that in the matter of architecture the 
 Persians borrowed more from the Greeks than from the Egyptians.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 42'J 
 
 Catnip ,es went out to meet his family on their return ; he 
 was much impressed vith Sappho's great beauty, but she con- 
 fessed to her husband that his brother only inspired her with 
 fear. 
 
 The king had altered very much in the last few months. His 
 formerly pale and almost noble features were reddened and dis- 
 figured by the quantities of wine he was in the habit of drinking. 
 In his dark eyes there was the old fire still, but dimmed and 
 polluted. His hair and beard, formerly so luxuriant and black 
 as the "raven's wing, hung down gray and disordered over his 
 face and chin, and the proud smile, which used so to improve his 
 features, had given way to an expression of contemptuous an- 
 noyance and harsh severity. 
 
 Sometimes he laughed loudly, immoderately and coarsely 
 but this was only when intoxicated, a condition which had long 
 ceased to be unusual with him. 
 
 He continued to retain an aversion to his wives; so much so 
 that the royal harem was to be left behind in Susa, though all 
 his court took their favorite wives and concubines with them on 
 the campaign. Still, no one could complain that the king was 
 ever guilty of injustice; indeed, he insisted more eagerly now 
 than before on the rigid execution of the law; and, wherever 
 he detected an abuse, his punishments were cruel and inexor- 
 able. Hearing that a judge, named Sisamnes, had been bribed 
 to pronounce an unjust sentence, he condemned the wretched 
 man to be flayed, ordered the seat of justice to be covered with 
 his skin, appointed the son to the father's vacant place and com- 
 pelled him to occupy this fearful seat.* Cambyses was untiring 
 as commander of the forces, and superintended the drilling of 
 the troops assembled near Babylon with the greatest rigor and 
 circumspection. 
 
 The hosts were to march after the festival of the new year,f 
 which Cambyses celebrated this time with immense expense 
 and profusion. The ceremony over, he betoo,- himself to the 
 army. Bartja was there. He came up to his brother, beaming 
 with joy, kissed the hem of his robe and told him, in a tone of 
 triumph, that he hoped to become a father. The king trembled 
 
 *"Herodot.," v, 25. 
 
 tin our month of March.
 
 430 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 as he heard the words, vouchsafed his brother no answer, drank 
 himself into unconsciousness that evening, and the next morn- 
 ing called the soothsayers, Magi and Chaklaeans together, in 
 order to submit a question to them. "Shall I be committing a 
 sin against the gods if I take my sister to wife and thus verify 
 the promise of the dream which ye formerly interpreted to mean 
 that Atossa should bear a future king to this realm?" 
 
 The Magi consulted a short time together. Then, Oropastes 
 cast himself at the king's feet and said : "We do not believe, O 
 king, that this marriage would be a sin against the gods; inas- 
 much as, first, it is a custom among the Pe'rsians to marry with 
 their own kin,* and, secondly, though it be not written in the 
 law that the pure man may marry his sister, it is written that 
 the king may do what seemeth good in his own eyes.f That 
 which pleaseth thee is, therefore, always lawful." 
 
 Cambyses sent the Magi away with rich gifts, gave Oropastes 
 full powers as regent of the kingdom in his absence, and soon 
 after told his horrified mother that, as soon as the conquest of 
 Egypt and the punishment of the son of Amasis should have 
 been achieved, he intended to marry his sister Atossa. 
 
 At length the immense host, numbering more than eight 
 hundred thousand fighting men, departed in separate divisions, 
 and reached the Syrian desert in two months. Here they were 
 met by the Arabian tribes whom Phanes had propitiated the 
 Amalekites and Geshurites bringing camels and horses laden 
 with water for the host. 
 
 At Accho, in the land of the Canaanites, the fleets of the Syr- 
 ians, Phoenicians and lonians belonging, to Persia, and the 
 auxiliary ships from Cyprus and Samos, won by the efforts of 
 Phanes, were assembled. The case of the Samian fleet was a 
 remarkable one. Polykrates saw in Cambyses' proposal a favor- 
 able opportunity of getting rid of all the citizens who were 
 discontented with his government, manned forty triremes with 
 eight thousand malcontent Samians, and sent them to the Per- 
 sians with tli*. request that not one might be allowed to return 
 home4 
 
 *Anquetil tells us that the modern Parsees still consider a marriage 
 between very near relations as especially advisable. 
 fAccording to "Herod.," iii, 31. 
 f'Herod.," iii., 44.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 431 
 
 As soon as Phanes heard this he warned the doomed men, 
 who at once, instead of sailing to join the Persian forces, re- 
 turned to Samos and attempted to overthrow Polykrates. They 
 were defeated, however, on land, and escaped to Sparta to ask 
 help against the tyrant. 
 
 A full month before the time of the inundation the Persian and 
 Egyptian armies were standing face to face near Pelusium, on 
 the northeast coast of the delta. 
 
 Phanes' arrangements had proved excellent. The Arabian 
 tribes had kept faith so well that the journey through the desert, 
 which would usually have cost thousands of lives, had been 
 attended with very little loss, and the time of year had been so 
 well chosen that the Persian troops reached Egypt by dry roads 
 and without inconvenience. 
 
 The king met his Greek friend with every mark of distinction, 
 and returned a friendly nod when Phanes said: "I hear that 
 you have been less cheerful than usual since the death of your 
 beautiful bride. A woman's grief passes in stormy and violent 
 complaint, but the sterner character of a man cannot so soon be 
 comforted. I know what you feel, for I have lost my dearest, 
 too. Let us both praise the gods for granting us the best remedy 
 for our grief war and revenge." 
 
 Phanes accompanied the king to an inspection of the troops 
 and to the evening revel. It was marvelous to see the influence 
 he exercised over this fierce spirit, and how calm nay, even 
 cheerful Cambyses became, when the Athenian was near. 
 
 The Egyptian army was by no means contemptible, even 
 when compared with the immense Persian hosts. Its position 
 was covered on the right by the walls of Pelusium, a frontier 
 fortress designed by the Egyptian kings as a defense against 
 incursion from the east. The Persians were assured by desert- 
 ers that the Egyptian army numbered altogether nearly six hun- 
 dred thousand men. Besides a great number of chariots of war, 
 thirty thousand Karian and Ionian mercenaries, and the corps 
 of the Mazai,* two hundred and fifty thousand Kalasirians, one 
 hundred and sixty thousand Hermotybians, twenty thousand 
 horsemen,f and auxiliary troops, amounting to more than fifty 
 
 *A kind of police force partly composed of foreigners, who had to 
 guard prisoners of war and perform other similar duties. 
 
 tHerodotus informs us (ii, 64) that the entire Egyptian army con-
 
 432 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 thousand were assembled under Psamtik's banner; among these 
 last the Lybian maschawascha* were remarkable for their milv 
 tary deeds, and the Ethiopians for their numerical superiority. 
 The infantry were divided into regiments and companies 
 under different standards,! and variously equipped. The heavy- 
 armed soldiers carried large shields, lances and daggers; the 
 swordsmen^ and those who fought with battle-axes had smaller 
 shields and light clubs; besides these there were slingers, but 
 the main body of the army was composed of archers, whose 
 bows unbent were nearly the height of a man. The only cloth- 
 ing of the horse-soldiers was the apron, and their weapon a light 
 club in the form of a bill or battle-axe. Those warriors, on the 
 contrary, who fought in chariots, belonged to the highest rank 
 of the military caste, spent large sums on the decoration of their 
 
 sisted of two divisions Hermotybians and Kalasirians. A great 
 many conjectures have been made as to the signification of these two 
 words, some even by Herodotus himself. See S. Birch, "Lettre a M. 
 Letronne sur 1'Expression Hieroglyphique du mot Calasiris. Revue 
 ArchSol., 1847, p. 149. In Egyptian the Kalasirians are called Klaschr, 
 and are bowmen. The Hermotybians probably took their name 
 from the apron which they wore: Hemitybion ( ruLnrUiov), Aris- 
 totle "Plut.," 729. This was Egyptian, according to "Pollux," vii, 
 71. We find chariot-soldiers on almost all the ancient monuments, 
 sometimes wonderfully true to nature. See Rosellini, "Mon. Stor.," ii, 
 pi. 103, i, pi. 78. Lepsius, "Denkmaler," especially in "Abth.," iii. 
 The number of the Egyptian chariot-soldiers was known and praised 
 even by Homer ("II.," ix, 383), and though only one representation of 
 a warrior on horseback has been discovered on the Egyptian monu- 
 ments, their inscriptions and numerous statements made by other 
 nations prove that they made use of horse-soldiers also. Diodorus re- 
 ports that King Rameses led twenty-four thousand horsemen to war, 
 and Sesonchis (Sheshenk or Shishak) came up against Jerusalem with 
 three-score thousand. "II Chron.," xii, 3. "Isaiah," xxxvi, 9. Ac- 
 cording to Herodotus King Amasis was on horseback when a messen- 
 ger from Hophra came to him. 
 
 *Probably the maxyer of North Africa, spoken of by Herodotus. 
 
 tA number of drawings of such standards or military signs are tp be 
 found in "Wilkinson," i, 294, and Rosellini, "Mon. Civ.," 121. 
 
 Jin these and descriptions immediately following we have drawn 
 our information, either from the drawings made from Egyptian monu- 
 ments in Champollion, Wilkinson, Rosellini and Lepsius, or from the 
 monuments themselves. There is a dagger in the Berlin museum, the 
 blade of which is of bronze, the hilt of ivory and the sheath of leather. 
 Large swords are only to be seen in the hands of the foreign auxil - 
 iaries, but the native Egyptians are armed with smal' ones, like 
 daggers.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 433 
 
 two-wheeled chariots* and the harness of their magnificent 
 horses,f and went to battle in their most costly ornaments. 
 They were armed with bows and lances, and a charioteer stood 
 beside each, so that their undivided attention could be bestowed 
 upon the battle. 
 
 The Persian foot was not much more numerous than the 
 Egyptian, but they had six times the number of horse-soldiers. 
 
 As soon as the armies stood face to face Cambyses caused the 
 great Pelusian plain to be cleared of trees and brushwood, and 
 had the sand-hills removed which were to be found there, in 
 order to give his cavalry and scythe-chariots a fair field of ac- 
 tion. $ Phanes' knowledge of the country was of great use. 
 He had drawn up a plan of action with great military skill, and 
 succeeded in gaining not only Cambyses' approval, but that of 
 the old general, Megabyzus, and the best tacticians among the 
 Achaemenidae. His local knowledge was especially valuable on 
 account of the marshes which intersected the Pelusian plain, and 
 might, unless carefully avoided, have proved fatal to the Persian 
 enterprise. At the close of the council of war Phanes begged 
 to be heard once more: "Now, at length," he said, "I am at 
 liberty to satisfy your curiosity in reference to the closed wagons 
 full of animals which I have had transported thither. They con- 
 tain five thousand cats! Yes, you may laugh, but I tell you 
 these creatures will be more serviceable to us than a hundred 
 thousand of our best soldiers. Many of you are aware- that the 
 Egyptians have a superstition which leads them rather to die 
 than kill a cat. I, myself, nearly paid for such a murder once 
 with my life. Remembering this I have been making a diligent 
 search for cats during my late journey; in Cyprus where there 
 are splendid specimens, in Samos and in Crete. All I could get 
 I ordered to be caught, and now propose that they be distributed 
 among those troops who will be opposed to the native Egyptian 
 soldiers. Every man must be told to fasten one firmly to his 
 shield and hold it out as he advances toward the enemy 1 . I will 
 wager that there's not one real Egyptian who would not rather 
 
 *Rosellini gives drawings of especially beautiful war-chariots. 
 "Mon. Stor.," i, pi. 78. "Mon. Civ.," pi. 122. "Wilkinson," i, p. 346. 
 tSee note p. 17. 
 JSee the battle of Gaugamela. "Curtius," iv. "Arrian," lii, 11.
 
 434 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 fly from the battle-field than take aim at one of these sacred 
 animals."* 
 
 This speech, was met by a loud burst of laughter; on being 
 discussed, however, it was approved of, and ordered to be car- 
 ried out at once. The ingenious Greek was honored by receiv- 
 ing the king's hand to kiss, his expenses were reimbursed by a 
 magnificent present, and he was urged to take a daughter of 
 some noble Persian family in marriage. f The king concluded 
 by inviting him to supper, but this the Athenian declined, on the 
 plea that he must review the Ionian troops, with whom he was, 
 as yet, but little acquainted, and withdrew. 
 
 At the door of his tent he found his slaves disputing with a 
 ragged, dirty and unshaved old man, who insisted on speaking 
 with their master. Fancying he must be a beggar, Phanes threw 
 him a piece of gold ; the old man did not even stoop to pick it 
 up, but, holding the Athenian fast by his cloak, cried: "I am 
 Aristomachus, the Spartan!" 
 
 Cruelly as he was altered Phanes recognized his old friend at 
 once, ordered his feet to be washed and his head anointed, gave 
 him wine and meat to revive his strength, took his rags off 
 and laid a new chiton over his emaciated, but still sinewy, frame. 
 
 Aristomachus received all in silence; and when the food and 
 wine had given him strength to speak began the following an- 
 swer to Phanes' eager questions. 
 
 "On the murder of Phanes' son by Psamtik he had declared 
 his intention of leaving Egypt and inducing the troops under his 
 command to do the same, unless his friend's little daughter were 
 at once set free and a satisfactory explanation given for the sud- 
 den disappearance of the boy. Psamtik promised to consider 
 the matter. Two days later as Aristomachus was going up the 
 Nile by night to Memphis, he was seized by Egyptian soldiers, 
 bound and thrown into the dark hold of a boat, which, after a 
 voyage^of many days and nights, cast anchor on a totally .un- 
 known shore. The prisoners were taken out of their dungeon 
 and led across a desert under the burning sun, and past rocks of 
 strange forms, until they reached a range of mountains with a 
 
 *See note pp. 27-28. 
 
 tThemistocles, too, on coming to the Persian court, received a high- 
 born Persian wife" in marriage. "Diod., xi, 57.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 43J 
 
 colony of huts at its base. These huts were inhabited by human 
 beings, who, with chains on their feet, were driven every morn- 
 ing into the shaft of a mine and there compelled to hew grains 
 of gold out of stony rock.* Many of these miserable men had 
 passed forty years in this place, but most died soon, overcome 
 by the hard work and fearful extremes of heat and cold to which 
 they were exposed on entering and leaving the mine. 
 
 "My companions," continued Aristomachus, "were partly con- 
 demned murderers to whom mercy had been granted, men 
 guilty of high treason whose tongues had been cut out, and oth- 
 ers, such as myself, whom the king had reason to fear. Three 
 months I worked among this set, submitting to the strokes of 
 the overseer, fainting under the fearful heat, and stiffening under 
 the cold dews of night. I felt as if picked out for death, and 
 only kept alive by the hope of vengeance. It happened, how- 
 ever, by the mercy of the gods, that at the feast of Pacht, our 
 guards, as is the custom of the Egyptians, drank so freely as to 
 fall into a deep sleep, during which I and a young Jew, who has 
 been deprived of his right hand for having used false weights 
 in trade, managed to escape unperceived. Zeus Lacedaemonius 
 
 *"Diodorus" (iii, 12) describes the compulsory work in the gold 
 mines with great minuteness. The convicts were either prisoners 
 taken in war, or people whom despotism in its blind fury found it ex- 
 pedient to put out of the way. The mines lay in the plain of Koptos, 
 not far from the Red Sea. Traces of them have been discovered in 
 modern times. Interesting inscriptions of the time of Rameses the 
 Great (fourteen centuries B. C.) referring to the gold mines have been 
 found, one at Radesieh, the other at Kuban, and have been published 
 and deciphered in Europe. (Lepsius, "Denkm. Abth.," iii, 139-141.) 
 The Stela of Kuban, first edited by Prisse d' Avennes, "Mon. Egypte," 
 pi. 21, are treated by Birch, "Archaeologia," part 34. Also by Chabes 
 in his publication "Les Inscriptions des Mines d'or," Paris, 1862 
 accompanied by an exact photograph. The subject of both inscrip- 
 tions is the improvement of the road to the gold mines in the desert 
 between Kuban and the Red Sea by the introduction of drinking- 
 water. There is a ve*ry interesting papyrus in the Turin museum 
 connected with this subject, which has a map giving a most remark- 
 able outline of the mineral region spoken of in the two Stelae. Chabas 
 has a first-rate colored fac-simile of this. (It was published in Lep- 
 sius, "Auswahl von Urkunden des Aegyptischen Alterthums,".in 184-, 
 taf. 22. Rightly estimated by Birch and in Chabas' publication.) The 
 mountains containing gold are colored red and the words "tu en nub' 
 (gold mountain) written over them in the hieratic character. be< 
 Ebers, "Aegypten," p. 269 and following.
 
 436 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 and the great god whom this young man worshiped helped us 
 in our need, and, though we often heard the voices of our pur- 
 suers, they never succeeded in capturing us. I had taken a bow 
 from one of our guards; with this we obtained food, and when 
 no game was to be found we lived on roots, fruits and birds' 
 eggs. The sun and stars showed us our road. We knew that 
 the gold mines were not far from the Red Sea and lay to the 
 south of Memphis. It was not long before we reached the coast 
 and then, pressing onward in a northerly direction, fell in with 
 some friendly mariners, who took care of us until we were taken 
 up by an Arabian boat. The young Jew understood the lan- 
 guage spoken by the crew, and in their care we came to Ezion- 
 geber, in the land of Edom. There we heard that Cambyses 
 was coming with an immense army against Egypt, and traveled 
 as far as Harma under the protection of an Amalekite caravan 
 bringing water to the Persian army. From thence I \vent on to- 
 Pelusium in the company of some stragglers from the Asiatic 
 army, who now and then allowed me a seat on their horses, and 
 here I heard that you had accepted a high command in Cam- 
 byses' army. I have kept my vow, I have been true to my na- 
 tion in Egypt; now it is your turn to help old Aristomachus 
 in gaining the only thing he still cares for revenge on his per- 
 secutors." 
 
 "And that you shall have!" cried Phanes, grasping the old 
 man's hand. "You shall have the command of the heavy-armed 
 Milesian troops and liberty to commit what carnage you like 
 among the ranks of our enemies. This, however, is only paying 
 half the debt I owe you. Praised be the gods, who have put it 
 in my power to make you happy by one simple sentence. Know 
 then, Aristomachus, that only a few days after your disappear- 
 ance, a ship arrived in the harbor of Naukratis from Sparta. It 
 was guided by your own noble son and expressly sent by the 
 ephori* in your honor to bring the father of two Olympic 
 victors back to his native land." 
 
 The old man's limbs trembled visibly at these words, his eyes 
 filled with tears and he murmured a prayer. Then smiting on 
 his forehead, he cried in a voice trembling with feeling: "Now 
 it is fulfilled! now it has become a fact! If I doubted the words 
 
 *See note p. 45.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 437 
 
 of thy priestess, oh, Phoebus Apollo! pardon my sin! What 
 was the promise of the oracle? 
 
 " 'If once the warrior hosts from the snow-topped mountains de- 
 scending 
 
 Come to the fields of the stream watering richly the plain, 
 Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey thee 
 Which to the wandering foot peace and a home can afford. 
 When those warriors come, from the snow-topped mountains de- 
 scending, 
 Then will the powerful five grant thee what long they refused.' 
 
 "The promise of the god is fulfilled. Now I may return home 
 and I will; but first I raise my hands to Dikee, the unchanging 
 goddess of justice, and implore her not to deny me the pleasure 
 of revenge." 
 
 "The day of vengeance will dawn to-morrow," said Phanes, 
 joining in the old man's prayer. "To-morrow I shall slaughter 
 the victims for the dead for my son and will take no rest 
 until Cambyses has pierced the heart of Egypt with the arrows 
 which I have cut for him. Come, my friend, let me take you to 
 the king. One man like you can put a whole troop of Egyptians 
 to flight." 
 
 It was night. The Persian soldiers, their position being un- 
 fortified, were in order of battle, ready to meet any unexpected 
 attack. The foot-soldiers stood leaning on their shields, the 
 horsemen held their horses saddled and bridled near the camp- 
 fires. Cambyses was riding through the ranks, encouraging 
 his troops by words and looks.* Only one part of the army was 
 not yet ranged in order of battle the center. It was composed 
 of the Persian bodyguard, the apple-bearers, immortals and the 
 king's own relatives, who were always led into battle by the king 
 in person. 
 
 The Ionian Greeks, too, had gone to rest, at Phanes' com- 
 mand. He wanted to keep his men fresh, and allowed them to 
 sleep in their armor, while he kept watch. Aristomachus was 
 welcomed with shouts of joy by the Greeks, and kindly by Cam- 
 byses, who assigned him at the head of one-half the Greek 
 troops, a place to the left of the center of attack, while Phanes, 
 
 *Battle of Gangamela or Arbela. "Curtius," iv, 14; 12.
 
 438 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 with the other half, had his place at the right. The king himself 
 was to take the lead at the head of ten thousand immortals, pre- 
 ceded by the blue, red and gold imperial banner* and the stand- 
 ard of Kawe.f Bartja was to lead the regiment of mounted 
 guards numbering a thousand men, and that division of the cav- 
 alry which was entirely clothed in mail. 
 
 Croesus commanded a body of troops whose duty it was to 
 guard the camp with its immense treasures, the wives of Cam- 
 byses' nobles, and his own mother and sister. 
 
 At last Mithras appeared and shed his light upon the earth ; 
 the spirits of the night retired to their dens, and the Magi stirred 
 up the sacred fire which had been carried before the army the 
 whole way from Babylon, until it became a gigantic flame. 
 They and the king united in feeding it with costly perfumes; 
 Cambyses offered the sacrifice and, holding the while a golden 
 bowl high in the air, besought the gods to grant him victory 
 and glory. He then gave the pass-word, "Auramazda, the help- 
 er and guide," and placed himself at the head of his guards, who 
 went into the battle with wreaths on their tiaras. The Greeks 
 offered their own sacrifices, and shouted with delight on hearing 
 that the omens were auspicious. Their war-cry was "Hebe."! 
 
 Meanwhile, the Egyptian priests had begun their day, also, 
 with prayer and sacrifice, and then placed their army in order 
 of battle. 
 
 Psamtik, now king of Egypt, led the center. He was mount- 
 ed on a golden chariot; the trappings of his horses were of gold 
 and purple, and plumes of ostrich feathers nodded on their 
 proud heads. He wore the double crown of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt, and the charioteer who stood at his left hand holding the 
 reins and whip was descended from one of the noblest Egyptian 
 families. 
 
 "These are the colors of the imperial banner according to Firdusi. 
 
 tThis standard consisted of the leathern apron of a bold and in- 
 trepid smith, who, as related in the Persian legend, roused the nation 
 to rebellion against the malignant Zohaks, the scourges of the em- 
 pire, and helped Feridun to overthrow them. 
 
 JTaken from the various descriptions by the ancient writers of bat- 
 tles in which the Greeks and Persians fought together. "Hebe" was 
 the Greek pass-word at the battle of Mykale. "Herod.," ix 98. 
 
 The manner in which the kings behaved to their charioteers proves 
 that the latter must have belonged to the aristocracy. See the picture 
 of Rameses and his charioteer at Thebes. "Wilkinson," i, 338. We
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 439 
 
 The Hellenic and Karian mercenaries were to fight at the left 
 of the center, the horse at the extreme of each wing, and the 
 Egyptian and Ethiopian foot were stationed, six ranks deep, on 
 the right and left of the armed chariots and Greek mercenaries. 
 
 Psamtik drove through the ranks of his army, giving encour- 
 aging and friendly words to all the men. He drew up before 
 the Greek division, and addressed them thus: "Heroes of Cy- 
 prus and Libya! your deeds in arms are well known to me, and 
 I rejoice in the thought of sharing your glory to-day and crown- 
 ing you with fresh laurels. Ye have no need to fear that in the 
 day of victory I shall curtail your liberties. Malicious tongues 
 have whispered that this is all ye have to expect from me; but I 
 tell you that if we conquer fresh favors will be shown to you 
 and your descendants; I shall call you the supporters of my 
 throne. Ye are fighting to-day not for me alone, but for the 
 freedom of your own distant homes. It is easy to perceive that 
 Cambyses, once lord of Egypt, will stretch out his rapacious 
 hand over your beautiful Hellas and its islands. I need only to 
 remind you that they lie between Egypt and your Asiatic breth- 
 ren who are already groaning under the Persian yoke. Your 
 acclamations prove that ye agree with me already, but I must ask 
 for a still longer hearing. It is my duty to tell you who has sold, 
 not only Egypt, but his own country to the king of Persia in 
 return for immense treasures. The man's name is Phanes! You 
 are angry and inclined to doubt. I swear to you that this very 
 Phanes has accepted Cambyses' gold, and promised not only to 
 be his guide to Egypt, but to open the gates of your own Greek 
 cities to him. He knows the country and the people, and can 
 be bribed to every perfidy. Look at him ! there he is walking by 
 the side of the king. See how he bows before him! I thought 
 I had heard once that the Greeks only prostrated themselves be- 
 fore their gods. But of course when a man sells his country he 
 ceases to be a citizen. Am I not right? Ye scorn to call so base 
 a creature by the name of countryman? Yes? Then I will de- 
 liver the wretch's daughter into your hands. Do what ye will 
 
 possess, in addition to this, a papyrus containing a description of the 
 trials which a young Egyptian chariot-soldier had to go through. We 
 see him at the military academy, and, when that period of his life is 
 over, he receives his horses out of the royal stable from the hands of 
 the Pharaoh himself. This favor could only have been shown to the 
 chosen few.
 
 440 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 with the child of such a villain. Crown her with wreaths of 
 roses, fall down before her if it please you, but do not forget 
 that she belongs to a man who has disgraced the name of Hellen 
 and has betrayed his countrymen and country?" 
 
 As he finished speaking the men raised a wild cry of rage and 
 took possession of the trembling child. A soldier held her up so 
 that her father the troops not being more than a bow-shot 
 apart could see all that happened. At the same moment an 
 Egyptian, who afterward earned celebrity through the loudness 
 of his voice,* cried: "Look here, Athenian! see how treachery 
 and corruption are rewarded in this country!" A bowl of wine 
 stood near, provided by the king, from which the soldiers had 
 just been drinking themselves into intoxication. A Karian 
 seized it, plunged his sword into the innocent child's breast and 
 let the blood flow into the bowl, filled a goblet with the awful 
 mixture and drained it, as if drinking to the health of the wretch- 
 ed father. Phanes stood watching the scene as if struck into a 
 statue of cold stone. The rest oi the soldiers then fell upon the 
 bowl like madmen, and wild beasts could not have lapped up 
 the foul drink with greater eagerness. f 
 
 In the same moment Psamtik triumphantly shot off his first 
 arrow into the Persian ranks. 
 
 The mercenaries flung the child's dead body onto the ground ; 
 drunk with her blood they raised their battle-song and rushed 
 into the strife far ahead of their Egyptian comrades. 
 
 But now the Persian ranks began to move. Phanes, furious 
 with pain and rage, led on his heavy-armed troops, indignant, 
 too, at the brutal barbarity of their countrymen, and dashed into 
 the ranks of those very soldiers whose love he had tried to de- 
 serveMuring ten years of faithful leadership. 
 
 At noon, fortune seemed to be favoring the Egyptians; but at 
 sunset the Persians had the advantage, and when the full moon 
 rose, the Egyptians were flying wildly from the battle-field, per- 
 ishing in the marshes and in the arm of the Nile which flowed 
 behind their position, or being cut to pieces by the swords of 
 their enemies. 
 
 Twenty thousand Persians and fifty thousand Egyptians lay 
 dead on the blood-stained sea-sand. The wounded, drowned, 
 
 *"Herod.," iv. 141. 
 
 tHerodotus tells this fearful tale (iii, 11).
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 441 
 
 and prisoners could scarcely be numbered.* Psamtik had been 
 one of the last to fly. He was well-mounted, and, with a few 
 thousand faithful followers, reached the opposite bank of the 
 Nile and made for Memphis, the well-fortified city of the pyr- 
 amids. 
 
 Of the Greek mercenaries very few survived, so furious had 
 been Phanes' revenge, and so well had he been supported by 
 his lonians. Ten thousand Karians were taken captive and the 
 murderer of his little child was killed by Phanes' own hand. 
 
 Aristomachus, too, in spite of his wooden leg, had performed 
 miracles of bravery; but, notwithstanding all their efforts, 
 neither he nor any of his confederates in revenge, had succeeded 
 in taking Psamtik prisoner. 
 
 When the battle was over the Persians returned in triumph 
 to their tents, to be warmly welcomed by Croesus and the war- 
 riors and priests who had remained behind, and to celebrate their 
 victory by prayers and sacrifices. 
 
 The 'next morning Cambyses assembled his generals and re- 
 warded them with different tokens of distinction, such as costly 
 robes, golden chains, rings, swords, and stars formed of precious 
 stones. f Gold and silver coins were distributed among the com- 
 mon soldiers. 
 
 The principal attack of the Egyptians had been directed 
 against the center of the Persian army, where Cambyses com- 
 manded in person ; and with such effect that the guards had al- 
 ready begun to give way. At that moment Bartja, arriving with 
 his troop of horsemen, had put fresh courage into the wavering, 
 had fought like a lion himself, and by his bravery and prompti- 
 tude decided the day in favor of the Persians. 
 
 The troops were exultant in their joy; they shouted his praises 
 as "the conqueror of Pelusium" and the ''best of the Achaemeni- 
 dae." 
 
 Their cries reached the king's ears and made him very angry. 
 He knew he had been fighting at the risk of life, with real 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 12. Ktesias, "Persica," 9. In ancient history the 
 loss of the conquered is always far greater than that of the conquerors. 
 To a certain extent this holds good in the present day, but the pro- 
 portion is decidedly not so unfavorable for the vanquished. We would 
 remind our readers of the campaign of 1866. 
 
 f'Herod .," iii, 130; viii, 118. Xenoph., "Cyrop.," viii, 3.
 
 442 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 courage and the strength of a giant, and yet the day would have 
 been lost if this boy had not presented him with the victory. 
 The brother who had embittered his days of happy love was now 
 to rob him of half his military glory. Cambyses felt that he 
 hated Bartja, and his fist clinched involuntarily as he saw the 
 young hero looking so happy in the consciousness of his own 
 well-earned success. 
 
 Phanes had been wounded and went to his tent; Aristom- 
 achus lay near him, dying. 
 
 "The oracle has deceived me, after all," he murmured. "I 
 shall die without seeing my country again." 
 
 "The oracle spoke the truth," answered Phanes. "Were not 
 the last words of the Pythia 
 
 " 'Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey 
 
 thee, 
 Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford?' 
 
 "Can you misunderstand their meaning? They speak of 
 Charon's lingering boat, which will convey you to your last 
 home, to the one great resting place for all wanderers the king- 
 dom of hades." 
 
 "Yes, my friend, you are right there. I am going to hades." 
 
 "And the five have granted you, before death, what they so 
 long refused the return to Lacedaemon. You ought to be 
 thankful to the gods for granting you such sons and vengeance 
 on your enemies. When my wound is healed I shall go to 
 Greece and tell your son that his father died a glorious death 
 and was carried to the grave on his shield, as beseems a hero." 
 
 "Yes, do so, and give him my shield as a remembrance of his 
 old father. There is no need to exhort him to virtue." 
 
 "When Psamtik is in our power shall I tell what share you had 
 in his overthrow?" ' 
 
 "No; he saw me before he took to flight, and, at the unex- 
 pected vision, his bow fell from his hand. This was taken by 
 his friends as a signal for flight, and they turned their horses 
 from the battle." 
 
 "The gods ordain that bad men shall be ruined by their own 
 deeds. Psamtik lost courage, for he must have believed that the 
 very spirits of the lower world were fighting against him." 
 
 "We mortals gave him quite enough to do. The Persians
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 413 
 
 fought well. But the battle would have been lost without the 
 guards and our troops." 
 
 "Without doubt/' 
 
 "I thank thee, O Zeus Lacedaemonius." 
 
 "You are praying." 
 
 "I am praising the gods for allowing me to die at ease as to 
 my country. These heterogeneous masses can never be danger- 
 ous to Greece. Ho, physician, when am I likely to die?" 
 
 The Milesian physician, who had accompanied the Greek 
 troops to Egypt, pointed to the arrow-head sticking fast in his 
 breast and said, with a sad smile: "You have only a few hours 
 more to live. If I were to draw the arrow from your wound 
 you would die at once." 
 
 The Spartan thanked him, said farewell to Phanes, sent a 
 greeting to Rhodopis, and then, before they could prevent him, 
 drew the arrow from the wound with an unflinching hand. A 
 few moments later Aristomachus was dead. 
 
 The same day a Persian embassy set out for Memphis on 
 board one of the Lesbian vessels. It was commissioned to de- 
 mand from Psamtik the surrender of his own person and of the 
 city at discretion. Cambyses followed, having first sent off 
 a division of his army under Megabyzus to invest Sais. 
 
 At Heliopolis he was met by deputations from the Greek in- 
 habitants of Naukratis and the Libyans, praying for peace and 
 his protection and bringing a golden wreath and other rich pres- 
 ents. Cambyses received them graciously and assured them of 
 his friendship; but repulsed the messengers from Cyrene and 
 Barka indignantly, and flung, with his own hand, their tribute 
 of five hundred silver minae* among the soldiers, disdaining to 
 accept so contemptible an offering. 
 
 In Heliopolis he also heard that, at the approach of his em- 
 bassy, the inhabitants of Memphis had flocked to the shore, 
 bored a hole in the bottom of the ship, torn his messengers in 
 pieces, without distinction, as wild beasts would tear raw flesh, 
 and dragged them into the fortress.f On hearing this he cried, 
 angrily: "I swear, by Mithras, that these murdered men shall 
 be paid for ten lives for one." 
 
 *One thousand ejght hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling. 
 "Herod.," iii, 3. 
 f'Herod.," iii, 13 :
 
 444 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Two days later and Cambyses, with his army, stood before 
 the gates of Memphis. The siege was short, as the garrison was 
 far too small for the city, and the citizens were discouraged by 
 the fearful defeat at Pelusium. 
 
 King Psamtik himself came out to Cambyses, accompanied 
 by his principal nobles, in rent garments, and with every token 
 of mourning. Cambyses received him coldly and silently, order- 
 ing him and his followers to be guarded and removed. He 
 treated Ladice, the widow of Amasis, who appeared at the same 
 time as her step-son, with consideration, and, at the intercession 
 of Phanes, to whom she had always shown favor, allowed her to 
 return to her native town of Cyrene under safe conduct. She 
 remained there until the fall of her nephew, Arcesilaus III, and 
 the flight of her sister, Pheretime, when she betook herself to 
 Anthylla, the town in Egypt which belonged to her, and where 
 she passed a quiet, solitary existence, dying at a great age.* 
 
 Cambyses not only scorned to avenge the imposture which 
 had been practiced on him on a woman, but, as a Persian, had 
 far too much respect for a mother, and especially for the mother 
 of a king, to injure Ladice in any way. 
 
 While he was engaged in the siege of Sais, Psamtik passed 
 his imprisonment in the palace of the Pharaohs, treated in every 
 respect as a king, but strictly guarded. 
 
 Among those members of the upper class who had incited 
 the people to resistance, Neithotep, the high-priest of Neith, had 
 taken the foremost place. He was, therefore, sent to Memphis 
 and put in close confinement with one hundred of his unhappy 
 confederates. The larger number of the Pharaoh's court, on the 
 other hand, did homage voluntarily to Cambyses at Sais, enti- 
 tled him Ramestu, "child of the sun," and suggested that he 
 should cause himself to be crowned king of Upper and Lower 
 Egypt, with all the necessary formalities, and admitted into the 
 priestly caste, according to ancient custom. By the advice of 
 Croesus and Phanes Cambyses gave in to these proposals, 
 though much against his own will; he went so far, indeed, as to 
 offer sacrifice in the temple of Neith, and allowed the newly cre- 
 
 *According to "Athenaeus," i, 25, Anthylla belonged to the queen 
 for the time being. For Cyrene and Aroesilaus see "Herod.," iv, 163- 
 165,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 445 
 
 atod high-priest of the goddess to give him a superficial insight 
 into the nature of the mysteries. Some of the courtiers he re- 
 tained near himself and promoted different administrative func- 
 tionaries to high posts; the commander of Amasis' Nile fleet 
 succeeded so well in gaining the king's favor as to be appointed 
 one of those who ate at the royal table.* On leaving Sais Cam- 
 byses placed Megabyzus in command of the city; but scarcely 
 had the king quitted their walls than the smothered rage of the 
 people broke forth; they murdered the Persian sentinels, poi- 
 soned the wells, and set the stables of the cavalry on fire. Meg- 
 abyzus at once applied to the king, representing that such hostile 
 acts, if not repressed by fear, might soon be followed by open 
 rebellion. "The two thousand noble youths from Memphis, 
 whom you have destined to death as an indemnification for our 
 murdered ambassadors," said he, "ought to be executed at once ; 
 and it would do no harm if the son of Psamtik was added to the 
 number, as he can some day become a rallying center for the 
 rebels. I hear that the daughters of the dethroned king and the 
 high-priest Neithotep have to carry water for the baths of the 
 noble Phanes." 
 
 The Athenian answered, with a smile: "Cambyses has al- 
 lowed me to employ these aristocratic female attendants, my 
 lord, at my own request." 
 
 "But has forbidden you to touch the life of one member of the 
 royal house," added Cambyses. "None but a king has the 
 right to punish kings." 
 
 Phanes bowed. The king turned to Megabyzus and ordered 
 him to have the prisoners executed the very next day, as an 
 example. He would decide the fate of the young prince later; 
 but at all events he was to be taken to the place of execution with 
 the rest. "We must show them," he concluded, "that we know 
 
 *On a statue in the Gregorian museum in the Vatican there is an 
 inscription giving an account of Cambyses' sojourn at Sais, which 
 agrees with the facts related in our text. He was lenient to his con- 
 quered subjects, and probably in order to secure his position as the 
 lawful Pharaoh, yielded to the wishes of the priests, was even initiated 
 into the mysteries and did much for the temple of Neith. His adop- 
 tion of the name Ramestti is also confirmed by this statue. E. de 
 Rouge, "Memoire sur la Statuette Naophore du Musee Gregorien, au 
 Vatican. Revue Archeol.," 1851. Brugsch, "Geograph. Inschr.," i, p. 
 247.
 
 446 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 how to meet all their hostile manifestations with sufficient 
 rigor." 
 
 Croesus ventured to plead for the innocent boy. "Calm your- 
 self, old friend," said Cambyses with a smile; "the child is not 
 dead yet, and perhaps will be as well off with us as your own son, 
 who fought so well at Pelusium. I confess I should like to 
 know whether Psamtik bears his fate as -calmly and bravely as 
 you did twenty-five years ago." 
 
 "That we can easily discover by putting him on trial," said 
 Phanes. "Let him be brought into the palace-court to-morrow, 
 and let the captives and the condemned be led past him. Then 
 we shall see whether he is a man or a coward." 
 
 "Be it so," answered Cambyses. "I will conceal myself and 
 watch him unobserved. You, Phanes, will accompany me, to 
 tell me the name and rank of each of the captives." 
 
 The next morning Phanes accompanied the king onto a 
 balcony which ran round the great court of the palace the 
 court we have already described as being planted with trees. 
 The listeners were hidden by a grove of flowering shrubs, but 
 they could see every movement that took place and hear every 
 word that was spoken beneath them. They saw Psamtik, sur- 
 rounded by a few of his former companions. He was leaning 
 against a palm tree, his eyes fixed gloomily on the ground, 
 as his daughters entered the court. The daughter of Neitho- 
 tep was with them, and some more young girls, all dressed 
 as slaves; they were carrying pitchers of water. At sight of 
 the king they uttered such a .loud cry of anguish as to wake 
 him from his reverie. He looked up, recognized the miserable 
 girls, and bowed his head lower than before; but only for a 
 moment. Drawing himself up quickly, he asked his eldest 
 daughter for whom she was carrying water. On hearing that 
 she was forced to do the work of a slave for Phanes he turned 
 deadly pale, nodded his head, and cried to the girls, ''go on." 
 
 A few minutes later the captives were led into the court 
 with ropes round their necks and bridles in their mouths.* 
 At the head of the train was the little prince Necho. He 
 stretched his hands out to his father, begging him to punish 
 
 "This statement of Herodotus (iii, 14) is confirmed by the monu- 
 ments, on which we often see representations of captives being led 
 along with ropes round their necks. What follows is taken entirely 
 from the same passage in Herodotus.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 447 
 
 the bad foreigners who wanted to kill him. At this sight the 
 Egyptians wept in their exceeding great misery; but Psam- 
 tik's eyes were dry. He bowed his tearless face nearly to the 
 earth and waved his child a last farewell. 
 
 After a short interval the captives taken in Sais entered. 
 Among them was Neithotep, the once powerful high-priest, 
 clothed in rags and moving with difficulty by the help of a 
 staff. At the entrance-gate he raised his eyes and caught 
 sight of his former pupil Darius. Reckless of all the spec- 
 tators around him, he went straight up to the young man, 
 poured out the story of his needs, besought his help, and 
 ended by begging an alms. Darius complied at once, and by 
 so doing induced others of the Achaemenidae, who were stand- 
 ing by, to hail the old man jokingly and throw him little pieces 
 of money which he picked up laboriously and thankfully from 
 the ground. 
 
 At this sight Psamtik wept aloud and smote upon his fore- 
 head, calling on the name of his friend in a voice full of woe. 
 
 Cambyses was so astonished at this that he came forward to 
 the balustrade of the veranda, and, pushing the flowers aside, 
 exclaimed: "Explain thyself, thou strange man; the misfor- 
 tunes of a beggar, not even akin to thee, move thy compas- 
 sion, but thou canst behold thy son on the way to execution 
 and thy daughters in hopeless misery without shedding a tear 
 or uttering a lament!" 
 
 Psamtik looked up at his conqueror and answered: "The 
 misfortunes of my own house, O son of Cyrus, are too great 
 for tears ; but I may be permitted to weep over the afflictions 
 of a friend, fallen, in his old age, from the height of happiness 
 and influence into the most miserable beggary." 
 
 Cambyses' face expressed his approval, and on looking round 
 he saw that his was not the only eye which was rilled with tears. 
 Croesus, Bartja and all the Persians nay, even Phanes him- 
 self, who had served as interpreter to the kings were weep- 
 ing aloud. 
 
 The proud conqueror was not displeased at these signs of 
 'sympathy, and turning to the Athenian: "I think, my Greek 
 friend," he said, "we may consider our wrongs as avenged. 
 Rise, Psamtik, and endeavor to imitate yonder noble old man 
 (pointing to Croesus) by accustoming yourself -to your fate. 
 Your father's fraud has been visited on you and your family.
 
 448 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The crown which I have wrested from you is the crown of 
 which Amasis deprived my wife my never-to-be-forgotten 
 Nitetis. For her sake I began this war, and for her sake I 
 grant you now the life of your son she loved him. From 
 this time forward you can live undisturbed at our court, eat 
 at our table and share the privileges of my nobles. Gyges, 
 fetch the boy hither. He shall be brought up as you were, 
 years ago, among the sons of the Achaemenidae." 
 
 The Lydian was hastening to execute this delightful com- 
 mission, but Phanes stopped him before he could reach the 
 door, and, placing himself proudly between the king and the 
 trembling, thankful Psamtik, said: "You would be going on 
 a useless errand, noble Lydian. In defiance of your command, 
 my sovereign, but in virtue of the full powers you once gave 
 me, I have ordered the grandson of Amasis to be the execu- 
 tioner's first victim. You have just heard the sound of a 
 horn; that was the sign that the last heir to the Egyptian 
 throne born on the shores of the Nile has been gathered to his 
 fathers. I am aware of the fate I have to expect, Cambyses. 
 I will not plead for a life whose end has been attained. Croesus, 
 I understand your reproachful looks. You grieve for the 
 murdered children. But life is such a web of wretchedness 
 and disappointment that I agree with your philosopher Solon 
 in thinking those fortunate to whom, as in former days to 
 Kleobis and Biton,* the gods decree an early death. If I 
 have ever been dear to you, Cambyses if my counsels have 
 been of any use, permit me as a last favor to say a few more 
 words. Psamtik knows the causes that rendered us foes to 
 each other. Ye all, whose esteem is worth so much to me, 
 
 *Croesus, after having shown Solon his treasures, asked him whom 
 he held to be the most fortunate of men, hoping to hear his own name. 
 The sage first named Tellus, a famous citizen of Athens, and then the 
 brothers, Kleobis and Biton. These were two handsome youths, who 
 had gained the prize for wrestling, and one day, when the draft ani- 
 mals had not returned from the field, dragged their mother themselves 
 to the distant temple, in presence of the people. The men of Argos 
 praised the strength of the sons the women praised the mother who 
 possessed these sons. She, transported with delight at her sons' deed 
 and the people's praise, went to the statue of the goddess and besought 
 her to give them the best that could fall to the lot of men. When her 
 prayer was over and the sacrifice offered, the youths fell asleep and 
 never awoke again. They were dead. "Herod.," i, 31. Cicero, "Tus- 
 cul," i, 47.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 440 
 
 shall know them, too. This man's father placed me in his 
 son's stead at the head of the troops which had been sent to 
 Cyprus. Where Psamtik had earned humiliation I won suc- 
 cess and glory. I also became unintentionally acquainted with 
 a secret w-hich seriously endangered his chances of obtaining 
 the crown; and lastly, I prevented his carrying off a virtuous 
 maiden from the house of her grandmother, an aged woman, 
 beloved and respected by all the Greeks. These are the sins 
 which he has never been able to forgive; these are the grounds 
 which led him to carry on war to the death with me directly 
 I had quitted his father's service. The struggle is decided 
 now. My innocent children have been murdered at thy com- 
 mand, and I have been pursued like a wild beast. That has 
 been thy revenge. But mine! I have deprived thee of thy 
 throne and reduced* thy people to bondage. Thy daughter 
 I have called my slave, thy son's death-warrant was pro- 
 nounced by my lips, and my eyes have seen the maiden 
 whom them persecutest become the happy wife of a brave 
 man. Undone, sinking ever lower and lower, thou hast 
 watched me rise to the richest and most powerful of my nation. 
 In the lowest depth of thy own misery and this has been the 
 most delicious morsel of my vengeance thou wast forced to 
 see me me, Phanes! shedding tears that could not be kept 
 back, at the sight of thy misery. The man who is allowed to 
 draw even one breath of life after beholding his enemy so 
 low, I hold to be happy as the gods themselves. I have 
 spoken." 
 
 He ceased, and pressed his hand on his wound. Cambyses 
 gazed at him in astonishment, stepped forward, and was just 
 going to touch his girdle an action which \vould have been 
 equivalent to the signing of a death-warrant* when his eye 
 caught sight of the chain which he himself had hung round 
 the Athenian's neck as a reward for the clever way in which 
 he had proved the innocence of Nitetis. The sudden recollec- 
 tion of the woman he loved, and of the countless services ren- 
 
 *The same sign was used by the last Darius to denote that his able 
 Greek general, Memnon, who had offended him by his plainness of 
 speech, was doomed to death. As he was being. led away, Memnon 
 exclaimed, in allusion to Alexander who was then fast drawing near: 
 "Thy remorse will soon prove my worth; my avenger is not far off." 
 Droysen, "Alex. d. Grosse," p. 148. "Diod.," vii. 30. "Curtius," iii, 2.
 
 450 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 dered him by Phanes, calmed his wrath his hand dropped. 
 One minute the severe ruler stood gazing lingeringly at his 
 disobedient friend; the next, moved by a sudden impulse, he 
 raised his right hand again, and pointed imperiously to the 
 gate leading from the court. 
 
 Phanes bowed in silence, kissed the king's robe, and 
 descended slowly into the court. Psamtik watched him, quiv- 
 ering with excitement, sprang toward the veranda, but before 
 his lips could utter the curse which his heart had prepared, 
 he sank powerless onto the ground. 
 
 Cambyses beckoned to his followers to make immediate 
 preparations for a lion-hunt in the Libyan mountains. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The waters of the Nile had begun to rise again. Two months 
 had passed away since Phanes' disappearance and much had 
 happened. 
 
 The very day on which he left Egypt Sappho had given 
 birth to a girl, and had so far regained strength, since then 
 under care of her grandmother, as to be able to join in an 
 excursion up the Nile which Croesus had suggested should 
 take place on the festival of the goddess Neith. Since the 
 departure of Phanes, Cambyses' behavior had become so intol- 
 erable, that Bartja, with the permission of his brother, had 
 taken Sappho to live in the royal palace at Memphis, in order 
 to escape any painful collision. Rhodopis, at whose house 
 Croesus and his son, Bartja, Darius and Zopyrus were con- 
 stant guests, had agreed to join the party. 
 
 On the morning of the festal day they started in a gorgeously 
 decorated boat, from a point between thirty and forty miles 
 below Memphis, favored by a good north wind and urged 
 rapidly forward by a large number of rowers. 
 
 A wooden roof or canopy, gilded and brightly painted, shel- 
 tered them from the sun. Croesus sat by Rhodopis. Theo-
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 451 
 
 pompus, the Milesian, lay at her feet. Sappho was leaning 
 against Bartja. Syloson, the brother of Polykrates, had made 
 himself a comfortable resting-place next to Darius, who was 
 looking thoughtfully into the water. Gyges and Zopyrus busied 
 themselves in making wreaths for the women from the flowers 
 handed them by an Egyptian slave. 
 
 "It seems hardly possible," said Bartja, "that we can be 
 rowing against the stream. The boat flies like a swallow." 
 
 "This fresh north wind brings us forward/' answered Theo- 
 pompus. "And then the Egyptian boatmen understand their 
 work splendidly." 
 
 "And row all the better just because we are sailing against 
 the stream," added Croesus. "Resistance always brings out 
 a man's best powers." 
 
 "Yes," said Rhodopis, "sometimes we even make difficulties 
 if the river of life seems too smooth." 
 
 "True," answered Darius. "A noble mind can never swim 
 with the stream. In quiet inactivity all men are equal. We 
 must be seen fighting, to be rightly estimated." 
 
 "Such noble-minded champions must be very cautious, 
 though," said Rhodopis, "lest they become contentious and 
 quarrelsome. Do you see those watermelons lying on the 
 black soil yonder, like golden balls? Not one would have 
 come to perfection if the sower had been too lavish with his 
 seed. The fruit would have been choked by too luxuriant 
 tendrils and leaves. Man is born to struggle and to work, 
 but in this, as in everything else, he must know how to be 
 moderate if his efforts are to succeed. The art of true wisdom 
 is to keep within limits." 
 
 "Oh, if Cambyses could only hear you!" exclaimed Croesus. 
 "Instead of being contented with his immense conquests, and 
 now thinking for the welfare of his subjects, he has all sorts 
 of distant plans in his head. He wishes to conquer the entire 
 world, and yet, since Phanes left, scarcely a day has passed 
 in which he has not been conquered himself by the div of 
 drunkenness." 
 
 "Has his mother no influence over him?" asked Rhodopis. 
 "She is a noble woman." 
 
 "She could not even move his resolution to marry Atossa, 
 and was forced to be present at the marriage feast." 
 
 "Poor Atossa!" murmured Sappho.
 
 452 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "She does not pass a very happy life as queen of Persia," 
 answered Croesus "and her own naturally impetuous dispo- 
 sition makes it all the more difficult for her to live contentedly 
 with this husband and brother; I am sorry to hear it said 
 that Cambyses neglects her sadly and treats her like a child. 
 But the marriage does not seem to have astonished the Egyp- 
 tians, as brothers and sisters often marry here.* 
 
 "In Persia, too," said Darius, putting on an appearance of 
 the most perfect composure, "marriages with very near rela- 
 tions are thought to be the best."f 
 
 "But to return to the king," said Croesus, turning the con- 
 versation for Darius' sake. "I can assure you, Rhodopis, that 
 he may really be called a noble man. His violent and hasty 
 deeds are repented of almost as soon as committed, and the 
 resolution to be a just and merciful ruler has never forsaken 
 him. At supper, for instance, lately, before his mind was 
 clouded by the influence of wine, he asked us what the Per- 
 sians thought of him in comparison with his father." 
 
 "And what was the answer?" said Rhodopis. 
 
 "Intaphernes got us out of the trap cleverly enough," 
 answered Zopyrus, laughing. "He exclaimed: 'We are of 
 opinion that you deserve the preference, inasmuch as you have 
 not only preserved intact the inheritance bequeathed you by 
 Cyrus, but have extended his dominion beyond the seas by 
 your conquest of Egypt.' This answer did not seem to please 
 the king, however, and poor Intaphernes was not a little hor- 
 rified to hear him strike his fist on the table and cry: 'Flat- 
 terer, miserable flatterer!' He then turned to Croesus and 
 asked his opinion. Our wise friend answered at once: 'My 
 opinion is that you have not attained to the greatness of your 
 father; for,' added he, in a pacifying tone, 'one thing is want- 
 ing to you a son such as Cyrus bequeathed us in yourself.' "$ 
 
 "First rate, first rate," cried Rhodopis, clapping her hands 
 
 *Marriages with a sister or a deceased wife's brother were not un- 
 common among the Egyptians. This is confirmed by numerous tes- 
 timonies. "Diod.," i, 27. "Cod. Justin.," v. "Tit.," v, leg. viii. Also 
 by Greek writers. "Cor. Net).," i, 5. "Cim.," i. The history of the 
 Ptolemies, and especially of Philadelphus, is full of examples of such 
 marriages. 
 
 tSee note p. 430. 
 
 J"Herod.," iii, 34.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 45S 
 
 and laughing. "An answer that would have done honor to 
 the ready-witted Odysseus himself. And how did the king 
 take your honeyed pill?" 
 
 "He was very much pleased, thanked Croesus, and called 
 him his friend." . 
 
 "And I," said Croesus, taking up the conversation, "used 
 the favorable opportunity to dissuade him from the campaigns 
 he has been planning against the long-lived Ethiopians, the 
 Ammonians and the Carthaginians. Of the first of these 
 three nations we know scarcely anything but through fabulous 
 tales; by attacking them we should lose much and gain little. 
 The oasis of Ammon is scarcely accessible to a large army, 
 on account of the desert by which it is surrounded; besides 
 which, it seems to me sacrilegious to make war upon a god 
 in the hope of obtaining possession of his treasures, whether 
 we be his worshipers or not. As to the Carthaginians, facts 
 have already justified my predictions. Our fleet is manned 
 principally by Syrians and Phoenicians, and they have, as 
 might be expected, refused to go to war against their brethren. 
 Cambyses laughed at my reasons, and ended by swearing, 
 when he was already somewhat intoxicated, that he could 
 carry out difficult undertakings and subdue powerful nations, 
 even without the help of Bartja and Phanes." 
 
 "What could that allusion to you mean, my son?" asked 
 Rhodopis. 
 
 "He won the battle of Pelusium," cried Zopyrus, before his 
 friend could answer. "He, and no one else!" 
 
 "Yes," added Croesus, "and you might have been more pru- 
 dent and have remembered that it is a dangerous thing to 
 excite the jealousy of a man like Cambyses. You all of you 
 forget that his heart is sore, and that the slightest vexation 
 pains him. He has lost the woman he really loved, his dearest 
 friend is gone, and now you want to disparage the last thing 
 in this world that he still cares for his military glory." 
 
 "Don't blame him," said Bartja, grasping the old man's 
 hand. "My brother has never been unjust, and is far from 
 envying me what I must call my good fortune, for that my 
 attack arrived just at the right time can hardly be reckoned 
 as a merit on my part. You know he gave me this splendid 
 saber, a hundred thoroughbred horses and a golden hand-mill 
 as rewards for my bravery."
 
 454 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Croesus' words had caused Sappho a little anxiety at first, 
 but this vanished on hearing her husband speak so confidently, 
 and by the time Zopyrus had finished his wreath and placed 
 it on Rhodopis' head all her fears were forgotten. 
 
 Gyges had prepared his for the young mother. It was made 
 of snow-white water lilies, and, when she placed it among her 
 brown curls, she looked so wonderfully lovely in the simple 
 ornament that Bartja could not help kissing her on the fore- 
 head, though so many witnesses were present. This little 
 episode gave a merry turn to the conversation; everyone did 
 his best to enliven the others, refreshments of all kinds were 
 handed round, and even Darius lost his gravity for a time 
 and joined in the jests that were passing among his friends. 
 
 When the sun had set the slaves placed elegantly carved 
 chairs, footstools and little tables on the open part of the deck. 
 Our cheerful party now repaired thither and beheld a sight 
 so marvelously beautiful as to be quite beyond their expec- 
 tations. 
 
 The feast of Neith, called in Egyptian "the lamp-burning," 
 was celebrated by a universal illumination, which began at the 
 rising of the moon.* The shores of the Nile looked like two 
 long lines of fire. Every temple, house and hut was orna- 
 mented with lamps, according to the means of its possessors. 
 The porches of the country houses and the little towers on 
 the larger buildings were all lighted up by brilliant flames, 
 burning in pans of pitch and sending up clouds of smoke, in 
 which the flags and pennons waved gently backward and 
 forward. The palm trees and sycamores were silvered by 
 the moonlight and threw strange fantastic reflections onto the 
 red waters of the Nile red from the fiery glow of the houses 
 on their shores. But, strong and glowing as was the light of 
 the illumination, its rays had not the power to reach the middle 
 of the giant river where the boat was making its course and 
 the pleasure party felt as if they were sailing in dark night 
 between two brilliant days. Now and then a brightly lighted 
 
 *Herodotus (ii, 62), speaks of this "burning of lamps" 
 in honor of the goddess Neith (Pallas Athene). In Homer Pallas 
 Athene appears with an oil lamp in her hand. "Odyss.," xix, 34. 
 Strabo (396) speaks of an eternal lamp which was kept burning in 
 honor of Athene Polias in her ancient temple on the Acropolis.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 455 
 
 boat would come swiftly across the river and seem as it neared 
 the shore to be cutting its way through a glowing stream of 
 molten iron. 
 
 Lotus blossoms, white as snow, lay on the surface of the 
 river, rising and falling with the waves and looking like eyes 
 in the water. Not a sound could be heard from either shore. 
 The echoes were carried away by the north wind and the 
 measured stroke of the oars and the monotonous song of 
 the rowers were the only sounds that broke the stillness of 
 this strange night a night robbed of its darkness. 
 
 For a long time the friends gazed without speaking at the 
 wonderful sight which seemed to glide past them. Zopyrus 
 was the first to break the silence by saying, as he drew a long 
 breath: "I really envy you, Bartja. If things were as they 
 should be everyone of us would have his dearest wife at his 
 side on such a night as this.'' 
 
 "And who forbid you to bring one of your wives?" answered 
 the happy husband. 
 
 "The other five," said the youth, with a sigh. "If I had 
 allowed Oroetes' little daughter, Parysatis, my youngest favor- 
 ite, to come out alone with me to-night this wonderful sight 
 would have been my last; to-morrow there would have been 
 one pair of eyes less in the world." 
 
 Bartja took Sappho's hand and held it fast, saying: "I fancy 
 one wife will content me as long as I live." 
 
 The young mother pressed his hand warmly again, and said, 
 turning to Zopyrus N "I don't quite trust you, my friend. It 
 seems to me that it is not the anger of your wives you fear 
 so much as the commission of an offense against the customs 
 of your country. I have been told that my poor Bartja gets 
 terribly scolded in the women's apartments for not setting 
 eunuchs to watch over me and for letting me share his pleas- 
 ures." 
 
 "He does spoil you terribly," answered Zopyrus, "and our 
 wives are beginning to quote him as an example of kindness 
 and indulgence when we try to hold the reins a little tight. 
 Indeed, there will soon be a regular women's mutiny at the 
 king's gate, and the Achaemenidae who escaped the swords 
 and arrows of the Egyptians will fall victims to sharp tongues 
 and floods of salt tears." 
 
 "Oh. you most impolite Persian!" said Syloson, laughing.
 
 4C6 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "\\~e must make you more respectful to 'these images of 
 Aphrodite.'' 
 
 "You Greeks! that's a good idea," answered the youth. "By 
 Mithras, our wives are quite as well off as yours. It's only 
 the Egyptian women that are so wonderfully free." 
 
 "Yes, you are quite right," said Rhodopis. "The inhabitants 
 of this strange land have for thousands of years granted our 
 weaker sex the same rights that they demand for themselves. 
 Indeed, in many respects they have given us the preference. 
 For instance, by the Egyptian law it is the daughters, not the 
 sons, who are commanded to foster and provide ior their aged 
 parents, showing how well the fathers of this now humbled 
 people understood woman's nature, and how rightly they 
 acknowledged that she far surpasses man in thoughtful solici- 
 tude and self-forgetful love. Do not laugh at these worshipers 
 of animals. I confess that I cannot understand them, but I 
 feel true admiration for the people in the teaching of whose 
 priests even Pythagoras, that great master in the art of knowl- 
 edge, assured me lies a wisdom as mighty as the pyramids." 
 
 "And your great master was right," exclaimed Darius. "You 
 know that I obtained Neithotep's freedom, and, for some 
 weeks past, have seen him and Onuphis very constantly; 
 indeed, they have been teaching me. And, oh, how much I 
 have learned already from those two old men, of which I had 
 no idea before! How much that is sad I can forget when I 
 am listening to them! They are acquainted with the entire 
 history of the heavens and the earth. They know the name of 
 every king, and the circumstances of every important event 
 that has occurred during the last four thousand years, the 
 courses of the stars, the works of their own artists and sayings 
 of their sages during the same immense period of time. All this 
 knowledge is recorded in huge books, which have been pre- 
 served in a palace at Thebes,* called the "place of healing for 
 the soul." Their laws are a fountain of pure wisdom, and^ a 
 comprehensive intellect has been shown in the adaptation of 
 all their state institutions to the needs of the country. I wish 
 we could boast of the same regularity and order at home. The 
 idea that lies at the root of all their knowledge is the use of 
 numbers, the only means by which it is possible to calculate the 
 
 *See note pp. 347-348.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 45? 
 
 course of the stars, to ascertain and determine the limits of all 
 that exists, and, by the application of which in the shortening 
 and lengthening of the strings of musical instruments, tones 
 can be regulated.* Numbers are the only certain things; they 
 can neither be controlled nor perverted. Every nation has its 
 own ideas of right and wrong; every law can be rendered 
 invalid by circumstances; but the results obtained from num- 
 bers can never be overthrown. Who can dispute, for instance, 
 that twice two make four? Numbers determine the contents 
 of every existing thing; whatever is, is equal to its contents; 
 numbers, therefore, are the true being, the essence of all that is." 
 
 "In the name of Mithras, Darius, do leave off talking in that 
 style, unless you want to turn my brain," interrupted Zopy- 
 rus. "Why, to hear you, one would fancy you'd been spending 
 your life among these old Egyptian speculators and had never 
 had a sword in your hand. What on earth have we to do with 
 numbers?" 
 
 "More than you fancy," answered Rhodopis. "This theory of 
 numbers belongs to the mysteries of the Egyptian priests, and 
 Pythagoras learned it from the very Onuphis who is now teach- 
 ing you, Darius. If you will come to see me sOon I will show 
 you how wonderfully that great Samian brought the laws of 
 numbers and of the harmonies into agreement.f But, look, 
 there are the pyramids !" 
 
 The whole party rose at these words and stood speechless, 
 gazing at the grand sight which opened before them. 
 
 The pyramids lay on the left bank of the Nile, in the silver 
 moonshine, massive and awful, as if bruising the earth beneath 
 them with their weight; the giant graves of mighty rulers. 
 They seemed examples of man's creative power and at the same 
 time warnings of the vanity and mutability of earthly greatness. 
 For where was Chufu now the king who had cemented that 
 mountain of stone with the sweat of his subjects? Where was 
 the long-lived Chafra who had despised the gods, and, defiant 
 in the consciousness of his own strength, was said to have 
 closed the gates of the temples in order to make himself and his 
 name immortal by building a tomb of superhuman dimen- 
 
 *Zeller, "Geschichte d. Philosophic der Griechen," i, p. 292. We 
 Wee with Jamblichus in supposing that these Pythagorean views 
 were derived from the Egyptian mysteries, 
 
 tArjstotle, "Met.," 1, 5,
 
 458 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 sions?* Their empty sarcophagi are, perhaps, tokens that the 
 judges of the dead found them unworthy of rest in the grave, 
 unworthy of the resurrection, whereas, the builder of the third 
 and most beautiful pyramid, Menkera, who contented himself 
 with a smaller monument, and re-opened the gates of the tem- 
 ples, was allowed to rest in peace in his coffin of blue basalt.f 
 
 There they lay in the quiet night, those mighty pyramids, 
 shone 6n by the bright stars, guarded by the watchman of the 
 desert the gigantic sphinx and overlooking the barren rocks 
 of the Libyan stony mountains. At their feet in beautifully or- 
 namented tombs, slept the mummies of their faithful subjects, 
 and opposite the monument of the pious Menkera stood a tem- 
 ple where prayers were said by the priests for the souls of the 
 many dead buried in the great Memphian city of the dead. In 
 the west, where the sun went down behind the Libyan moun- 
 tains where the fruitful land ended and the desert began there 
 the people of Memphis had buried their dead ; and as our gay 
 party- looked toward the west they felt awed into a solemn si- 
 lence. 
 
 But their boat sped on before the north wind ; they left the 
 city of the dead behind them and passed the enormous dikesj 
 built to protect the city of Menes from the violence of the floods ; 
 the city of the Pharaohs came in sight, dazzlingly bright with the 
 
 "Herodotus repeats, in good faith, that the builders of the great 
 pyramids were despisers of the gods. The tombs of their faithful 
 subjects at the foot of these huge structures prove, however (esp.e- 
 cially in E. de Rouge's "Recherches sur les Monuments qu'on Pent 
 Attribuer aux vi, Premieres Dynasties," etc.), that they owe their bad 
 repute to the hatred of the people, who could not forget the era of 
 their hardest bondage, and branded the memories of their oppressors 
 whenever an opportunity could be found. We might use the word 
 "tradition" instead of "the people," for this it is which puts the 
 feeling and tone of mind of the multitude into the form of history. 
 
 tBunsen, "Aegyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte," ii, 169, and 
 following, pi. xvii, and in Vyse, "Pyramids of Ghizeh," ii. Unfor- 
 tunately the sarcophagus went down on the coast of Spain in the 
 ship which was conveying it to Europe. The Arabian geographer, 
 Ibrisi, states that shortly before the date at which he was then writ- 
 ing (1240) the pyramid had been opened, and that a mummy had been 
 found in the sarcophagus with a gold plate by its side covered with 
 unknown characters. Birch's translation of the inscription restored 
 by Lepsius is probably the first. It is given in Vyse's "Pyramids," 
 ii, p. 94. 
 
 $See note p. 83.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 459 
 
 myriads of flames which had been kindled in honor of the god- 
 dess Neith, and when at last the gigantic temple of Ptah* ap- 
 peared, the most ancient building of the most ancient land, the 
 spell broke, their tongues were loosed, and they burst out 
 into loud exclamations of delight. 
 
 It was illuminated by thousands of lamps; a hundred fires 
 burned on its pylons, its battlemented walls and roofs. Burning 
 torches flared between the rows of sphinxes which connected the 
 various gates with the main building, and the now empty house 
 of the god Apisf was so surrounded by colored fires that it 
 gleamed like a white limestone rock in a tropical sunset. Pen- 
 nons, flags and garlands waved above the brilliant picture; 
 music and loud songs could be heard from below. 
 
 "Glorious," cried Rhodopis, in enthusiasm, "glorious! Look 
 how the painted walls and columns gleam in the light, and what 
 
 *See note p. 30. 
 
 fMore has been said on the characteristic marks of the sacred bull, 
 Apis, further on in the text, and on the festival held at his discovery. 
 Great lamentation was made at his death and he was buried with 
 incredible pomp. In the reign of Ptolemy Lagi; the Apis having died 
 of old age, his keeper not only expended on his funeral all the ready 
 money then in store, but borrowed fifty silver talents from the king 
 for the same purpose (six thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds 
 sterling). Some of the priests who presided over the Apis temple 
 are said to have expended one hundred talents (twenty-two thousand 
 five hundred pounds sterling) on the animal's burial. "Diod.," i, 84. 
 T-he Egyptians ascribed the gift of prophecy to Apis ("Plin.," viii, 
 71), and seem to have considered him as symbolizing a period of 
 twenty-five years. This supposition has been confirmed by the re- 
 sults of Mariette's excavations in the Serapeum and in the Apis 
 tombs, and by the deciphering of inscriptions on the so-called Apis 
 stelae. Mariette found a stone statue of the bull covered with beau- 
 tiful inscriptions and a number of colossal Apis sarcophagi. The 
 statue was sent to Paris. A. Mariette, "Le Serapeum de Memphis." 
 The dates on these Apis stelae are of the greatest importance for the 
 chronology of later Egyptian history, especially that of the twenty- 
 sixth dynasty, which can be accurately determined by their means. 
 We recommend as interesting Mariette's "La Mere d'Apis." He was 
 said by many of the ancient writers to have been generated by a 
 moonbeam and dedicated to the moon as the Mnevis bull of Heliopolis 
 to the sun. "Pomp. Mela.," i, 9, 7. We cannot here discuss the 
 place he held in the Egyptian religion. Much on this subject is to 
 be found in Reinisch, "Die Aegyptischen Denkmaler in Miramar," 
 p. 178.
 
 460 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 marvelous figures the shadows of the obelisks and sphinxes, 
 throw on the smooth yellow pavement!" 
 
 "And how mysterious the sacred grove looks yonder!" added 
 Croesus. "I never saw anything so wonderful before." 
 
 "I have seen something more wonderful still," said Darius. 
 "You will hardly believe me when I tell you that I have wit- 
 nessed a celebration of the mysteries of Neith." 
 
 "Tell us what you saw tell us!" was the universal outcry. 
 
 "At first Neithotep refused me admission, but when I prom- 
 ised to remain hidden, and besides to obtain the freedom of his 
 child, he led me up to his observatory, from which there is a 
 very extensive view, and told me that I should see a representa- 
 tion of the fates of Osiris and his wife Isis.* 
 
 "He had scarcely left when the sacred grove became so 
 brightly illuminated by colored lights that I was able to see into 
 its innermost depths. 
 
 "A lake,f smooth as glass, lay before me, surrounded by beau- 
 tiful trees and flower-beds. Golden boats were sailing on this 
 lake and in them sat lovely boys and girls dressed in snow-white 
 garments and singing sweet songs as they passed over the water. 
 There were no rowers to direct these boats, and yet they moved 
 over the ripples of the lake in a graceful order, as if guided by 
 some magic, unseen hand. A large ship sailed in the midst of 
 this little fleet Its deck glittered with precious stones. It 
 seemed to be steered by one beautiful boy only, and, strange 
 to say, the rudder he guided consisted of one white lotus-flower, 
 the delicate leaves of which seemed scarcely to touch the water. 
 A very lovely woman, dressed like a queen, lay on silken cush- 
 ions in the middle of the vessel; by her side sat a man of larger 
 stature than that of ordinary mortals. He wore a crown of ivy 
 on his flowing curls, a panther-skin hung over his shoulders and 
 he held a crooked staff in the right hand. In the back part of 
 the ship was a roof made of ivy, lotus-blossoms and roses; be- 
 
 *These performances in the sacred grove of Neith seemed to have 
 belonged to the external apparatus of the mysteries. The stage on 
 which they took place was the lake of Sa-el-Hagar. It exists to this 
 day and Herodotus (ii, 170) implies that near it was a tomb of Osiris. 
 He says (171): "These plays represented the fates of the above-men- 
 tioned and were called mysteries," See note p. 461, 
 
 tSee note p. 188.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 461 
 
 neath it stood a milk-white cow* with golden horns covered 
 with a cloth of purple. The man was Osiris, the woman Isis, the 
 boy at the helm her son Horus, and the cow was the animal 
 sacred to the immortal Isis. The little boats all skimmed over 
 the water, singing glad songs of joy as they passed by the ship, 
 and receiving in return showers of flowers and fruits, thrown 
 down upon the lovely singers by the god and goddess within. 
 Suddenly I heard the roll of thunder. It came crashing on 
 louder and louder, and in the midst of this awful sound a man in 
 the skin of a wild boar, with hideous features and bristling red 
 hair, came out of the gloomiest part of the sacred grove plunged 
 into the lake, followed by seventy creatures like himself, and 
 swam up to the ship of Osiris. f 
 
 "The little boats fled with the swiftness of the wind, and the 
 trembling boy helmsman dropped his lotus-blossom. 
 
 "The dreadful monster then rushed on Osiris, and with the 
 help of his comrades, killed him, threw the body into a coffin 
 and the coffin into the lake,:j: the waters of which seemed to 
 carry it away as if by magic. Isis meanwhile had escaped to 
 land in one of the small boats, and was now running hither 
 and thither on the shores of the lake, with streaming hair, 
 lamenting her dead husband and followed by the virgins who 
 had escaped with her. Their songs and dances while seeking 
 the body of Osiris were strangely plaintive and touching, and the 
 girls accompanied the dances by waving black Byssus scarfs in 
 woifderfully graceful curves. Neither were the youths idle; 
 they busied themselves in making a costly coffin for the van- 
 ished corpse of the god, accompanying their work with dances 
 and the sound of castanets. When this was finished they joined 
 the maidens in the train of the lamenting Isis and wandered 
 on the shore with them singing and searching. 
 
 *The ivy was the plant of Osiris, the cow the animal sacred to Isis. 
 "Diod.," i, 17. Plut, "Isis and Osiris," 37. "Herod.," ii, 41. Isis is 
 almost always represented with the head of a cow, and is again and 
 again called "che" (the cow). There must certainly be a connection 
 between this word and the name lo. 
 
 tWe have taken our description of this spectacle entirely from the 
 Osiris myth as we find it in Plutarch, "Isis and Osiris," 13-19. "Diod.," 
 i, 22, and a thousand times repeated on the monuments. Horns is 
 called "the revenger of his father," etc. 
 
 JHere we have departed in some measure from Plutarch's version, 
 in which Typhon artfully induces Osiris to lie down in the coffin.
 
 462 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 "Suddenly a low song rose from some invisible lips. It 
 swelled louder and louder and announced that the body of the 
 god had been transported by the currents of the Mediterra- 
 nean to Gebal* in distant Phoenicia. This singing voice 
 thrilled to my very heart; Neithotep's son, who was my com- 
 panion, called it 'the wind of rumor.' 
 
 "When Isis heard the glad news, she threw off her mourning 
 garments and sang a song of triumphant rejoicing, accompanied 
 by the voices of her beautiful followers. Rumor had not lied ; 
 the goddess really found the sarcophagus and the dead body 
 of her husband on the northern shore of the lake.f They 
 brought both to land with dances; Isis threw herself on the 
 beloved corpse, called on the name Osiris and covered the 
 mummy with kisses, while the youths wove a wonderful tomb 
 of lotus-flowers and ivy. 
 
 "When the coffin had been laid under this beautiful vault 
 Isis left the sad place of mourning and went to look for her 
 son. She found him at the east end of the lake, where for a 
 long time I had seen a beautiful youth practicing arms with a 
 number of companions. 
 
 *Better known by its Greek name of Byblos. 
 
 tit is natural that Isis should find the body of her husband in the 
 north. The connection between Phoenicia and Egypt in this myth, 
 as it has been handed down to us by Plutarch, is very remarkable. 
 We consider the explanation of the close affinity between the Isis 
 and Osiris and the Adonis myths to lie in the fact that Egyptians%nd 
 Phoenicians lived together on the shores of the Delta, where the 
 latter had planted their colonies. Plutarch's story of the finding of 
 Osiris' dead body is very charming. "Isis and Osiris," ed. Parth, 15. 
 The coffin had been .overgrown and inclosed by an erica, which sup- 
 ported the roof of the king of Byblus. This was wafted to Isis' ears 
 by a marvelous breath of rumor (Trveifian fiat/wviu <^M?/f). She 
 went to Byblus and seated herself by a spring, weeping and in poor 
 raiment. She spoke with no one save with the maidens of the queen, 
 whose hair she braided and breathed in to them a wonderful perfume, 
 which she alone possessed. When the queen saw her maidens she 
 felt a desire toward this marvelous stranger, whose hair and skin 
 breathed ambrosial odors, and sent for her. Isis soon became her 
 
 friend and was appointed nurse to the queen's little child 
 
 Isis nourished it by putting her finger into its mouth instead of the 
 breast. . . . She herself took the form of a swallow and flew round 
 the supporting pillar, uttering plaintive cries. . . . Finally she 
 reveals herself as the goddess and asks for the pillar, draws it lightly 
 away from under the roof, peels the erica covering from the coffin ot 
 Osiris and anoints him with bitter tears.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 463 
 
 ''While she was rejoicing over her newly found child, a fresh 
 peal of tl" under told that Typhon had returned. This time the 
 monster rushed upon the beautiful flowering grave, tore the 
 body out of its coffin, hewed it into fourteen pieces* and 
 strewed them over the shores of the lake. 
 
 "When Isis came back to the grave she found nothing but 
 faded flowers and an empty coffin; but at fourteen different 
 places on the shore fourteen beautiful colored flames were burn- 
 ing. She and her virgins ran to these flames, while Horus 
 led the youths to battle against Typhon on the opposite shore. 
 
 "My eyes and ears hardly sufficed for all I had to see and 
 hear. On the one shore a fearful and interesting struggle, peals 
 of thunder and the braying of trumpets; on the other the sweet 
 voices of the women, singing the most captivating songs to 
 the most enchanting dances, for Isis had found a part of her 
 husband's body at every fire and was rejoicing. 
 
 "That was something for you, Zopyrus! I know of no 
 words to describe the grace of those girls' movements, or how 
 beautiful it was to see them first mingling in intricate confusion, 
 then suddenly standing in faultless, unbroken lines, falling 
 again into the same lovely tumult and passing once more into 
 order, and all this with the greatest swiftness. Bright rays of 
 light flashed from their whirling ranks all the time, for each 
 dancer had a mirrorf fastened between her shoulders which 
 flashed while she was in motion and reflected the scene when 
 she was still. 
 
 "Just as Isis had found the last limb but one$ of the murdered 
 Osiris, loud songs of triumph and the flourish of trumpets re- 
 sounded from the opposite shore. 
 
 "Horus had conquered Typhon, and was forcing his way 
 
 *In twenty-six pieces, according to Diodorus (i, 21), which Typhon 
 distributes among the same number of his companions. Plut. ("Is. 
 and Os.," 18), agrees with the monuments in stating the number as 
 fourteen. These are separately specified on the latter. 
 
 tDupuis, "Originie des Cultes." This mirror-dance is most charm- 
 ingly described by Th. Moore in his "Epicurean." Nothing deter- 
 minate can be said about it. 
 
 flsis sought the last limb m vain. Typhon (Set) had thrown it into 
 the Nile. The goddess made an artificial limb, and from thence arose 
 a worship which seems to us to have been imported into Egypt from 
 Phoenicia. "Diod.," i, 22. Plutarch, "Isis and Osiris," 18.
 
 464 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 into the nether regions to free his father. The gate to this 
 lower world opened on the west side of the lake and was guard- 
 ed by a fierce female hippopotamus.* 
 
 "And now a lovely music of flutes and harps came nearer 
 and nearer, heavenly perfumes rose into the air, a rosy light 
 spread over the sacred grove, growing brighter every minute, 
 and Osiris came up from the lower world, led by his victorious 
 son. Isis hastened to embrace her risen and delivered hus- 
 band, gave the beautiful Horus his lotus-flower again instead 
 of the sword, and scattered fruits and flowers over the earth, 
 while Osiris seated himself under a canopy wreathed w r ith ivy, 
 and received the homage of all the spirits of the earth and of 
 the amenti."f 
 
 Darius was silent. Rhodopis began: 
 
 "We thank you for your charming account; but this strange 
 spectacle must have a higher meaning, and we should thank 
 you doubly if you would explain that to us." 
 
 "Your idea is quite right," answered Darius, "but what I 
 know I dare not tell. I was obliged to promise Neithotep with 
 an oath not to tell tales out of school."! 
 
 "Shall I tell you," asked Rhodopis, "what conclusions va- 
 rious hints from Pythagoras and Onuphis have led me to draw, 
 as to the meaning of this drama? Isis seems to me to represent 
 the bountiful earth; Osiris, humidity or the Nile, which makes 
 the earth fruitful; Horus, the young spring; Typhon, the 
 scorching drought. The bounteous earth, robbed of her pro- 
 ductive power, seeks this beloved husband with lamentations in 
 the cooler regions of the north, where the Nile discharges his 
 
 *Lepsius considers the animal that kept guard over the lower world, 
 and was generally represented sitting in front of Osiris, to have been 
 a female hippopotamus. Sometimes, however, it is represented as a 
 female dog, and generally of a mongrel form bearing some resem- 
 blance to a hippopotamus. Whatever it be, Cerberus certainly owes 
 his origin to this "voracious beast of the Amenthes." 
 
 tThe lower world, in Egyptian "amenti," properly speaking, the 
 west or kingdom of death, to which the soul returns at the death of 
 the body, as the sun at his setting. In a hieroglyphic inscription of 
 the time of the Ptolemies the amenti is cfalled hades. 
 
 JHerodotus, in speaking of the Osiris of the mysteries, says (ii, 170): 
 "This sanctuary is holy to him whose name I hold it sin to mention 
 here," and (171): "Though I know much about the mysteries, I am 
 silent in deep reverence."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 465 
 
 waters. At last Horus, the young springing power of nature, 
 is grown up and conquers Typhon, or tiie scorching drought. 
 Osiris, as is the case with the fruitful principle of nature, was only 
 apparently dead, rises from the nether regions and once more 
 rules the blessed valley of the Nile, in concert with his wife, the 
 bounteous earth." 
 
 "And as the murdered god behaved properly in the lower 
 regions," said Zopyrus, laughing, "he is allowed, at the end of 
 this odd story, to receive homage from the inhabitants of 
 Hamestegan, Duzakh and Gorothman,* or whatever they call 
 these abodes for the Egyptian spirit-host." 
 
 "They are called amenti," said Darius, falling into his friend's 
 merry mood; "but you must know that the history of this di- 
 vine pair represents not only the life of nature, but also that of 
 the human soul, which, like the murdered Osiris, lives an eter- 
 nal life, even when the body is dead." 
 
 'Thank you," said the other; "I'll try to remember that if I. 
 should chance to die in Egypt. But, really, cost what it may, 
 I must see this wonderful sight soon." 
 
 "Just my own wish," said Rhodopis. "Age is inquisitive." 
 
 "You will never be old," interrupted Darius. "Your con- 
 versation and your features have remained alike beautiful, and 
 your mind is as clear and bright as your eyes." 
 
 "Forgive me for interrupting you," said Rhodopis, as if,she 
 had not heard his flattering words, "but the word 'eyes' reminds 
 me of the oculist Nebenchari, and my memory fails me 
 so often that I must ask you what has become of him before I 
 forget. I hear nothing now of this skillful operator to whom 
 the noble Kassandane owes her sight." 
 
 "He is much to be pitied," replied Darius. "Even before we 
 reached Pelusium he had begun to avoid society and scorned 
 even to speak with his countryman Onuphis. His gaunt old 
 servant was the only being allowed to wait on or be with him. 
 But after the battle his whole behavior changed. He went to 
 
 *Hamestegan the abode of those whose good and bad deeds were 
 equal; duzakh hell; gorothman the paradise of the Persians. Spie- 
 gel, "Avesta," i, p. 23. "Ulmai Islam." Vullers, "Fragments." The 
 "contemplation from the seven heavens" seems to have belonged to 
 a later period. ("The Ardai-Viraf Nameh," etc. Translated from 
 the Persian by J. A. Pope.) Spiegel, "Avesta Farg.," xix, note to 
 sec. 121.
 
 466 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the king with a radiant countenance and asked permission to 
 accompany him to Sais and to choose two citizens of that town 
 to be his slaves. Cambyses thought he could not refuse any- 
 thing to the man who had been such a benefactor to his mother 
 and granted him full power to do what he wished. On arriv- 
 ing at Amasis' capital he went at once to the temple of Neith, 
 and caused the high-priest (who had, moreover, placed himself 
 at the head of the citizens hostile to Persia) to be arrested and 
 with him a certain oculist named Petammon. He then in- 
 formed them that 'as punishment for the burning of certain 
 papers they would be condemned to serve a Persian to whom 
 he should sell them for ttie term of their natural lives and to 
 perform the most menial services of slaves in a foreign coun- 
 try. I was present at this scene, and I assure you I trembled 
 before the Egyptian as he said these words to his enemies. 
 Neithotep, however, listened quietly, and when Nebenchari had 
 finished, answered him thus: 'If thou, foolish son, hast betrayed 
 thy country for the sake of thy burned manuscripts the deed has 
 been neither just nor wise. I preserved thy valuable works 
 with the greatest care, laid them up in our temple and sent a 
 complete copy to the library at Thebes.* Nothing was burned 
 but the letters from Amasis to thy father and a worthless old 
 chest. Psamtik and Petammon were present, and it was then 
 and there resolved that a new family tomb in the city of the 
 dea'd should be built for thee as a compensation for the loss of 
 papers, which, in order to save Egypt, we were unfortunately 
 forced to destroy. On its walls thou canst behold pleasing 
 paintings of the gods to whom thou hast devoted thy life, the 
 most sacred chapters from the book of the dead and many 
 other beautiful pictures touching thine own life and character.'! 
 
 *See note pp. 347-348. 
 
 tDescriptions and drawings of such ancient Egyptian tombs are to 
 be found in all the modern works on the land of the Pharaohs. For. the 
 uninitiated in such matters the minute particulars given by Brugsch 
 in his description of the tomb of Ti will be instructive. The follow- 
 ing inscription on a tomb-stela in the Egyptian museum at Boolak 
 (Cairo) is particularly interesting. ("Mariette's Catalogue," p. 76, 
 note 51): "Oh, ye great ones, ye prophets, priests, orators, and all ye 
 that shall come after me in the millions of years; if anyone shall 
 set my name at the end and set his own name in its place (on the 
 stela) God will requite him with the destruction of his likeness 
 upon earth; if he erase my name upon this, so will God do also unto
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 467 
 
 "The physician turned very pale, asked first to see his books 
 and then his new and beautifully fittecl-up tomb. He then 
 gave his slaves their freedom (notwithstanding which they were 
 still taken to Memphis as prisoners of war) and went home, 
 often passing his hand across his forehead on the way and with 
 the uncertain step of one intoxicated. On reaching his house 
 he made a will bequeathing all he possessed to the grandson 
 of his old servant, Hib, and alleging that he was ill went to 
 bed. The next morning he was found dead. He had poisoned 
 himself with the fearful strychnos-juice."* 
 
 "Miserable man!" said Croesus, "The gods had blinded 
 him and he reaped despair instead of revenge as a reward for 
 his treachery." 
 
 "I pity him," murmured Rhodopis. "But, look, the rowers 
 are taking in their oars. We are at the end of our journey; 
 there are your litters and carriages waiting for you. It was a 
 beautiful trip. Farewell, my dear ones; come to Naukratis 
 soon. I shall return at once with Theopompus and Syloson. 
 Give little Parmys a thousand kisses from me, and tell Melitta 
 never to take her out at noon. It is dangerous for the eyes. 
 Good-night. Croesus; good-night, friends; farewell, my dear 
 son." 
 
 The Persians left the vessel with many a nod and farewell 
 word, and Bartja, looking round once more, missed his footing 
 and fell on the landing-pier. 
 
 He sprang up in a moment without Zopyrus' help, who came 
 running back, calling out: "Take care, Bartja! It's unlucky 
 to fall in stepping ashore. I did the very same thing when we 
 left the ship that time at Naukratis." 
 
 him." At the time in which Nebenchari lived (during the twenty- 
 sixth dynasty) it was customary to have chapters from the ritual of 
 the dead painted on the inner walls of the tombs. Lepsius, "Aelteste 
 Texte des Todtenbuches," p. 14, A. 1. 
 *See note p. 248.
 
 468 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 While our friends were enjoying their row on the Nile Cam- 
 byses' envoy, Prexaspes, had returned from a mission to the 
 long-lived Ethiopians.* He praised their strength and stature, 
 described the way to their country as almost inaccessible to a 
 large army, and had plenty of marvelous tales to tell. How, for 
 instance, they always chose the strongest and handsomest man 
 in their nation for their king and obeyed him unconditionally ; 
 how many of them reached the age of one hundred and twenty 
 years, and some even passed it; how they ate nothing but boiled 
 flesh, drank new milk, and washed in a spring, the waters of 
 which had the scent of violets, gave a remarkable luster to 
 their skins, and were so light that wood could not swim in 
 them; how their captives wore golden fetters, because other 
 metals were rare and dear in their country ; and, lastly, how they 
 covered the bodies of the dead with plaster or stucco, over 
 which a coating of some glass-like material was poured, and 
 kept the pillars thus formed one year in their houses, during 
 which time sacrifices were offered to them, and at the year's 
 end they were placed in rows around the town. 
 
 The king of this strange people had accepted Cambyses' pres- 
 ents, saying, in a scornful tone, that he knew well his friendship 
 was of no importance to the Persians, and Prexaspes had only 
 been sent to spy out the land. If the prince of Asia were a just 
 man he would be contented with his own immense empire and 
 not try to subjugate a people who had done him no wrong. 
 "Take your king this bow," he said, "and advise him not to begin 
 the war with us until the Persians are able to bend such weapons 
 as easily as we do. Cambyses may thank the gods that .the 
 Ethiopians have never taken it unto their heads to conquer coun- 
 tries which do not belong to them." 
 
 He then unbent his mighty bow of ebony and gave it to 
 Prexaspes to take to his lord. 
 
 Cambyses laughed at the bragging African, invited his nobles 
 to a trial of the bow the next morning, and rewarded Prexaspes 
 
 *"Herod.," ii, 20-25.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 469 
 
 for the clever way in which he had overcome the difficulties of his 
 journey and acquitted himself of his mission. He then went to 
 rest, as usual intoxicated, and fell into a disturbed sleep, in 
 which he dreamed that Bartja was seated on the throne of Per- 
 sia and that the crown of his head touched the heavens.* 
 
 This was a dream which he could interpret without the aid of 
 soothsayer or Chaldaean. It roused his anger first and then 
 made him thoughtful. 
 
 He could not sleep, and such questions as the following 
 came into his mind: "Haven't you given your brother reason 
 to feel revengeful? Do you think he can forget that you im- 
 prisoned and condemned him to death when he was innocent? 
 And if he should raise his hand against you would not all the 
 Achaemenidae take his part? Have I ever done, or have I any 
 intention of ever doing, anything to win the love of these venal 
 courtiers? Since Nitetis died and that strange Greek fled, has 
 there been a single human being in whom I have the least con- 
 fidence or on whose affection I can rely?" 
 
 These thoughts and questionings excited him so fearfully 
 that he sprang from his bed, crying: "Love and I have nothing 
 to do with one another. Other men may be kind and good if 
 they like; I must be stern, or I shall fall into the hands of those 
 who hate me hate me because I have been just and have vis- 
 ited heavy sins with heavy chastisements. They whisper flat- 
 tering words in my ear; they curse me when my back is turned. 
 The gods themselves must be my enemies, or why do they rob 
 me of everything I love, deny me posterity and even that mili- 
 tary glory which is my just due? Is Bartja so much better than 
 I that everything which I am forced to give up should be his in 
 hundredfold measure? Love, friendship, fame, children every- 
 thing flows to him as the rivers to the sea, while my heart is 
 parched like the desert. But I am king still. I can show him 
 which is the stronger of us two, and I will, though his forehead 
 may touch the heavens. In Persia there can be only one great 
 man. He or I I or he. In a few days I'll send him back to 
 Asia and make him satrap of Bactria. There he can nurse 
 his child and listen to his wife's songs, while I am winning glory 
 in Ethiopia which it shall not be in his power to lessen. Ho, 
 
 ""Herod.," iii, 30.
 
 470 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 there, dressers, bring my robes and a good morning-draught 
 of wine. I'll show the Persians that I'm fit to be king of 
 Ethiopia, and can beat them all at bending a bow. Here, give 
 me another cup of wine. I'd bend that bow if it were a young 
 cypress and its string a cable!" So saying, he drained an im- 
 mense bowl of wine and went into the palace garden, conscious 
 of his enormous strength and, therefore, sure of success. 
 
 All his nobles were assembled waiting for him there, wel- 
 comed him with loud acclamations and fell on their faces to the 
 ground before the king. 
 
 Pillars, connected by scarlet cords, had been quickly set up 
 between the closely cut hedges and straight avenues.* From 
 these cords, suspended by gold and silver rings, yellow and 
 dark-blue hangingsf fluttered in the breeze. Gilded wooden 
 benches had been placed round in a large circle and nimble cup- 
 bearers handed wine in costly vessels to the company assem- 
 bled for the shooting-match. 
 
 At a sign from the king the Achaemenidae rose from the 
 earth. 
 
 Cambyses glanced over their ranks and his face brightened 
 on seeing that Bartja was not there. Prexaspes handed him the 
 Ethiopian bow and pointed out a target at some distance. 
 Cambyses laughed at the large size of the target, weighted the 
 bow with his right hand, challenged his subjects to try their 
 fortune first, and handed the bow to the aged Hystaspes as the 
 highest in rank among the Achaemenidae. 
 
 While Hystaspes first, and then all the heads of the six other 
 highest families in Persia, were using their utmost efforts to 
 bend this monster weapon in vain, the king emptied goblet after 
 goblet of wine, his spirits rising as he watched the vain endeav- 
 ors to solve the Ethiopian's problem. At last Darius, who was 
 famous for his skill in archery, took the bow. Nearly the same 
 result. The wood was inflexible as iron and all his efforts only 
 availed to move it one finger's breadth. The king gave him a 
 friendly nod in reward for his success, and then, looking round 
 
 *See note p. "6. 
 
 f'Book of Esther," i, 6. There the hangings are white, green and 
 blue or v'olet. (English version.) In the text we have given red, 
 yellow and dark blue because these were the Persian colors. See 
 p. 438.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 471 
 
 on his friends and relations in a manner that betokened the 
 most perfect assurance, he said : "Give me the bow now, Darius. 
 I will show you that there is only one man in Persia who de- 
 serves the name of king only one who can venture to take 
 the field against the Ethiopians only one who can bend this 
 bow." 
 
 He grasped it tightly with his left hand, taking the string, 
 which was as thick as a man's finger and made from the intes- 
 tines of a lion, in his right, fetched a deep breath, bent his mighty 
 back and pulled and pulled ; collected his strength for greater 
 and greater efforts, strained his sinews till they threatened to 
 break, and the veins in his forehead were swollen to bursting, 
 did not even disdain to use his feet and legs, but all in vain. After 
 a quarter of an hour of almost superhuman exertion his strength 
 gave way, the ebony, which he had succeeded in bending even 
 farther than Darius, flew back and set all his further endeavors 
 at naught. At last, feeling himself thoroughly exhausted, he 
 dashed the bow onto the ground in a passion, crying: "The 
 Ethiopian is a liar! no mortal man has ever bent that bow. 
 What is impossible for my arm is possible for no other. In 
 three clays we will start for Ethiopia. I will challenge the im- 
 postor to a single combat and ye shall see which is the stronger. 
 Take up the bow, Prexaspes, and keep it carefully. The black 
 liar shall be strangled with his own bow-string. This wood is 
 really harder than iron, and I confess that the man who could 
 bend it would really be my master. I should not be ashamed 
 to call him so, for he must be of better stuff than I." 
 
 As he finished speaking Bartja appeared in the circle of as- 
 sembled Persians. His glorious figure was set off to advan- 
 tage by his rich dress, his features were bright with happiness 
 a,nd a feeling of conscious strength. He passed through the 
 ranks of the Achaemenidae with many a friendly nod, which 
 was warmly returned, and, going straight to his brother, kissed 
 his robe, looked up frankly and cheerfully into his gloomy eyes, 
 and said: "I am a little late, and ask your forgiveness, my 
 lord and brother. Or have I really come in time? Yes, yes, 
 I see there's no arrow in the target yet, so I am sure you, the 
 best archer in the world, cannot have tried your strength yet. 
 But YOU look so inquiringly at me. Then I will confess that 
 our child kept me. The little creature laughed to-day for the
 
 472 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 first time, and was so charming with its mother that I forgot how 
 time was passing while I watched them. You have all full leave 
 to laugh at my folly; I really don't know how to excuse myself. 
 See, the little one has pulled the star from the chain. But I 
 think, brother, you will give me a new one to-day if I should 
 hit the bull's eye. Shall I shoot first, or will you begin, my 
 sovereign?" 
 
 "Give him the bow, Prexaspes," said Cambyses, not even 
 deigning to look at his brother. 
 
 Bartja took it and was proceeding to examine the wood and 
 the string when Cambyses suddenly called out, with a mocking 
 laugh: "By Mithras, I believe you want to try your sweet looks 
 on the bow and win its favor in that fashion, as you do the 
 hearts of men. Give it back to Prexaspes. It's easier to play 
 with beautiful women and laughing children than with a weapon 
 like this, which mocks the strength even of real men." 
 
 Bartja blushed with anger and annoyance at this speech, 
 which was uttered in the bitterest tone, picked up the giant ar- 
 row that lay before him, placed himself opposite the target, 
 summoned all his strength, bent the bow, by an almost super- 
 human effort, and sent the arrow into the very center of the 
 target, where its iron point remained, while its wooden shaft 
 split into a hundred shivers.* 
 
 Most of the Achaemenidae burst into loud shouts of delight 
 at this marvelous proof of strength; but Bartja's nearest friends 
 turned pale and were silent; they were watching the king, 
 who literally quivered with rage, and Bartja, who was radiant 
 with pride and joy. 
 
 Cambyses was a fearful sight at that moment. It seemed 
 to him as if that arrow, in piercing the target, had pierced his 
 own heart, his strength, dignity and honor. Sparks floated be- 
 fore his eyes, in his ears was a sound like the breaking of a 
 stormy sea on the shore ; his cheeks glowed and he grasped the 
 
 *Herodotus tells this story (iii, 30), and we are indebted to him, also, 
 for our information of the events which follow. The following inscrip- 
 tion, said to have been placed over the grave of Darius and com- 
 municated by Onesikritus ("Strabo," 730), proves that the Persians 
 were very proud of being reputed good archers: "I was a friend 
 to my friends, the best rider and archer, a first-rate hunter; I could 
 do everything."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 473 
 
 
 
 arm of Prexaspes who was at his side. Prexaspes only too well 
 understood what that pressure meant, when given by a royal 
 hand, and murmured: "Poor Bartja!" 
 
 At last the king succeeded in recovering his presence of mind. 
 Without saying a word he threw a gold chain to his brother, or- 
 dered his nobles to follow him and left the garden, but only 
 to wander restlessly up and down his apartments and try to 
 drown his rage in wine. Suddenly he seemed to have formed a 
 resolution and ordered all the courtiers, except Prexaspes, to 
 leave the hall. When they were alone he called out, in a hoarse 
 voice and with a look that proved the extent of his intoxication : 
 "This life is not to be borne! Rid me of my enemy and I will 
 call you my friend and benefactor." 
 
 Prexaspes trembled, threw himself at the king's feet and 
 raised his hands imploringly ; but Cambyses was too intoxicated 
 and too much blinded by his hatred to understand the action. 
 He fancied the prostration was meant as a sign of devotion to his 
 will, signed to him to rise and whispered, as if afraid of hearing 
 his own words: "Act quickly and secretly; and, as you value 
 your life, let no one know of the upstart's death. Depart, and 
 when your work is finished take as much as you like out of the 
 treasury. But keep your wits about you. The boy has a 
 strong arm and a winning tongue. Think of your own wife and 
 children if he tries to win you over with his smooth words." 
 
 As he spoke he emptied a fresh goblet of pure wine, stag- 
 gered through the door of the room, calling out, as he turned 
 his back on Prexaspes: "Woe be to you if that upstart, that 
 woman's hero, that fellow who has robbed me of my honor is 
 left alive." 
 
 Long after he had left the hall Prexaspes stood fixed on the 
 spot where he had heard these words. The man was ambitious, 
 but neither mean nor bad, and he felt crushed by the awful task 
 allotted to him. He knew that his refusal to execute it would 
 bring death or disgrace on himself and on his family; but he 
 loved Bartja, and besides, his whole nature revolted at the 
 thought of becoming a common, hired murderer. A fearful 
 struggle began in his mind and raged long after he left the 
 palace. On the way home he met Croesus and Darius. He 
 fancied they would see from his looks that he was already _on 
 the wav to a great crime and hid himself behind the projecting
 
 474 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 
 
 gate of a large Egyptian house. As they passed, he heard 
 Croesus say: "I reproached him bitterly, little as he deserves 
 reproach in general, for having given such an inopportune proof 
 of his great strength. We may really thank the gods that Cam- 
 byses did not lay violent hands on him in a fit of passion. He 
 has followed my advice now and gone with his wife to Sais. For 
 the next few days Bartja must not come near the king; the 
 mere sight of him might rouse his anger again, and a monarch 
 can always find unprincipled servants 
 
 The rest of the sentence died away in the distance, but the 
 words he had heard were enough to make Prexaspes start as 
 if Croesus had accused him of the shameful deed. He resolved 
 in that moment that, come what would, his hands should not be 
 stained with the blood of a friend. This resolution restored 
 him his old erect bearing and firm gait for the time, but when 
 he reached the dwelling which had been assigned as his abode 
 in Sais Ms two boys ran to the door to meet him.- They had 
 stolen away from the playgrounds of the sons of the Achaemen- 
 idae (who, as was always the case, had accompanied the king 
 and the army) to see their father for a moment. He felt a 
 strange tenderness which he could not explain to himself on 
 taking them in his arms, and kissed the beautiful boys once more 
 on their telling him that they must go back to their playground 
 again or they should be punished. Within, he found his favor- 
 ite wife playing with their youngest child, a sweet little girl. 
 Again the same strange, inexplicable feeling of tenderness. He 
 overcame it this time for fear of betraying his secret to his 
 young wife and retired to his own apartment early. 
 
 Night had come on. 
 
 The sorely tried man could not sleep; he turned restlessly 
 from side to side. The fearful thought that his refusal to do 
 the king's will would be the ruin of his wife and children stood 
 before his wakeful eyes in the most vivid colors. The strength 
 to keep his good resolution forsook him, and even Croesus' 
 words, which, when he first heard them had given his nobler 
 feelings the victory, now came in as a power on -the other side. 
 "A monarch can always find unprincipled servants." Yes, the 
 words were an affront, but at the same time a reminder that 
 though he might defy the king's command a hundred others 
 would be ready to obey it. No sooner had this thought become 
 clear to him than he started up, examined a number of daggers
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 475 
 
 which hung carefully arranged above his bed and laid the sharp- 
 est on the little table before him. 
 
 He then began to pace the room in deep thought, often going 
 to the opening which served as a window to cool his burning 
 forehead and see if dawn were near. 
 
 When, at last, daylight appeared, he heard the sounding- 
 brass* calling the boys to early prayer. That reminded him of 
 his sons and he examined the dagger a second time. A troop 
 of gayly dressed courtiers rode by on their way to the king. He 
 put the dagger in his girdle ; and, at last, on hearing the merry 
 laughter of his youngest child sound from the women's apart- 
 ments, he set the tiara hastily on his head, left the house without 
 taking leave of his wife, and, accompanied by a number of slaves, 
 went down to the Nile. There he threw himself into a boat and 
 ordered the rowers to take him to Sais. 
 
 A few hours after the fatal shooting-match Bartja had fol- 
 lowed Croesus' advice and had gone off to Sais with his young 
 wife. They found Rhodopis there. She had yielded to an 
 irresistible impulse, and, instead of returning to Naukratis, had 
 stopped at Sais. Bartja's fall on stepping ashore had disturbed 
 her, and she had with her own eyes seen an owl fly from the 
 left side close by his head. These evil omens, to a heart which 
 had by no means outgrown the superstitions of the age, added 
 to a confused succession of distressing dreams which had dis- 
 turbed her slumbers; and her usual wish to be ahvays near 
 Bartja and Sappho led her to decide quickly on waiting for her 
 granddaughter at Sais. 
 
 Bartja and Sappho were delighted to find such a welcome 
 guest, and after she had dandled and played with her great 
 grandchildren, the little Parmys,f to her heart's content, they 
 led her to the rooms which had been prepared for her. They 
 were the same in which the unhappy Tachot had spent the last 
 
 *See p. 181. 
 
 tHerodotus states that besides Atossa, etc., Darius took a daughter 
 of the deceased Bartja, named Parmys, to be his wife, "Herod.," iii, 
 88. She is also mentioned in vii. 78.
 
 476 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 months of her fading existence. Rhodopis could not see all 
 the little trifles which showed not only the age and sex of the 
 former occupant, but her tastes and disposition, without feeling 
 very sad. On the dressing-table were a number of little oint- 
 ment-boxes and small bottles for perfumes, cosmetics, washes 
 and oils.* Two larger boxes, one in the form of a Nile goose, f 
 and another, on the side of which a woman playing on a lute 
 had been painted, had once contained the princess' costly golden 
 ornaments, and the metal mirror, with a handle in the form of a 
 sleeping maiden,! had once reflected her beautiful face with its 
 pale pink flush. Everything in the room, from the elegant lit- 
 tle couch resting on the lions' claws, to the delicately carved 
 ivory combs on the toilet-table, proved that the outward adorn- 
 ments of life had possessed much charm for the former owner 
 of these rooms. The golden sistrum and the delicately wrought 
 nabla, the strings of which had long ago been broken, testified 
 to her taste for music, while the broken spindle]] in the corner 
 and some unfinished nets of glass beads^[ showed that she had 
 been fond of woman's usual work. 
 
 It was a sad picture to Rhodopis to examine all these things, 
 and the picture which she drew in her own mind of Tachot after 
 the inspection differed very little from the reality. At last, 
 interest and curiosity led her to a large painted chest. She 
 lifted the light cover and found, first, a few dried flowers ; then 
 a ball, round which some skillful hand had wreathed roses and 
 leaves, once fresh and bright, now, alas! long ago dead and 
 
 ""Wilkinson," iii, 381, 383. We learn from the monuments that 
 the Egyptians were accustomed to anoint themselves in divers ways 
 from a very early period. We read of a paint for the eyes called 
 mestem as early as the twelfth dynasty. The staining of the finger- 
 nails, so customary still in Egypt, was practiced in the time of the 
 Pharaohs (this can be proved by the mummies), and perfumed locks 
 were indispensable to a beauty of those days. "Papyr. d'Orb.," ix, 3. 
 Plut., "Isis and Osiris," 15. 
 
 tFrom "Wilkinson," ii, 360. Leyden museum. 
 
 JFrom the handle of a saucer or vase used for ornaments, in "Wil- 
 kinson," ii, 359. See, also, "Wilkinson," iii, 386, 1, 2. 
 
 Combs found at Thebes. "Wilkinson," iii, 381. 
 
 ||See note pp. 402-403. 
 
 flBead-work has been found on very many of the mummies in 
 almost all the larger museums. In "Wilkinson," iii, 90, 101, is a draw- 
 ing of the celebrated large glass bead in which a hieroglyphic inscrip- 
 tion has been cut.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 477 
 
 withered. Beside these were a number of amulets in different 
 forms, one representing the goddess of truth, another contain- 
 ing spells written on a strip of papyrus and concealed in a little 
 gold case. Then her eyes fell on some letters written in the Greek 
 character. She read them by the light of the lamp. They were 
 from Nitetis in Persia to her supposed sister, and were written 
 in ignorance of the latter's illness. When Rhodopis laid them, 
 down her eyes were full of tears. The dead girl's secret lay 
 open before her. She knew now that Tachot had loved Bartja, 
 that he had given her the faded flowers, and that she had 
 wreathed the ball with roses because he had thrown it to her. 
 The amulets must have been intended either to heal her sick 
 heart or to awaken love in his. 
 
 As she was putting the letters back in their old place she 
 touched some cloths which seemed put in to fill up the bottom 
 of the chest, and felt a hard, round substance underneath. She 
 raised them, and discovered a bust made of colored wax, such 
 a wonderfully exact portrait of Nitetis that an involuntary ex- 
 clamation of surprise broke from her, and it was long before 
 she could turn her eyes away from Theodorus' marvelous work. 
 
 She went to rest and fell asleep, thinking of the sad fate of 
 Nitetis, the Egyptian princess. 
 
 The next morning Rhodopis went into the garden the same 
 into which we led our readers during the lifetime of Amasis 
 and found Bartja and Sappho in an arbor overgrown with 
 vines. 
 
 Sappho was seated on a light wicker-work chair. Her child 
 lay on her lap, stretching out its little hands and feet, sometimes 
 to* its father, who was kneeling on the ground before them, and 
 then to its mother, whose laughing face was bent down over 
 her little one. 
 
 Bartja was very happy with his child. When the little crea- 
 ture buried its tiny fingers in his curls and beard he would draw 
 his head back to feel the strength of the little hand, would kiss 
 its rosy feet, its round white shoulders and dimpled arms. 
 Sappho enjoyed the fun, always trying to draw the little one's 
 attention to its father. 
 
 Sometimes, when she stooped down to kiss the rosy baby lips, 
 her forehead would touch his curls and he would steal the kiss 
 meant for the little Parmvs.
 
 478 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Rhodopis watched them for a long time unperceived, and, 
 with tears of joy in her eyes, prayed the gods that they might 
 long be as happy as they now were. At last she came into the 
 arbor to wish them good-morning' and bestowed much praise 
 on old Melitta for appearing at the right moment, parasol in 
 hand, to take her charge out of the sunshine before it became 
 too bright and hot, and put her to sleep. 
 
 The old slave had been appointed head-nurse to the high- 
 born child, and acquitted herself in her new office with an 
 amount of importance which was very comical. Hiding her 
 old limbs under rich Persian robes, she moved about exulting 
 in the new and delightful right to command, and kept her in- 
 feriors in perpetual motion. 
 
 Sappho followed Melitta into the palace, first whispering in 
 her husband's ear with her arm round his neck: "Tell my 
 grandmother everything and ask whether you are right." 
 
 Before he could answer she had stopped his mouth with a 
 kiss, and then hurried after the old woman, who was departing 
 with dignified steps. 
 
 The prince smiled as he watched her graceful walk and beau- 
 tiful figure, and said, turning to Rhodopis: "Does not it strike 
 you that she has grown taller lately?" 
 
 "It seems so," answered Rhodopis. "A woman's girlhood 
 has its own peculiar charm, but her true dignity comes with 
 motherhood. It is the feeling of having fulfilled her destiny 
 which raises her head and makes us fancy she has grown taller." 
 
 "Yes," said Bartja, "I think she is happy. Yesterday our 
 opinions differed for the first time, and as she was leaving us 
 just now she begged me, privately, to lay the question before 
 you, which I am very glad to do, for I honor your experience 
 and wisdom just as much as I love her child-like inexperience." 
 
 Bartja then told the story of the unfortunate shooting-match, 
 finishing with these words: "Croesus blames my imprudence, 
 but I know my brother; I know that when he is angry he is 
 capable of any act of violence, and it is not impossible that at 
 the moment when he felt himself defeated he could have killed 
 me; but I know, too, that when his fierce passion has cooled 
 he will forget my boastful deed, and only try to excel me by 
 others of the same kind. A year ago he was, by far, the best 
 marksman in Persia, and would be still, if drink and epilepsv
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 479 
 
 had not undermined his strength. I must confess I feel as if I 
 were becoming stronger every day." 
 
 "Yes," interrupted Rhodopis, "pure happiness strengthens 
 a man's arm just as it adds to the beauty of a woman, while in- 
 temperance and mental distress ruin both body and mind far 
 more*surely even than old age. My son, beware of your brother; 
 his strong arm has become paralyzed, and his generosity can be 
 forfeited, too. Trust my experience that the man who is the 
 slave of one evil passion is very seldom master of the rest; be- 
 sides which, no one feels humiliation so bitterly as he who is 
 sinking who knows that his powers are forsaking him. I say 
 again, beware of your brother, and trust the voice of experience 
 more than that of your own heart, which, because it is generous 
 itself, believes everyone else to be so." 
 
 "I see," said Bartja, "that you will take Sappho's side. Dif- 
 ficult as it will be for her to part from you she has still begged 
 me to return with her to Persia. She thinks that Cambyses 
 may forget his anger when I am out of sight. I thought she 
 was overanxious, and, besides, it would disappoint me not to 
 take part in the expedition against the Ethiopians." 
 
 "But I entreat you," interrupted Rhodopis, "to follow her 
 advice. The gods only know what pain it will give me to lose 
 you both, and yet I repeat a thousand times : Go back to Per- 
 sia, and remember that none but fools stake life and happiness 
 to no purpose. As to the war with Ethiopia, it is mere mad- 
 ness ; instead of subduing those black inhabitants of the south, 
 you yourselves will be conquered by heat, thirst and all the 
 horrors of the desert. In saying this I refer to the campaigns 
 in general ; as to your own share in them I can only say that if 
 no fame is to be won there, you will be putting your own life 
 and the happiness of your family in jeopardy literally for noth- 
 ing, and that if, on the other hand, you should distinguish your- 
 self again, it would only be giving fresh cause of jealousy and 
 anger to your brother. No, go to Persia as soon as you can." 
 
 Bartja was just beginning to make various objections to these 
 arguments when he caught sight of Prexaspes coming up to 
 them, looking very pale. 
 
 After the usual greeting the envoy whispered to Bartja that 
 he should like to speak with him alone. Rhodopis left them 
 at once, and he began playing with the rings on his right hand
 
 480 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 as he spoke in a constrained, embarrassed way. "I come from 
 the king. Your display of strength irritated him yesterday, 
 and he does not wish to see you again for some time. His or- 
 ders are that you set out for Arabia to buy up all the camels* 
 that are to be had. As these animals can bear thirst very long, 
 they are to be used in conveying food and water for our, army 
 on the Ethiopian campaign. There must be no delay. Take 
 leave of your wife, and (I speak by the king's command) be 
 ready to start before dark. You will be absent at least a month. 
 I am to accompany you as far as Pelusium, Kassandane wishes 
 to have your wife and child near her during your absence. Send 
 them to Memphis as soon as possible; under the protection of 
 the queen-mother they will be in safety." 
 
 Prexaspes' short, constrained way of speaking did not strike 
 Bartja. He rejoiced at what seemed to him great moderation 
 on the part of his brother, and at receiving a commission which 
 relieved him of all doubt on the question of leaving Egypt, gave 
 his friend (as he supposed him to be) his hand to kiss and an 
 invitation to follow him into the palace. 
 
 In the cool of the evening he took a short but very affection- 
 ate farewell of Sappho and his child, who was asleep in Melitta's 
 arms, told his wife to set out as soon as possible on her journey 
 to Kassandane, called out jestingly to his mother-in-law that at 
 least this time she had been mistaken in her judgment of a man's 
 character (meaning his brother's), and sprang on his horse. 
 
 As Prexaspes was mounting, Sappho whispered to him, 
 "Take care of that reckless fellow, and remind him of me and 
 his child when you see him running into unnecessary danger." 
 
 "I shall have to leave him at Pelusium," answered the envoy, 
 busying himself with the bridle of his horse in order to avoid 
 meeting her eyes. 
 
 "Then may the gods take him into their keeping!" exclaimed 
 Sappho, clasping her husband's hand, and bursting into tears 
 
 *Camels are never represented on the Egyptian monuments, where- 
 as they were in great use among the Arabians and Persians, and are 
 now a necessity on the Nile. They must have existed in Egypt, how- 
 ever. Hekekyan-Bey discovered the bones of a dromedary in a deep 
 bore. Representations of these creatures were probably forbidden. 
 We know this was the case with the cock, of which bird there were 
 large numbers in Egypt. It is remarkable that camels were not in- 
 troduced into Barbary until after the birth of Christ. H. Earth, 
 "Wanderungen am Gestade des Mittelmeers," p. 3.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 481 
 
 which she r.mld not keep back, i'.artja looked down and saw 
 his usually so trustful wife in tears. He felt sadder than he had 
 ever felt before. Stooping down lovingly from his saddle he 
 pat his strong arm round her waist, lifted her up to him, and as 
 she stood supporting herself on his foot in the stirrup, pressed 
 her to his heart as if for a long last farewell. He then let her 
 safely and gently to the ground, took his child up to him on the 
 saddle, kissed and fondled the little creature, and told her, laugh- 
 ingly, to make her mother very happy while he was away, ex- 
 changed some warm words of farewell with Rhodopis, and then, 
 spurring his horse till the creature reared, dashed through the 
 gateway of the Pharaohs' palace, with Prexaspes at his side. 
 
 When the sound of the horses' hoofs had died away in the 
 distance Sappho laid her head on her grandmother's shoulder 
 and wept uncontrollably. Rhodopis remonstrated and blamed, 
 but all in vain ; she could not stop her tears. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 On the morning after the trial of the bow Cambyses was 
 seized by such a violent attack of his old illness that he was 
 forced to keep his room for two days and nights, ill in mind and 
 body; at times raging like a madman, at others weak and pow- 
 erless as a little child. 
 
 On the third day he recovered consciousness and remem- 
 bered the awful charge he had laid on Prexaspes, and that it 
 was only too possible he might have executed it already. At 
 this thought he trembled as he had never trembled in his life 
 before. He sent at once for the envoy's eldest son, who was 
 one of the royal cup-bearers. The boy said his father had left 
 Memphis without taking leave of his family. He then sent 
 for Darius, Zopyrus and Gyges, knowing how tenderly they 
 loved Bartja, and inquired after their friend. On hearing from 
 them that he was at Sais he sent the three youths thither at once, 
 charging them, if they met Prexaspes on the way, to send him
 
 482 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 back to Memphis without delay. This haste and the king's 
 strange behavior were quite incomprehensible to the young 
 Achaemenidae ; nevertheless, they set out on their journey with 
 all speed, fearing that something must be wrong. 
 
 Cambyses, meanwhile, was miserably restless, inwardly cursed 
 the habit of drinking and tasted no wine the whole of that day. 
 Seeing his mother in the palace gardens he avoided her; he 
 dared not meet her eye. 
 
 The next eight days passed without any sign of Prexaspes 1 
 return ; they seemed to the king like a year. A hundred times 
 he sent for the young cup-bearer and asked if his father had 
 returned; a hundred times he received the same disappointing 
 answer. 
 
 At sunset on the thirteenth day Kassandane sent to beg a visit 
 from him. The king went at once, for now he longed to look 
 on the face of his mother; he fancied it might give him back 
 his lost sleep. 
 
 After he had greeted her with a tenderness so rare from him 
 that it astonished her he asked for what reason she had desired 
 his presence. She answered that Bartja's wife had arrived at 
 Memphis under singular circumstances and had said she wished 
 to present a gift to Cambyses.' He gave Sappho an audience 
 at once and heard from her that Prexaspes had brought her 
 husband an order to start for Arabia, and herself a summons to 
 Memphis from the queen-mother. At these words the king 
 turned very pale and his features were agitated with pain as he 
 looked at his brother's lovely young wife. She felt that some- 
 thing unusual was passing in his mind, and such dreadful fore- 
 bodings arose in her own that she could only offer him the gift 
 in silence and with trembling hands. 
 
 "My husband sends you this," she said, pointing to the in- 
 geniously wrought box which contained the wax likeness of 
 Nitetis. Rhodopis had advised her to take this to the king in 
 Bartja's name as a propitiatory offering. 
 
 Cambyses showed no curiosity as to the contents of the box, 
 gave it in charge of a eunuch, said a few words which seemed 
 meant as thanks to his sister-in-law, and left the women's apart- 
 ments without even so much as inquiring after Atossa, whose 
 existence he seemed to have forgotten. 
 
 He had come to his mother believing that the visit would
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 483 
 
 comfort and calm his troubled mind, but Sappho's words had 
 destroyed his last hope and with that his last possibility of rest 
 or peace. By this time either Prexaspes would already have 
 committed the murder, or, perhaps, at that very moment might 
 be raising his dagger to plunge it into Bartja's heart. How 
 could he ever meet his mother again after Bartja's death? How 
 could he answer her questions or those of that lovely Sappho, 
 whose large, anxious, appealing eyes had touched him so 
 strangely ? 
 
 A voice within told him that his brother's murder would be 
 branded as a cowardly, unnatural and unjust deed, and he shud- 
 dered at the thought. It seemed fearful, unbearable to be 
 called an assassin. He had already caused the death of many a 
 man without the least compunction, but that had been done 
 either in fair fight or openly before the world. He was king, 
 and what the king did was right. Had he killed Bartja with 
 his own hand, his conscience would not have reproached him; 
 but to have had him privately put out of the way after he had 
 given so many proofs of possessing first-rate manly qualities, 
 which deserved the highest praise this tortured him with a 
 feeling of rage at his own want of principle a feeling of shame 
 and remorse which he had never known before. He began to 
 despise himself. The consciousness of having acted and wished 
 to act justly forsook him, and he began to fancy that everyone 
 who had been executed by his orders had been, like Bartja, an 
 innocent victim of his fierce anger. These thoughts became 
 so intolerable that he began to drink once more in the hope of 
 drowning them. But now the wine had precisely the opposite 
 effect and brought such tormenting thoughts, that, worn out 
 as he was already by epileptic fits and his habit of drinking, both 
 body and mind threatened to give way to the agitation caused 
 by the events of the last months. Burning and shivering by 
 turns he was, at last, forced to lie down. While the attendants 
 were disrobing him he remembered his brother's present, had 
 the box fetched and opened, and then desired to be left alone. 
 The Egyptian paintings on the outside of the box reminded him 
 of Nitetis, and then he asked himself what she would have 
 said to his deed. Fever had already begun, and his mind was 
 wandering as he took the beautiful wax bust out of the box. 
 He stared in horror at the dull, immovable eyes. The likeness
 
 484 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 was so perfect and his judgment so weakened by wine and 
 fever that he fancied himself the victim of some spell, and yet 
 could not turn his eyes from those clear features. Suddenly the 
 eyes seemed to move. He was seized with terror, and, in a kind 
 of convulsion, hurled what he thought had become a living 
 head against the wall. The hollow brittle wax broke into a 
 thousand fragments and Cambyses sank back onto his bed -with 
 a groan. 
 
 From that moment the fever increased. In his delirium the 
 banished Phanes appeared singing a scornful Greek song and 
 deriding him in such infamous words that his fists clinched with 
 rage. Then he saw his friend and adviser, Croesus, threatening 
 him in the very same words of warning which he had used when 
 Bartja had been sentenced to death by his command on account 
 of Nitetis: "Beware of shedding a brother's blood; the smoke 
 thereof will rise to heaven and become a cloud that must darken 
 the days of the murderer and at last cast down the lightnings of 
 vengeance upon his head." 
 
 And in his delirious fancy this figure of speech became a 
 reality. A rain of blood streamed down upon him from dark 
 clouds; his clothes and hands were wet with the loathsome 
 moisture. He went down to the Nile to cleanse himself and 
 suddenly saw Nitetis coming toward him. She had the same 
 sweet smile with which Theodorus had modeled her. En- 
 chanted with this lovely vision he fell down before her and took 
 her hand, but he had scarcely touched it when drops of blood 
 appeared at the tips of her delicate fingers and she turned away 
 from him with every sign of horror. He humbly implored her 
 to forgive him and come back; she remained inexorable. He 
 grew angry and threatened her, first with his wrath and then 
 with awful punishments. At last, as she only answered his 
 threats by a low, scornful laugh, he ventured to throw his dag- 
 ger at her. She crumbled at once into a thousand piece? like 
 the wax statue. But the derisive laughter echoed on and be- 
 came louder. Many voices joined in it, each trying to outbid 
 the other. And the voices of Bartja and Nitetis were the loud- 
 est their tone the most bitter. At last he could bear these 
 fearful sounds no longer and stopped his ears; this was of no 
 use and he buried his head, first in the glowing desert sand and 
 then in the icy-cold Nile water, until his senses forsook him.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 485 
 
 On awaking the actual state of things seemed incomprehensible 
 to him. He had gone to bed in the evening, and yet he now 
 saw by the direction of the sun's rays which fell on his bed that 
 instead of dawning as he had expected the day was growing 
 dark. There could be no mistake; he heard the chorus of 
 priests singing farewell to the setting Mithras. 
 
 Then he heard a number of people moving behind a curtain 
 which had been hung up at the head of his bed. He tried to 
 turn in his bed, but could not; he was too weak. At last, 
 finding it impossible to discover whether he was in real life or 
 still in a dream, he called for his dressers and the courtiers who 
 were accustomed to be present when he rose. They appeared 
 in a moment, and with them his mother, Prexaspes, a number 
 of the learned among the Magi and some Egyptians who were 
 unknown to him. They told him that he had been lying in 
 a violent fever for weeks, .-and had only escaped death by the 
 special mercy of the gods, the skill of the physicians and the un- 
 wearied nursing of his mother. He looked inquiringly, first at 
 Kassandane, then at Prexaspes, lost consciousness again and 
 fell into a deep sleep, from which he awoke the next morning 
 with renewed strength. 
 
 In four days he was strong enough to sit up and able to ques- 
 tion Prexaspes on the only subject which occupied his thoughts. 
 
 In consideration of his masters weakness the envoy was be- 
 ginning an evasive reply, when a threatening movement of the 
 king's gaunt, worn hand and a look which had by no means 
 lost its old power of awing into submission, brought him to the 
 point at once, and in the hope of giving the king a great pleas- 
 ure and putting his mind completely at rest he began: "Re- 
 joice. O king! the youth who dared to desire the disparage- 
 ment of thy glory is no more. This hand slew him and buried 
 his body at Baal-Zephon. The sand of the desert and the un- 
 fruitful waves of the Red Sea were the only witnesses of the 
 deed;* and no creature knows thereof besides thyself, O king, 
 thy servant Prexaspes and the gulls and cormorants that hover 
 over his grave." 
 
 ""Herodotus" (iii. 30) says: "Some say that after the Prexaspes 
 had led Bartja to the Red sea (?c rf/v ''Epvfioqv dakaaaav . 
 irpntrnynjti ). he murdered him there." It. is possible, but by 110 means 
 certain' that, in this place Herodotus is speaking of the Persian gulf.
 
 486 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 The king uttered a piercing shriek of rage, was seized by a 
 fresh shivering fit and sank back once mo.re in raving delirium. 
 
 Long weeks passed, every day of which threatened his death. 
 At last, however, his strong constitution gained the day, but 
 his mind had given way, and remained disordered and weak up 
 to his last hour. 
 
 When he was strong enough to leave the sick-room and to 
 ride and shoot once more he abandoned himself more than ever 
 to the pleasure of drinking and lost every remnant of self- 
 control. 
 
 The delusion had fixed itself in his disordered mind that 
 Bartja was not dead, but transformed into the bow of the king of 
 Ethiopia, and that the feruer* of his father, Cyrus, had com- 
 manded him to restore Bartja to his original form by subju- 
 gating the black nation. 
 
 This idea, which he confided to everyone about him as a great 
 secret, pursued him day and night and gave him no rest until 
 he had started for Ethiopia with an immense host. He was 
 forced, however, to return without having accomplished his 
 object, after having miserably lost the greater part of his army 
 by heat and the scarcity of provisions. An historian, who may 
 be almost spoken of as contemporary,! tells us that the wretched 
 soldiers, after having subsisted on herbs as long as they could, 
 came to deserts where there was no sign of vegetation, and in 
 their despair resorted to an expedient almost too fearful to de- 
 scribe. Lots were drawn by every ten men, and he on whom 
 the lot fell was killed and eaten by the other nine. 
 
 At last things went so far that his subjects compelled this 
 madman to return, but only, with their slavish Asiatic feelings, to 
 obey him all the more blindly when they found themselves once 
 more in inhabited regions. 
 
 On reaching Memphis with the wreck of his army he found 
 the Egyptians in glorious apparel celebrating a festival. They 
 had found a new Apis:j: and were rejoicing over the reappear- 
 ance of their god, incarnate in the sacred bull. 
 
 As Cambyses had heard at Thebes that the army he had sent 
 
 *The spiritual part of man his soul and reason. See note p. 205. 
 fHerodotus visited Egypt some sixty years after the death of Cam-; 
 byses, 454 B. C. He describes the Ethiopian campaign, iii, 25. 
 fSee note p. 459.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 487 
 
 against the oasis of Ammonium* in the Libyan desert had per- 
 ished miserably in a kamsin, or simoon,f and that his fleet, 
 which was to conquer Carthage, had refused to fight with a 
 people of their own race,$ he fancied that the Memphians must 
 be celebrating a festival of joy at the news of his misfortunes, 
 sent for their principal men, and after reproaching them with 
 their conduct, asked why they had been gloomy and morose 
 after his victories, but joyous at hearing of his misfortunes. The 
 Memphians answered by explaining the real ground for their 
 merry-making, and told him that the appearance of the sacred 
 bull was always celebrated in Egypt with the greatest rejoicings. 
 Cambyses called them liars, and, as such, sentenced them to 
 death. He then sent for the priests; received, however, ex- 
 actly the same answer from them. 
 
 With the bitterest irony he asked to be allowed to make the 
 
 *The oracle of Jupiter Ammon, which afterward became so cele- 
 brated through having pronounced Alexander to be a son of the god, 
 was in this oasis. "Curtius," iv, 7. Croesus had already bestowed 
 attention upon this oracle. "Herod.," i, 46. On its mode of utter- 
 ance, Jamblichus, "De Myst," 3. "Tacit. Hist.," iv, 83. On this 
 marvelous oasis, which is now called Siwah, see Minutoli, "Reise 
 zum Temple des Jupiter Ammon," etc., and specially Parthey's "Zur 
 Erdkunde des Alten Aegyptens." Berlin, 1859. Also Brugsch, "Geo- 
 graphische Inschriften." Popularly described by G. Rasch. The 
 oasis is called Vach or el Vach, "Abulfedae Descrip. Aegypt," 1746. 
 
 |A fearful southwest wind which blows in Egypt and the Libyan 
 desert. The best information on this is to be found in Gregoire's 
 "Du Khamsine et de ses Efforts." A similar wind, known as the 
 "samum," is called by the Turks "schamyele." Possibly the dreadful 
 fiend Samiel, so fatal to the caravans, derived his name from this 
 wind. 
 
 fHerod.," iii, 26, xvii, 19. 
 
 So says "Herod.," iii, 27. Plutarch, "Is. and Os.," 12. In several 
 places we have laid stress upon the Persians' esteem for truth. 
 Things are also very different now. Brugsch, in his "Perser und 
 Germanen," assures us that he had nowhere met with such hard- 
 ened liars as in Persia. In the book of "Kawus," the wise Shah Kjek- 
 jawus, as early as the eleventh century A. D., advises his son and 
 successor rather to tell a lie which sounds like truth than the truth 
 when it seems improbable. "B. d. Kawus," translated by Diez, p. 
 376. Herodotus, on the other hand, writing (i, 138) of the same 
 nation in the fifth century B. C., says: "They hold lying and debt to 
 be the greatest disgrace," and in the "Vendidad" lying is constantly 
 spoken of as one of the most grievous sins. Brugsch may be right in 
 saying that such a deceitful people needed repeated commands on 
 the subject of truth.
 
 488 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 acquaintance of this new god, and commanded them to bring 
 him. The bull Apis was brought and the king told that he was 
 the progeny of a virgin cow and a moonbeam, that he must 
 be black, with a white triangular spot on the forehead, the like- 
 ness of an eagle on his back, and on his side the crescent moon. 
 There must be two kinds of hair on his tail, and on his tongue 
 an excrescence in the form of the sacred beetle Scarabaeus. :!: 
 
 When Cambyses saw this deified creature he could discover 
 nothing remarkable in him, and was so enraged that he plunged 
 his sword into his sicle.f As the blood streamed from the wound 
 and the animal fell, he broke out into a piercing laugh, and cried: 
 "Ye fools! so your gods are flesh and blood; they can be 
 wounded. Such folly is worthy of you. But ye shall find that it 
 is not so easy to make a fool of me. Ho, guards! flog these 
 priests soundly and kill everyone whom you find taking part in 
 this mad celebration." The command was obeyed and fearfully 
 exasperated the Egyptians. 
 
 Apis died of his wound; the Memphians buried him secretly 
 
 *0n the characteristic signs of Apis, see "Herod.," iii, 28. Whether 
 the white spot on his forehead was to be a triangle or a square de- 
 pends on the different readings of Herodotus; the testimony of the 
 monuments is for the triangle. According to Ammian Marcellinus 
 he was to have a half-moon on the right side. "Strabo" (807) speaks 
 of him as black with a white forehead and white on some other por- 
 tions of his body. Ovid calls him variis coloribus apis. The monu- 
 ments explain these differences by proving that sacred bulls were 
 not always alike. Sometimes Apis is represented as entirely black, 
 at others with characteristic white spots. Champollion, "Pantheon 
 Eg.," pi. 37. On the Apis statue discovered by Mariette and now in 
 Paris, many of these marks have been traced. They are painted 
 on the body of the animal in black. The coloring of the head, un- 
 fortunately, has been rubbed off. There exists a bronze figure of 
 the god with the sun-disk and uraeus between his horns, a broad 
 collar round his neck, and on his back two vultures, whose extended 
 wings reach to the fore and hind legs; between these birds a small 
 but costly covering is spread over his back. On the forehead is a 
 spot in the form of a" triangle which had a symbolic meaning. 
 
 tAccording to "Herod.," iii, 29, Cambyses' sword slipped and ran 
 into the leg of the sacred bull. As the king died also of a wound in 
 the thigh, this just suits Herodotus, who always tries to put the 
 retribution that comes after presumptuous crime in the strongest 
 light; but it is very unlikely that the bull should have died of a 
 mere thigh-wound.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 489 
 
 in the vaults belonging to the sacred bulls,* near the Serapeum, 
 and, led by Psamtik, attempted an insurrection against the Per- 
 sians. This was very quickly put down, however, and cost 
 Psamtik his lifef a life the stains and severities of which de- 
 serve to be forgiven in consideration of his unwearied, ceaseless 
 efforts to deliver his people from a foreign yoke and his death 
 in the cause of freedom. 
 
 Cambyses' madness had meanwhile taken fresh forms. After 
 the failure of his attempt to restore Bartja (transformed as he 
 fancied into a bow) to his original shape, his irritability increased 
 so frightfully that a single word, even a look, was sufficient to 
 make him furious. 
 
 Still his true friend and counselor, Croesus, never left him, 
 though the king had more than once given him over to the 
 guards for execution. But the guards knew their master; they 
 took good care not to lay hands on the old man, and felt sure 
 of immunity, as the king would either have forgotten his 
 command, or repented of it by the next day. Once, however, 
 the miserable whip-bearers paid a fearful penalty for their lenity. 
 Cambyses, while rejoicing that Croesus was saved, ordered his 
 deliverers to be executed for disobedience without mercy.J 
 
 It would be repugnant to us to repeat all the tales of barbar- 
 ous cruelties which are told of Cambyses at this insane period 
 of his life ; but we cannot resist mentioning a few which seem to 
 us especially characteristic. 
 
 While sitting at the table one day, already somewhat intoxi- 
 cated, he asked Prexaspes what the Persians thought of him. 
 The envoy, who in hopes of deadening his tormenting con- 
 science by the performance of noble and dangerous acts, let no 
 opportunity pass of trying to exercise a good influence over his 
 sovereign, answered that they extolled him on every point, but 
 thought he was too much addicted to wine. 
 
 These words, though spoken half in jest, put the king into a 
 violent passion, and he almost shrieked : "So the Persians say 
 that the wine has taken away my senses, do they? on the con- 
 trary I'll show them that they have lost their own." And as he 
 spoke he bent his bow, took aim for a moment at Prexaspes' 
 
 *See note p. 145. 
 f'Herod.," iii, 15. 
 f'Herod.," ii, 493,
 
 490 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 eldest son, who, as cup-bearer, was standing at the back of the 
 hall waiting for and watching every look of his sovereign, and 
 shot him in the breast. He then gave orders that the boy's body 
 should be opened and examined. The arrow had pierced the 
 .center of his heart. This delighted the senseless tyrant and he 
 called out with a laugh : "Now you see, Prexaspes, it's the Per- 
 sians who have lost their judgment, not I. Could anyone have 
 hit the mark better?" 
 
 Prexaspes stood there, pale and motionless, compelled to 
 watch the horrid scene, like Niobe when chained to Sipylus. 
 His servile spirit bowed before the ruler's power, instead of 
 arming his right hand with the dagger of revenge, and when 
 the frantic king asked him the same question a second time, he 
 actually answered, pressing his hand on his heart: "A god could 
 not have hit the mark more exactly."* 
 
 A few weeks after this the king went to Sais, and there was 
 shown the rooms formerly occupied by his bride. This brought 
 back all the old painful recollections in full force and at the 
 same time his clouded memory reminded him, though without 
 any clearness of detail, that Amasis had deceived both Nitetis 
 and himself. He cursed the dead king and furiously demanded 
 to be taken to the temple of Xeith where his mummy was laid. 
 There he tore the embalmed body out of its sarcophagus, caused 
 it to be scourged, to be stabbed with pins, had the hair torn off 
 and maltreated it in every possible w r ay. In conclusion, and con- 
 trary to the ancient Persian religious law, which held the pollu- 
 tion of pure fire by corpses to be a deadly sin, he caused Amasis' 
 dead body to be burned and condemned the mummy of his first 
 wife, which lay in a sarcophagus at Thebes, her native place, to 
 the same fate.f 
 
 On his return to Memphis Cambyses did not shrink from per- 
 sonally ill-treating his wife and sister, Atossa. 
 
 He had ordered a combat of wild beasts to take place, during 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 35, certainly means by rbi> 6ebv Apollo who hits 
 his mark from afar. Seneca ("De Ira," iii, 14) in telling the story 
 says plainly "Apollo." 
 
 f'Herod.," iii, 16. The officers of the French frigate Luxor, which 
 was sent to fetch the obelisk of Thebes, found a sarcophagus at El 
 Qurnah containing a half-burned mummy, probably that of the wife 
 of Amasis,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 491 
 
 which, among other entertainments of the same kind, a dog was 
 to fight with a young lion. The lion had conquered his antago- 
 nist, when another dog, the brother of the conquered one, broke 
 away from his chain, attacked the lion, and, with the help of the 
 wounded dog, vanquished him. 
 
 This scene delighted Cambyses, but Kassandane and Atossa, 
 who had been forced by the king's command to be present, be- 
 gan to weep aloud. 
 
 The tyrant was astonished, and, on asking the reason for their 
 tears, received as answer from the impetuous Atossa that the 
 brave creature who had risked its own life to save its brother 
 reminded her of Bartja. She would not say by whom he had 
 been murdered, but his murder had never been avenged. 
 
 These words so roused the king's anger and so goaded his 
 conscience that in a fit of insane fury he struck the daring 
 woman, and might possibly have killed her if his mother had not 
 thrown herself into his arms and exposed her own body to his 
 mad blows.* 
 
 Her voice and action checked his rage, for he had not lost 
 reverence for his mother, but her look of intense anger and con- 
 tempt, which he clearly saw and could not forget, begot a fresh 
 delusion in his mind. He believed from that moment that the 
 eyes of women had power to poison him ; started and hid himself 
 behind his companions whenever he saw a w r oman, and at last 
 commanded that all the female inhabitants of the palace at 
 Memphis, his mother not excepted, should be sent back to Ec- 
 batana. Araspes and Gyges were appointed to be their escort 
 thither. 
 
 The caravan of queens and princesses had arrived at Sais; 
 they alighted at the royal polace. Croesus had accompanied 
 them thus far on their way from Egypt. 
 
 Kassandane had altered very much during the last few years. 
 Grief and suffering had worn deep lines in her once beautiful 
 face, though they had no power to bow her stately figure. 
 
 Atossa, on the contrary, was more beautiful than ever, not- 
 withstanding all she had suffered. The refractory and impet- 
 uous child, the daring spirited girl, had developed into a digni- 
 fied, animated and determined woman. The serious side of life 
 and three sad years passed with her ungovernable husband and 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 32.
 
 492 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 brother, had been first-rate masters in the school of patience, 
 but they had not been able to alienate her heart from her first 
 love. Sappho's friendship had made up to her in some measure 
 for the loss of Darius. 
 
 The young Greek had become another creature since the 
 mysterious departure of her husband. Her rosy color and her 
 lovely smile were both gone. But she was wonderfully beauti- 
 ful in spite of her paleness, her downcast eyelashes and languid 
 attitude. She looked like Ariadne waiting for Theseus. Long- 
 ing and expectation lay in every look, in the low tone of her 
 voice, in her measured walk. At the sound of approaching steps, 
 the opening of a door or the unexpected tones of a man's voice, 
 she would start, get up and listen, and then sink back into the 
 old, waiting, longing attitude, disappointed, but not hopeless. 
 She began to dream again, as she had been so fond of doing in 
 her girlish days. 
 
 She was her old self only when playing with her child. Then 
 the color came back to her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, she seemed 
 once more to live in the present, and not only in the past or 
 future. 
 
 Her child was everything to her. In that little one Bartja 
 seemed to be still alive, and she could love the child with all her 
 heart and strength without taking one iota from her love to him. 
 With this little creature the gods had mercifully given her an 
 aim in life and a link with the lower world, the really precious 
 part of which had seemed to vanish with her vanished husband. 
 Sometimes as she looked into her baby's blue eyes, so wonder- 
 fully like Bartja's, she thought: "Why was not she born a boy? 
 He would have grown more like his father from clay to day, 
 and at last, if such a thing indeed could ever be, a second Bartja 
 would have stood before me." 
 
 But such thoughts generally ended soon in her pressing the 
 little one closer than ever to her heart, and blaming herself for 
 ingratitude and folly. 
 
 One day Atossa put the same idea into words, exclaiming : 
 "If Parmys were only a boy! He would have grown up exactly 
 like his father and have been a second Cyrus for Persia." Sappho 
 smiled sadly at her friend and covered the little one with kisses, 
 but Kassandane said: "Be thankful to the gods, my child, for 
 having given you a daughter. If Parmys were a boy he would
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 493 
 
 be taken from you as soon as he reached his sixth year to be 
 brought up with the sons of the other Achaemenidae, but your 
 daughter \vill remain your own for many years." 
 
 Sappho trembled at the^nere thought of parting from her 
 child; she pressed its little fair, curly head close to her breast, 
 and never found fault with her treasure again for being a girl. 
 Atossa's friendship was a great comfort to her poor wounded 
 heart. With her she could speak of Bartja as much and as often 
 as she would, and was always certain of a kind and sympathizing 
 listener. Atossa had loved her vanished brother very dearly. 
 And even a stranger would have enjoyed hearing Sappho tell 
 of her past happiness. Her words rose into real eloquence in 
 speaking of those bright days; she seemed like an inspired poet- 
 ess. Then she would take her lyre and with her clear, sweet 
 plaintive voice sing the love-songs of the elder Sappho, in which 
 all her own deepest feelings were so truly expressed, and fancy 
 herself once more with her lover, sitting under the sweet-scented 
 acanthus in the quiet night, and forget the sad reality of her 
 present life. And when with a deep sigh she laid aside the lyre 
 and came back out of this dream-kingdom, the tears were always 
 to be seen in Kassandane's eyes, though she did not understand 
 the language in which Sappho had been singing, and Atossa 
 would bend down and kiss her forehead. 
 
 Thus three long years had passed, during which Sappho had' 
 seldom seen her grandmother, for, as the mother of Parmys, 
 she was by the king's command forbidden to leave the harem 
 unless permitted and accompanied either by Kassandane or the 
 eunuchs. 
 
 On the present occasion Croesus, who had always loved and 
 loved her still, like a daughter, had sent for Rhodopis to Sais. 
 He, as well as Kassandane, understood her wish to take leave of 
 this, her dearest and most faithful friend, before setting out for 
 Persia; besides which Kassandane had a great wish to see one in 
 \vhose praise she had heard so much. When Sappho's tender 
 und sad farewell was over, therefore, Rhodopis was summoned 
 to the queen mother. 
 
 A stranger who saw these two women together would have 
 thought both were queens; it was impossible to decide which 
 of the two had the most right to the title. 
 
 Croesus, standing as he did in as close a relation to the one
 
 194 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 as to the other, undertook the office of interpreter and the ready 
 intellect of Rhodopis helped him to carry on an uninterrupted 
 flow of conversation. 
 
 Rhodopis, by her own peculiar attractions, soon won the 
 heart of Kassandane, and the queen knew no better way of prov- 
 ing this than by offering, in Persian fashion, to grant her some 
 wish. 
 
 Rhodopis hesitated a moment; then raising her hands as if 
 in prayer, she cried, "Leave me, my Sappho, the consolation and 
 beauty of my old age." 
 
 Kassandane smiled sadly. "It is not in my power to grant 
 that wish," she answered. "The laws of Persia command that 
 the children of the Achaemenidae shall be brought up at the 
 king's gate. I dare not allow the little Parmys, Cyrus' only 
 grandchild, to leave me, and, much as Sappho loves you, you 
 know she would not part from her child. Indeed, she has be- 
 come so dear to me now and to my daughter that though I well 
 understand your wish to have her I could never allow Sappho 
 to leave us." 
 
 Seeing that Rhodopis' eyes were filling with tears, Kassan- 
 dane went on : "There is, however, a good way out of our per- 
 plexity. Leave Naukratis and come with us to Persia. There 
 you can spend your last years with us and with your grand- 
 daughter and shall be provided with a royal maintenance." 
 
 Rhodopis shook her head, hoary but still so beautiful, and 
 answered in a suppressed voice: "I thank you, noble queen, for 
 this gracious invitation, but I feel unable to accept it. Every 
 fiber of my heart is rooted in Greece, and I should be tearing my 
 life out by leaving it forever. I am so accustomed to constant 
 activity, perfect freedom and a stirring exchange of thought 
 that I should languish and die in the confinement of a harem. 
 Croesus had already prepared me for the gracious proposal you 
 have just made, and I have had a long and difficult battle to fight 
 before I could decide on resigning my dearest blessing for my 
 highest good. It is not easy, but it is glorious it is more wor- 
 thy of the Greek'name to live a beautiful and good life than a 
 happy one to follow duty rather than pleasure. My heart will 
 follow Sappho, but my intellect and experience belong to the 
 Greeks; and if you should ever hear that the people of Hellas 
 are ruled by themselves alone, by their own gods, their own
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 495 
 
 laws, the good and the beautiful, then you will know that the 
 work on which Rhodopis, in league with the noblest and best of 
 her countrymen, has staked her life, is accomplished. Be not 
 angry with the Greek woman who confesses that she would 
 rather die free as a beggar than live in bondage as a queen, 
 though envied by the whole world." 
 
 Kassandane listened in amazement. She only understood 
 part of what Rhodopis had said, but felt that she had spoken well 
 and nobly, and at the conclusion gave her her hand to kiss. 
 After a short pause Kassandane said: "Do what you think right, 
 and remember that as long as I and my daughter live your 
 granddaughter will never want for true and faithful love." 
 
 "Your noble countenance and the fame of your great virtue 
 are warrant enough for that," answered Rhodopis. 
 
 "And also," added the queen, "the duty which lies upon me 
 to make good the wrong that has been done your Sappho." 
 
 She sighed painfully and went on: "The little Parmys shall 
 be carefully educated. She seems to have much natural talent 
 and can sing the songs of her native country already after her 
 mother. I shall do nothing to check her love of music, though 
 in Persia the religious services are the only occasions in which 
 that art is studied by any but the lower classes."* 
 
 At these words Rhodopis' face glowed. "Will you permit 
 me to speak openly, O queen?" she said. 
 
 "Speak without fear," was Kassandane's answer. 
 
 "When you sighed so painfully just now in speaking of your 
 dear lost son I thought perhaps that brave young hero might 
 have been still living if the Persians had understood better how 
 to educate their sons. Bartja told me in what that education 
 consisted. To shoot, throw the spear, ride, hunt, speak the 
 truth, and, perhaps, also to distinguish between the healing 
 and noxious properties of certain plants; that is deemed a suffi- 
 cient educational provision for a man's life. The Greek boys 
 are just as carefully kept to the practice of exercises for harden- 
 ing and bracing the body; for these exercises are the founders 
 and preservers of health, the physician is only its repairer and 
 restorer. If, however, by constant practice a Greek youth were 
 to attain to the strength of a bull, the truth of the Deity and the 
 
 *"Book of Kawus," p. 732. Brusgch, "Reise Nach Persian," p. 
 389. On the musical instruments used in Persia, see "Chardin," v. 
 PP. 69-71.
 
 496 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 wisdom of the most learned Egyptian priest, we should still 
 look down upon him were he wanting in two things which only 
 early example and music, combined with these bodily exercises, 
 can give grace and symmetry. You smile because you do 
 not understand me, but I can prove to you that music, which, 
 from what Sappho tells me, is not without its moving power for 
 your heart, is as important an element in education as gym- 
 nastics, and, strange as it may sound, has an equal share in 
 effecting the perfection of both body and mind. The man who 
 devotes his attention exclusively to music w r ill, if he be of a 
 violent disposition, lose his savage sternness at first, he will 
 become gentle and pliable as metal in the fire. But at last his 
 courage will disappear, too; his passionate temper will have 
 changed into irritability, and he will be of little worth as a 
 warrior, the calling and character most desired in your country. 
 If, on the other hand, he confines himself to gymnastics only, 
 he will, like Cambyses, excel in manliness and strength; but 
 his mind here my comparison ceases will remain obtuse and 
 blind, his perceptions will be confused. He will not listen to 
 reason, but will endeavor to carry everything by force, and, 
 lacking grace and proportion, his life will probably become a 
 succession of rude and violent deeds.* On this account we 
 conclude that music is necessary not only for the mind, and 
 gymnastics not only for the body, but that both, working to- 
 gether, elevate and soften the mind and strengthen the body- 
 give manly grace and graceful manliness." 
 
 After a moment's pause Rhodopis went on: "The youth 
 who has not received such an education, whose roughness 
 has never been checked even in childhood; who has been 
 allowed to vent his temper on every one, receiving flattery in 
 return and never hearing reproof; who has been allowed to 
 command before he has learned to obey, and who has been 
 brought up in the belief that splendor, power and riches are 
 the highest good, can never possibly attain to the perfect man- 
 hood which we beseech the gods to grant our boys. And if 
 this unfortunate being happens to have been born with an 
 impetuous disposition, ungovernable and eager passions, these 
 will be only nourished and increased by bodily exercise unac- 
 companied by the softening influence of music, so that at last 
 
 *The fundamental ideas of this speech are drawn from Plato's ideal 
 "State."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 497 
 
 a child, who possibly came into the world with good qualities 
 will, merely through the defects in his education, degenerate 
 into a destructive animal, a sensual self-destroyer and a mad 
 and furious tyrant." 
 
 Rhodopis had become animated with her subject She 
 ceased, saw tears in the eyes of the queen, and felt that she had 
 gone too far and had wounded a mother's heart ,a heart full 
 of noble feeling. She touched her robe, kissed its border, and 
 said softly, Forgive me." 
 
 Kassandane looked her forgiveness, courteously saluted 
 Rhodopis and prepared to leave the room. On the threshold 
 however, she stopped and said: "I am not angry. Your re- 
 proaches are just; but you, too, must endeavor to forgive, for 
 I can assure you that he who has murdered the happiness of 
 your child and of mine, though the most powerful, is of all 
 mortals the most to be pitied. Farewell! Should you ever 
 stand in need of aught, remember Cyrus' widow, and' how she 
 wished to teach you that the virtues the Persians desire most 
 in their children are magnanimity and liberality." 
 
 After saying this she left the apartment. 
 
 On the same day Rhodopis heard that Phanes was dead. He 
 had retired to Crotona in the neighborhood of Pythagoras and 
 there passed his time in reflection, dying with the tranquillity 
 of a philosopher. 
 
 She was deeply affected at this news and said to Croesus: 
 "Greece has lost one of her ablest men, but there are many 
 who will grow up to be his equals. The increasing power of 
 Persia causes me no fear; indeed, I believe that when the bar- 
 barous lust of conquest stretches out its hand toward us, our 
 many headed Greece will rise as a giant with one head of divine 
 power, before which mere barbaric strength must bow as surely 
 as body before spirit." 
 
 Three days after this, Sappho said farewell for the last time 
 to her grandmother and followed the queens to Persia. Not- 
 withstanding the events which afterward took place, she con- 
 tinued to believe that Bartja would return, and, full of love, 
 fidelity and tender remembrance, devoted herself entirely to
 
 498 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 the education of her child and the care of her aged mother-in- 
 law, Kassandane. 
 
 Little Parmys became very beautiful, and learned to love the 
 memory of her vanished father next to the gods of her native 
 land, for her mother's tales had brought him as vividly before 
 her as if he had been still alive and present with them. 
 
 Atossa's subsequent good fortune and happiness did not cool 
 her friendship. She always called Sappho her sister. The 
 hanging-gardens were the latter's residence in summer, and 
 in her conversations there with Kassandane and Atossa one 
 name was often mentioned the name of her who had been the 
 innocent cause of events which had decided the destinies of 
 great kingdoms and noble lives the Egyptian princess. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Here we might end this tale but that we feel bound to give 
 our readers some account of the last days of Cambyses. We 
 have already described the ruin of his mind, but his physical 
 end remains still to be told also, the subsequent fate of some 
 of the other characters in our history. 
 
 A short time after the departure of the queens news reached 
 Naukratis that Oroetes, the satrap of Lydia, had by a strata- 
 gem allured his old enemy, Polykrates, to Sardis and crucified 
 him there,* thus fulfilling .what Amasis had prophesied of the 
 tyrant's mournful end. This act the satrap had committed on 
 his own responsibility, events having taken place in the Median 
 kingdom which threatened the fall of the Achaemenidaean 
 dynasty.f 
 
 The king's long absence in a foreign country had either 
 
 *See note p. 375. 
 
 tHerodotus has been our main guide in this part of our tale, also 
 ("Herod.," iii, 61-88), and the inscription of Bisitun or Behistan. 
 Ktesias lived at the Persian court, it is true, but his information, 
 though in this place it somewhat tallies with that of Herodotus, is 
 far more probable.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 499 
 
 weakened or entirely dissipated the fear which the mere men- 
 tion of his name had formerly inspired in those who felt inclined 
 to rebel. The awe that his subjects had formerly felt for him 
 vanished at the tidings of his madness, and the news that he 
 had wantonly exposed the lives of thousands of their country- 
 men to certain death in the deserts of Libya and Ethiopia 
 inspired the enraged Asiatics with a hatred which, when skill- 
 fully fed by the powerful Magi, soon roused, first the Medes 
 and Assyrians, and then the Persians, to defection and open 
 insurrection. Motives of self-interest led the ambitious high- 
 priest, Oropastes, whom Cambyses had appointed regent in 
 his absence, to place himself at the head of this movement. He 
 flattered the people by remittihg their taxes, by large gifts 
 and larger promises, and, finding his clemency gratefully 
 recognized, determined on an imposture by which he hoped to 
 win the crown of Persia for his own family. 
 
 He had not forgotten the marvelous likeness between his 
 brother Gaumata (who had been condemned to lose his ears), 
 and Bartja, the son of Cyrus, and on hearing that the latter, 
 the ui iversal favorite, as he well knew, of the Persian nation, 
 had s_ sappeared, resolved to turn this to account by passing 
 off his brother as the vanished prince, and setting him on the 
 throne in place of Cambyses. The hatred felt throughout the 
 entire kingdom toward their insane king and the love and 
 attachment of the nation to Bartja made this stratagem so easy 
 of accomplishment, that when at last messengers from Oro- 
 pastes arrived in all the provinces of the empire declaring to 
 the discontented citizens that, notwithstanding the rumor they 
 had heard, the younger son of Cyrus was still alive, had re- 
 volted from his brother, ascended his father's throne and 
 granted to all his subjects freedom from tribute and from mili- 
 tary service during a period of three years, the new ruler was 
 acknowledged throughout the kingdom with rejoicings. 
 
 The pretended Bartja, who was fully aware of his brother's 
 mental superiority, had obeyed his directions in every particu- 
 lar, had taken up his residence in the palace of Nisaea* in the 
 plains of Media, placed the crown on his head, declared the 
 
 *Spiegel, "Inscription of Behistan;" "There is a fortress, Cika- 
 thauvatis by name, a district, Nigaya by name, in Media, there he 
 killed him," What town is meant here cannot be determined, but 
 the district of Niaaja was celebrated principally for its good pasture
 
 500 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 royal harem his own, and had shown himself once from a 
 distance to the people, who were to recognize in him the 
 murdered Bartja. After that time, however, for fear of being 
 at last unmasked, he concealed himself in his palace, giving 
 himself up, after the manner of Asiatic monarchs, to every kind 
 of indulgence, while his brother held the scepter with a firm 
 hand, and conferred all the important offices of state on his 
 friends and family. 
 
 No sooner did Oropastes feel firm -ground under his feet 
 than he dispatched the eunuch Ixabates to Egypt to inform 
 the army of the change of rulers in favor of Bartja, who he 
 knew had been idolized by the soldiers. 
 
 The messenger had been well chosen, fulfilled his mission 
 with much skill, and had already won over a considerable part 
 of the army for the new king, when he was taken prisoner 
 by some Syrians, who brought him to Memphis in hopes of 
 reward. 
 
 On arriving in the city of the pyramids he was brought before 
 the king and promised immunity on condition of revealing the 
 entire truth. 
 
 The messenger then confirmed the rumor which had reached 
 Egypt that Bartja had ascended the throne of Cyrus and had 
 been recognized by the greater part of the empire. 
 
 Cambyses started with terror at these tidings, as one who 
 saw a dead man rise from his grave. He was by this time fully 
 aware that Bartja had been murdered by Prexaspes at his own 
 command, but at this moment he began to suspect that the 
 envoy had deceived him and spared his brother's life. The 
 thought had no sooner entered his mind than he uttered it, 
 reproaching Prexaspes so bitterly with treachery as to elicit 
 from him a tremendous oath that he had murdered and buried 
 unfortunate Bartja with his own hand. 
 
 Oropastes' messenger was asked whether he had seen the 
 new king himself. He answered that he had not, adding that 
 the supposed brother of Cambyses had only once appeaVed 
 in public, and had then shown himself to the people from a 
 
 for horses. Eustath. in "Dionys. Perieg.," p. 178. According to 
 "Diod.," xvii, 10, and Arrian, "Anab.," vii, 13, there were more than 
 one hundred and fifty thousand horses in this district, distinguished 
 by their large size. According to Herodotus the whole of this part of 
 our story took place in Susa.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 501 
 
 distance. On hearing this, Prexaspes saw through the whole 
 web of trickery at once, reminded the king of the unhappy mis- 
 understandings to which the marvelous likeness between Bartja 
 and Gaumata had formerly given rise, and concluded by offer- 
 ing to stake his own life on the correctness of his supposition. 
 The explanation pleased the king, and from that moment his 
 diseased mind was possessed by one new idea to the exclusion 
 of all others the seizure and slaughter of the Magi. 
 
 The host was ordered to prepare for marching. Aryandes,* 
 one of the Achaemenidae, was appointed satrap of Egypt, and 
 the army started homeward without delay. Driven by this new 
 delusion, the king took no rest by day or night, till at last his 
 over-ridden and ill-used horse fell with him, and he was severely 
 wounded in the fall by his own dagger, f 
 
 After lying insensible for some days, he opened his eyes and 
 asked first to see Araspes, then his mother, and lastly Atossa, 
 although these three had set out on their journey home months 
 before. From all he said it appeared that during the last four 
 years, from the attack of fever until the present accident, he 
 had been living in a kind of sleep. He seemed astonished and 
 pained at hearing what had happened during these years. But 
 of his brother's death he was fully aware. He knew that Prex- 
 aspes had killed him by his the king's orders, and had told 
 him that Bartja lay buried on the shores of the Red Sea. 
 During the night which followed this return to his senses it 
 became clear to himself also that his mind had been wandering 
 for a long time. Toward morning he fell into a deep sleep, 
 and this so restored his strength that on waking he called for 
 
 *"Herod.," iv, 166. 
 
 f'Herod.," iii, 64. In Spiegel's translation of the inscription of 
 Behistan we read: "Thereupon Kambujiya died, having killed him- 
 self." Oppert gives the same translation of "Uvamarsiyus." Beusey 
 thus: "Thereupon Kambuija died of exceeding anger." Ktesias, 
 "Pers.," 12, says that Cambyses wounded himself with a knife in the 
 thigh, accidentally, and died of the wound. This, as well as the 
 account given by Herodotus, agrees with the inscription: "He ended, 
 'Uvamarsiyus' dying from himself," for even the Greeks allow that 
 Cambyses died by his own weapon, though not by his own will. 
 We reject the idea of willful suicide, all the more gladly as just on 
 this point Herodotus and Ktesias agree, and the dying speech which 
 Herodotus puts into the mouth of Cambyses bears a decidedly Perso- 
 Iranian character. M. Duncker, "Goschichte d. Alterth.," 11, p. 544. 
 "Herodot," ill, 65.
 
 502 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Croesus and required an exact relation of the events that had 
 passed during the last few years. 
 
 His old friend and adviser obeyed; he felt that Cambyses 
 was still intrusted to his care and in the hope, faint as it was, 
 of bringing him back to the right way, he did not suppress one 
 of the king's acts of violence in his relation. 
 
 His joy was, therefore, great at perceiving that his words 
 made a deep impression on the -newly awakened mind of the 
 king. With tears in his eyes and with the ashamed look of a 
 child, he grieved over his wrong deeds and his madness, begged 
 Croesus to forgive him, thanked him for having borne so long 
 and faithfully with him, and commissioned him to ask Kassan- 
 dane and Sappho especially for forgiveness, but also Atossa, 
 and all whom he had unjustly offended. 
 
 The old man wept, too, but his tears were tears of joy, and 
 he repeatedly assured Cambyses that he would recover and 
 have ample opportunity of making amends for the past. But 
 to all this Cambyses shook his head resolutely, and, pale and 
 wan as he looked, begged Croesus to have his couch carried 
 onto a rising ground in the open air and then to summon the 
 Achaemenidae. When these orders, in spite of the physicians, 
 had been obeyed, Cambyses was raised into an upright sitting 
 position, and began, in a voice which could be heard at a con- 
 siderable distance: 
 
 "The time to reveal my great secret has arrived, oh, ye Per- 
 sians. Deceived by a vision, provoked and annoyed by my 
 brother, I caused him to be murdered in my wrath. Prexaspes 
 wrought the evil deed by my command, but, instead of bringing 
 me the peace I yearned for, that deed has tortured me into 
 madness and death. By this, my confession, ye will be con- 
 vinced that my brother, Bartja, is really dead. The Magi have 
 usurped the throne of the Achaemenidae. Oropastes, whom I 
 left in Persia as my vicegerent, and his brother, Gaumata, who 
 resembles Bartja so nearly that even Croesus, Intaphernes and 
 my uncle, the noble Hystaspes, were once deceived by the like- 
 ness, have placed themselves at their head. Woe is me that I 
 have murdered him, who, as my nearest kinsman, should have 
 avenged on the Magi this affront to my honor. But I cannot 
 recall him from the dead, and I, therefore, appoint you the 
 executors of my last v.'ill. Ry the feruer* of my dead father and 
 "See note p. 205,
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 503 
 
 in the name of all good arid pure spirits I conjure you not to 
 suffer the government to fall into the hands of the unfaithful 
 Magi. If they have obtained possession thereof by artifice, 
 wrest it from their hands in like manner; if by force, use force 
 to win it back. Obey this, my last will, and the earth will yield 
 you its fruits abundantly; your wives, your flocks and herds 
 shall be blessed, and freedom shall be your portion. Refuse to 
 obey it, and ye shall suffer the corresponding evil; yea, your 
 end and that of every Persian shall be even as mine." 
 
 After these words the king wept and sank back fainting, on 
 seeing which the Achaemenidae rent their clothes and burst 
 into loud lamentations. A few hours later Cambyses died in 
 Croesus' arms. Nitetis was his last thought; he died with her 
 name on his lips and tears of penitence in his eyes.* When the 
 Persians had left the unclean corpse Croesus knelt down beside 
 it and cried, raising his hand to heaven: "Great Cyrus, I have 
 kept my oath. I have remained this miserable man's faithful 
 adviser even unto his end." 
 
 The next morning the old man betook himself, accompanied 
 by his son Gyges, to the town of Barene, which belonged to 
 him,f and lived there many years as a father to his subjects, 
 revered by Darius and praised by all his contemporaries. 
 
 After Cambyses' death the heads of the seven Persian tribes! 
 held a council and resolved as a first measure on obtaining 
 certain information as to the person of the usurper. With this 
 view Otanes sent a confidential eunuch to his daughter, Phae- 
 dime, who, as they knew, had come into the possession of the 
 new king with the rest of Cambyses' harem. Before the mes- 
 senger returned the greater part of the army had dispersed, the 
 soldiers seizing this favorable opportunity to return to their 
 homes and families after so many years of absence. At last, 
 however, the long-expected messenger came back and brought 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 65, 66, mentions expressly the sentimental-sounding 
 penitence of Cambyses. 
 
 fKtesias, "Pers.," 4. 
 
 $The names of the seven conspiring chiefs given by Herodotus 
 agree for the most part with those in the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," p. 37. In "Herod.," iii, 70, the names are 
 Otanes, Intaphernas, Gobryas, Megabyzus, Aspatines, Hydarnes and 
 Darius Hystaspis. In the inscription: "Utana, Vidafrana, Gaubaruva, 
 Ardumanis, Vidarna, Bagabukhsa, and Darayavus.
 
 504 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 for answer that the new king had only visited Phaedime once, 
 but that during that visit she had at' great personal risk dis- 
 covered that he had lost both ears. Without this discovery, 
 however, she could assert positively that, though there were a 
 thousand points of similarity between the usurper and the mur- 
 dered Bartja, the former was in reality none other than Gau- 
 mata, the brother of Oropastes. Her old friend Boges had 
 resumed his office of chief of the eunuchs and had revealed to 
 her the secrets of the Magi. The high-priest had met the former 
 keeper of the women begging in the streets of Susa and had 
 restored him to his old office with the words: "You have for- 
 feited your life, but I want men of your stamp." In conclusion, 
 Phaedime entreated her father to use every means in his power 
 for the overthrow of the Magi, as they treated her with the 
 greatest contempt and she was the most miserable of women. 
 
 Though none of the Achaemenidae had really for a moment 
 believed that Bartja was alive and had seized on the throne, so 
 clear an account of the real person of the usurper was very 
 welcome to them, and they resolved at once to march on 
 Nisaea with the remnant of the army and overthrow the Magi, 
 either by craft or force. 
 
 They entered the new capital unassailed, and finding that 
 the majority of the people seemed content with the new govern- 
 ment they also pretended to acknowledge the king as the son 
 of Cyrus, to whom they were prepared to do homage. The 
 Magi, however, were not deceived; they shut themselves up in 
 their palace, assembled an army in the Nisaean plain,* prom- 
 ised the soldiers high pay and used every effort to strengthen 
 the belief of the people in Gaumata's disguise. On this point 
 no one could do them more injury, or, if he chose, be more 
 useful to them, than Prexaspes. He was much looked up to 
 by the Persians, and his assurance that he had murdered Bartja 
 would have been sufficient to lame the fast-spreading report of 
 the real way in which the youth had met his death. Oropastes, 
 therefore, sent for Prexaspes, who, since the king's dying w r ords, 
 had been avoided by all the men of his own rank and had led 
 the life of an outlaw, and promised him an immense sum of 
 money if he would ascend a high tower and declare to the peo- 
 ple, assembled in the court beneath, that evil-disposed men 
 had called him Bartja's murderer, whereas, he had seen the 
 
 *See note pp. 499-500.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 505 
 
 new king with his own eyes and had recognized in him the 
 younger son of his benefactor. Prexaspes made no objections 
 to this proposal, took a tender leave of his family, while the 
 people were being assembled, uttered a short prayer before the 
 sacred fire-altar, and walked proudly to the palace'. On his way 
 thither he met the chiefs of the seven tribes, and, seeing that 
 they avoided him, called out to them: "I am worthy of your 
 contempt, but I will try to deserve your forgiveness." 
 
 Seeing Darius look back he hastened toward him, grasped 
 his hand and said: "I have loved you like a son; take care of 
 my children when I am no more, and use your opinions, winged 
 Darius." Then, with the same proud demeanor, he ascended 
 the tower. 
 
 Many thousands of the citizens of Nisaea were within reach 
 of his voice as he cried aloud: "Ye all know that the kings who 
 have, .up to the present time, loaded you with honor and glory 
 belonged to the house of the Achaemenidae. Cyrus governed 
 you like a real father, Cambyses was a stern master, and Bartja 
 would have guided you like a bridegroom if I, with this right 
 hand which I now show you, had not slain him on the shores 
 of the Red Sea. By Mithras, it was with a bleeding heart that 
 I committed this wicked deed; but I did it as a faithful servant 
 in obedience to the king's command. Nevertheless it has 
 haunted me by day and night ; for four long years I have been 
 pursued and tormented by the spirits of darkness who scare 
 sleep from the murderer's couch. I have now resolved to end 
 this painful, despairing existence by a worthy deed, and though 
 even this may procure one no mercy at the bridge of Chinvat,* 
 in the mouths of men, at least, I shall have redeemed my honor- 
 able name from the stain with which I defiled it. Know, then, 
 that the man who gives himself out for the son of Cyrus sent 
 me hither, he promised me rich rewards if I would deceive you 
 by declaring him to be Bartja, the son of the Achaemenidae. 
 Rut I scorn his promises and swear by Mithras and the feruers 
 of the kings, the most solemn oaths I am acquainted with, that 
 the man who is now ruling you is none other than the Magian, 
 Gaumata, he who was deprived of his ears, the brother of the 
 king's vicegerent and high-priest, Oropastes, whom ye all 
 know. If it be your will to forget all the glory ye owe to the 
 
 *See note p. 271.
 
 506 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 Achaemenidae, if to this ingratitude ye choose to add your own 
 degradation, then acknowledge these creatures and call them 
 your kings; but if ye despise a lie and are ashamed to obey 
 worthless impostors, drive the Magi from the throne before 
 Mithras has left the heavens, and proclaim the noblest of the 
 Achaemenidae, Darius, the exalted son of Hystaspes, who 
 promises to become a second Cyrus, as your king. And now, 
 in order that ye may believe my words and not suspect that 
 Darius sent me hither to win you over to his side, I will commit 
 a deed which must destroy every doubt and prove that the 
 truth and glory of the Achaemenidae are dearer to me than 
 life itself. Blessed be ye if ye follow my counsels, but 'curses 
 rest upon ye if ye neglect to reconquer the throne from the Magi 
 and revenge yourselves upon them. Behold, I die a true and 
 honorable man!" 
 
 With these words he ascended the highest pinnacle of the 
 tower and cast himself down head foremost, thus expiating the 
 one crime of his life by an honorable death.* 
 
 The dead silence with which the people in the court below 
 had listened to him. was now broken by shrieks of rage and 
 cries for vengeance. They burst open the gates of the palace, 
 and were pressing in with cries of "Death to the Magi," when 
 the seven princes of the Persians appeared in front of the raging 
 crowd to resist their entrance. 
 
 At the sight of the Achaemenidae the citizens broke out with 
 shouts of joy, and cried more impetuously than ever: "Down 
 with the Magi! Victory to King Darius!" 
 
 The son of Hystaspes was then carried by the crowd to a 
 rising ground, from which he told the people that the Magi 
 had been slain by the Achaemenidae as liars and usurpers. 
 Fresh cries of joy arose in answer to these words, and, when at 
 last the bleeding heads of Oropastes and Gaumata were shown 
 to the crowd, they rushed with horrid yells through the streets 
 of the city, murdering every Magian they could lay hold of. 
 The darkness of night alone was able to stop this horrid 
 massacre. f 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 75. 
 
 f'Herod.," iii, 79. In this place Herodotus also says that the Per- 
 sians kept this day as a great festival and called it "the murder of 
 the Magi." Wlastoff, in his "Nouvelles Annales des Voyages," p. 177, 
 gives us some new thoughts on this period of Persian history, with
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 507 
 
 Four days later, Darius, the son of Hystaspes, was chosen 
 as king by the heads of the Achaemenidae, in consideration of 
 his high birth and noble character, and received by the Persian 
 nation with enthusiasm. Darius had killed Gaumata with his 
 own hand, and the high-priest had received his death-thrust 
 from the hand of Megabyzus, the father of Zopyrus. While 
 Prexaspes was haranguing the people the seven conspiring 
 Persian princes, Otanes, Intaphernes, Gobryas, Megabyzus, 
 Aspatines, Hydarnes and Darius (as representative of his aged 
 father, Hystaspes), had entered the palace by a carelessly 
 guarded gate, sought out the part of the building occupied by 
 the Magi, and then, assisted by their own knowledge of the 
 palace and the fact that most of the guards had been sent to 
 keep watch over the crowd assembled to hear Prexaspes, easily 
 penetrated to the apartments in which at that moment they were 
 to be found. Here they were resisted by a few eunuchs, 
 headed by Boges, but these were overpowered and killed to a 
 man. Darius became furious at seeing Boges and killed him 
 at once. Hearing the dying cries of these eunuchs the Magi 
 rushed to the spot and prepared to defend themselves. Oro- 
 pastes snatched a lance from the fallen Boges, thrust out one of 
 Intaphernes' eyes and wounded Aspatines in the thigh, but 
 was stabbed by Megabyzus. Gaumata fled into another apart- 
 ment and tried to bar the door, but was followed too soon by 
 Darius and Gobryas; the latter seized, threw him, and kept 
 him down by the weight of his own body, crying to Darius, 
 who was afraid of making a false stroke in the half-light, and 
 so wounding his companion instead of Gaumata: "Strike 
 boldly, even if you should stab us both." Darius obeyed, and 
 fortunately only hit the Magian.* 
 
 Thus died Oropastes, the high-priest, and his brother Gau- 
 mata, better known under the name of the "pseudo," or "pre- 
 tended Smerdis." 
 
 A few weeks after Darius' election to the throne, which the 
 people said had been marvelously influenced by divine miracles 
 
 which, however, we are as little inclined to agree as with Malcolm, 
 Anquetil, and others in their conjecture that the Darius of the in- 
 scriptions is the Gustasps of Firdusi. It is unquestionably far more 
 probable that the inscription of Behistan was intended to hand down 
 the deeds of Darius to posterity than to commemorate religious 
 occurrences. 
 
 *"Herad.," iii, 78.
 
 508 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 and the clever cunning of a groom,* he celebrated his corona 
 tion brilliantly at Pasargadae, and with still more splendor, his 
 marriage with his beloved Atossa,f The trials of her life had 
 ripened her character and she proved a faithful, beloved and 
 respected companion to her husband through the whole of 
 that active and glorious life which, as Prexaspes had foretold, 
 made him worthy of the names by which he was afterward 
 known Darius the Great and a second Cyrus.J 
 
 As a general he was circumspect and brave, and at the same 
 time understood so thoroughly how to divide his enormous 
 realm and to administer its affairs that he must be classed with 
 the greatest organizers of all times and countries. That his 
 feeble successors were able to keep this Asiatic Colossus of 
 different countries together for two hundred years after his 
 death was entirely owing to Darius. He was liberal of his own, 
 but sparing of his subjects' treasures, and made truly royal gifts 
 without demanding more than was his due. He introduced a 
 regular system of taxation in place of the arbitrary exactions 
 practiced under Cyrus and Cambyses, and never allowed him- 
 self to be led astray in the carrying out of what seemed to him 
 right either by difficulties or by the ridicule of the Achae- 
 menidae, who nick-named him the "shop-keeper," on account 
 of what seemed, to their exclusively military tastes, his petty 
 financial measures. It is by no means one of his smallest 
 merits that he introduced one system of coinage through his 
 
 *"Herod." (iii, 85) relates that the seven conspirators agreed to take 
 a ride out of the city, and that he whose horse was the first to neigh 
 at the rising sun should be king. He then tells the well-known tale 
 of the trick said to have been played by Darius' groom, and adds that 
 at the same time, though the sky was clear, it had thundered and 
 lightened. The former part of the history is probable, as horses were 
 sacred to the sun, and the neighing of Darius' horse as Mithras rose 
 would, therefore, be regarded as a sign from heaven. But the claims 
 of Darius to the throne were too-well founded to need the support of 
 a groom's cunning. 
 
 tAtossa is constantly mentioned as the favorite wife of Darius, and 
 he appointed her son Xerxes to be his successor, though he had three 
 elder sons by the daughter of Gobryas. "Herodotus" (vii, 3) speaks 
 with emphasis of the respect and consideration in which Atossa was 
 held, and Aeschylus, in his "Persians," mentions her in her old age 
 as the much-revered and noble matron. 
 
 tFor instance, in the "Frogs of Aristophanes" (v, 1035), Darius is 
 called "the great."
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 509 
 
 entire empire and consequently through half the then known 
 world.* 
 
 Darius respected the religions and customs of other nations. 
 When the writing of Cyrus, of the existence of which Cambyses 
 had known nothing, was found in the archives of Ecbatana, he 
 allowed the Jews to carry on the building of their temple to 
 Jehovah ;f he also left the Ionian cities free to govern their own 
 communities independently. Indeed, he would hardly have 
 sent his army against Greece if the Athenians had not insulted 
 him. 
 
 In Egypt he had learned much; among other things, the art 
 of managing the exchequer of his kingdom wisely; for this 
 reason he held the Egyptians in high esteem, and granted them 
 many privileges, among others a canal to connect the Nile with 
 the Red Sea, which was greatly to the advantage of- their 
 commerce. : 
 
 During the whole of his reign Darius endeavored to make 
 amends for the severity with which Cambyses had treated the 
 Egyptians; even in the latter years of his life he delighted to 
 study the treasures of their wisdom, and no one was allowed 
 either to attack their religion or customs so long as he lived. 
 The old high-priest Neithotep enjoyed the king's favor to the 
 last, and Darius often made use of his wise old master's astro- 
 logical knowledge. 
 
 The goodness and clemency of their new ruler was fully 
 acknowledged by the Egyptians; they called him a deity, as 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 89. Bockh, "Metrologie," pp. 45 and 129. In Raw- 
 linson's "Herodotus," vol. ii, p. 460, essay iii. 
 
 f"Ezra," vi, 2-12. "Zachariah," 1-8. On the various stages of the 
 work, see Bunsen, "Bibelwerk, Biblische Jahrbiicher," 323-325. 
 
 JTraces of this canal can be found as early as the days of Setos I; 
 his son, Rameses II, caused the works to be continued. Under Necho 
 they were recommenced, and possibly finished by Darius. In the 
 time of the Ptolemies, at all events, the canal was already completed. 
 "Herod.," ii, 158. "Diod.," i, 33. The French, in undertaking to 
 reconstruct the Suez canal, have had much to encounter from the 
 unfriendly commercial policy of the English, and their influence over 
 the internal affairs of Egypt, but the unwearied energy and great 
 talent of M. de Lesseps and the patriotism of the French nation have 
 at last succeeded in bringing their great work to a successful close. 
 Whether it will pay is another question. See G. Ebers, "Der Kanal 
 von Suez." Nordische Revue, Oct., 1864. 
 
 The name of Darius occurs very often on the monuments as r> 
 ritisch. The Egypto-Persian memorial fragments bearing Inscrip-
 
 510 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 they had called their own kings, and yet, in the last years of his 
 reign their desire for independence led them to forget grati- 
 tude and to try to shake off his gentle yoke, which was only 
 oppressive because it had originally "been forced on them. 
 
 Their generous ruler and protector did not live to see the 
 end of this struggle.* 
 
 It was reserved for Xerxes, the successor and son of Darius 
 and Atossa,f to bring back the inhabitants of the Nile Valley to 
 a forced and therefore insecure obedience. 
 
 Darius left the worthy monument of his greatness in the 
 glorious palace which he built on Mount Rachmed, the ruins 
 of which are the wonder and admiration of travelers to this 
 day. Six thousand Egyptian workmen, who had been sent to 
 Asia by Cambyses, took part in the work and also assisted .in 
 building a tomb for Darius and his successors, the rocky and 
 almost inaccessible chambers of which have defied the ravages 
 of time, and are now the resort of innumerable wild pigeons. 
 
 He caused the history of his deeds to be cut (in the cuneiform 
 character and in the Persian, Median and Assyrian languages) 
 on the polished side of the rock of Bisitun or Behistan, not far 
 from the spot where he saved Atossa ? s life. The Persian part 
 of this inscription^ can still be deciphered with certainty, and 
 contains an account of the events related in the last few chap- 
 ters very nearly agreeing with our own and that of Herodotus. 
 The following sentences occur among others: "Thus saith 
 Darius the king; that which I have done, was done by the 
 
 tions in the hieroglyphic and cuneiform characters are very interest- 
 ing. "Description de 1'Eg. ant.," v, pi. 29. Lepsius, "Monatsbericht 
 der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaft," May 17, 1866, p. 285, etc. 
 Darius' name in Egyptian was generally "Ra, the beloved of Ammon." 
 On a porcelain vessel in Florence and in some papyri in Paris and 
 Florence he is called by the divine titles of honor given to the 
 Pharaohs. 
 
 *The first rebellion in Egypt, which broke out under Aryandes, the 
 satrap appointed by Cambyses, was put down by Darius in person. " 
 He visited Egypt and promised one hundred talents (twenty-two 
 thousand five hundred pounds sterling) to anyone who would find a 
 new Apis. "Polyaen.," vii, 11, 7. No second outbreak took place 
 until 486 B. C., about four years before the death of Darius. "Herod.," 
 vii, 1. Xerxes conquered the rebels two years after his accession and 
 appointed his brother, Achaemenes, satrap of Egypt. 
 
 tSee note p. 209. 
 
 {The cuneiform character called Persian-Achaemenidae.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 511 
 
 grace of Auramazda in every way. I fought nineteen battles 
 after the rebellion of the kings. By the mercy of Auramazda 
 I conquered them. I took nine kings captive. One was a 
 Median, Gaumata by name. He lied and said: 'I am Bardiya 
 (Bartja), the son of Cyrus.' He caused Persia to rebel." 
 
 Some distance lower down he names the chiefs who helped 
 him to dethrone the Magi, and in another place the inscription 
 has these words: "Thus saith the king, Darius; that which 1 
 have done was done in every way by the grace of Auramazda. 
 Auramazda helped me, and such other gods as there be. Aura- 
 mazda and the other gods gave me help because I was not 
 swift to anger, nor a liar, nor a violent ruler, neither I nor my 
 kinsmen. I have shown favor unto him who helped my breth- 
 ren, and I have punished severely him who was my enemy. 
 Thou who shalt be king after me, be not merciful unto him who 
 is a liar or a rebel, but punish him with severe punishment. 
 Thus saith Darius the king: Thou who shalt hereafter behold 
 this tablet which I have written, or these pictures, destroy them 
 not, but so long as thou shalt live preserve them," etc. 
 
 It now only remains to be told that Zopyrus, the son of 
 Megabyzus, continued to the last the king's most faithful 
 friend. 
 
 A courtier once showed the king a pomegranate and asked 
 him of what one gift of fortune he would like so many 
 repetitions as there were seeds in that fruit. Without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation Darius' answered, ''Of my Zopyrus."* 
 
 The following story will prove that Zopyrus, on his part, 
 well understood how to return his royal friend's kindness. 
 After the death of Cambyses Babylon revolted from the Per- 
 sian empire. Darius besieged the city nine months in vain, and 
 was about to raise the siege, when one day Zopyrus appeared 
 before him bleeding, and deprived of his ear and nose, and 
 explained that he had mutilated himself thus in order to cheat 
 the Babylonians, who knew him welX as he had formerly been 
 on intimate terms with their daughters. He said he wished to 
 tell the haughty citizens that Darius had thus disfigured him, 
 and that he had come to them for help in revenging himself. 
 
 *Plutarch tells this story (in his "Apophthegmata," p. 173) of 
 Zopyrus, and Herodotus of Megabyzus, the conquerer of Trace. 
 <: Herod.," iv, 193,
 
 512 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 He thought they would then place troops at his disposal, wiui 
 which he intended to impose upon them by making a few suc- 
 cessful sallies at first. His ultimate intention was to get posses- 
 sion of the keys and. open the Semiramis gate to his friends. 
 
 These words, which were spoken in a joking tone, contrasted 
 so sadly with the mutilated features of his once so handsome 
 friend that Darius wept, and when, at last, the almost impreg- 
 nable fortress was really won by Zopyrus' stratagem, he ex- 
 claimed: "I would give a hundred Babylons if my Zopyrus 
 had not thus mutilated himself." 
 
 He then appointed his friend lord of the giant city, gave him 
 its entire revenues, and honored him every year with the rarest 
 presents. In later days he used to say that, with the exception 
 of Cyrus, who. had no equal, no man had ever performed so 
 generous a deed as Zopyrus.* 
 
 Few rulers possessed so many self-sacrificing friends as 
 Darius, because few understood so well how to be grateful. 
 
 When Syloson, the brother of the murdered Polykrates, came 
 to Susa and reminded the king of his former services, Darius 
 received him as a friend, placed ships and troops at his service 
 and helped him to recover Samos. 
 
 The Samians made a desperate resistance and said, when, 
 at last, they were obliged to yield: "Through Syloson we have 
 much room in our land." 
 
 Rhodopis lived to hear of the murder of Hipparchus, 'the 
 tyrant of Athens, by Harmodius and Aristogiton, and died, at 
 last, in the arms of her best friends, Theopompus, the Milesian, 
 and Kallias, the Athenian, firm in her belief of the high calling 
 of her countrymen. 
 
 All Naukratis mourned for her, and Kallias sent a messenger 
 to Susa to inform the king and Sappho of her death. 
 
 A few months later the satrap of Egypt received the follow- 
 ing letter from the hand of the king: 
 
 "Inasmuch as we ourselves knew and honored Rhodopis, 
 the Greek, who has lately died in Naukratis inasmuch as her 
 granddaughter, as widow of the lawful heir to the Persian 
 throne, enjoys to this day the rank and honors of a queen 
 
 *"Herod.," iii, 160. According to Ktesias, "Pers.," 22. Zopyrus 
 received a golden handmill weighing six talents, the most honorable 
 and distinguished gift that a Persian monarch could bestow upon a 
 subject.
 
 AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS. &L3 
 
 and, lastly, inasmuch as I have lately taken the great grand- 
 child of the same Rhodopis, Parmys, the daughter of Bartja 
 and Sappho, to be my third and lawful wife, it seems to me just 
 to grant royal honors to the ancestress of two queens. I, there- 
 fore, command thee to cause the ashes of Rhodopis, whom we 
 have always esteemed as the greatest and rarest among women, 
 to be buried in the greatest and rarest of all monuments, 
 namely, in one of the pyramids. The costly urn which them 
 wilt receive herewith, is sent by Sappho to preserve the ashes 
 of the deceased. 
 
 "Given in the new imperial palace at Persepolis. 
 
 "Darius, son of Hystaspes, King." 
 
 THE END.