To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm of which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them masters; he was the first and greatest of national benefactors,[388] as well as the most forward of leaders in the field; they followed him from one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his reign, their love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of aggrandizement continued unabated during the reigns of his three next successors,—Kambysês, Darius, and Xerxês,—until it was at length violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Platæa and Salamis; after which the Persians became content with defending themselves at home, and playing a secondary game. But at the time when Kambysês son of Cyrus succeeded to his father’s sceptre, Persian spirit was at its highest point, and he was not long in fixing upon a prey both richer and less hazardous than the Massagetæ, at the opposite extremity of the empire. Phenicia and Judæa being already subject to him, he resolved to invade Egypt, then highly flourishing under the long and prosperous reign of Amasis. Not much pretence was needed to color the aggression, and the various stories which Herodotus mentions as causes of the war, are only interesting inasmuch as they imply a vein of Egyptian party feeling,—affirming that the invasion was brought upon Amasis by a daughter of Apriês, and was thus a judgment upon him for having deposed the latter. As to the manner in which she had produced this effect, indeed, the most contradictory stories were circulated.[389] [388] Herodot. i, 210; iii, 159. [389] Herodot. iii, 1-4. Kambysês summoned the forces of his empire for this new enterprise, and among them both the Phenicians and the Asiatic Greeks, Æolic as well as Ionic,[390] insular as well as continental,—nearly all the maritime force and skill of the Ægean sea. He was apprized by a Greek deserter from the mercenaries in Egypt, named Phanês, of the difficulties of the march, and the best method of surmounting them; especially the three days of sandy desert, altogether without water, which lay between Egypt and Judæa. By the aid of the neighboring Arabians,—with whom he concluded a treaty, and who were requited for this service with the title of equal allies, free from all tribute,—he was enabled to surmount this serious difficulty, and to reach Pelusium at the eastern mouth of the Nile, where the Ionian and Karian troops in the Egyptian service, as well as the Egyptian military, were assembled to oppose him.[391] [390] Herodot. iii, 1, 19, 44.