Among these few chiefs, however, there was one, the Median Patizeithês, belonging to the order of the Magi, who saw in it a convenient stepping-stone for his own personal ambition, and made use of it as a means of covertly supplanting the dynasty of the great Cyrus. Enjoying the full confidence of Kambysês, he had been left by that prince, on departing for Egypt, in the entire management of the palace and treasures, with extensive authority.[397] Moreover, he happened to have a brother extremely resembling in person the deceased Smerdis; and as the open and dangerous madness of Kambysês contributed to alienate from him the minds of the Persians, he resolved to proclaim this brother king in his room, as if it were the younger son of Cyrus succeeding to the disqualified elder. On one important point, the false Smerdis differed from the true. He had lost his ears, which Cyrus himself had caused to be cut off for an offence; but the personal resemblance, after all, was of little importance, since he was seldom or never allowed to show himself to the people.[398] Kambysês, having heard of this revolt in Syria on his return from Egypt, was mounting his horse in haste for the purpose of going to suppress it, when an accident from his sword put an end to his life. Herodotus tells us that, before his death, he summoned the Persians around him, confessed that he had been guilty of putting his brother to death, and apprized them that the reigning Smerdis was only a Median pretender,—conjuring them at the same time not to submit to the disgrace of being ruled by any other than a Persian and an Achæmenid. But if it be true that he ever made known the facts, no one believed him. For Prexaspês, on his part, was compelled by regard to his own safety, to deny that he had imbrued his hands in the blood of a son of Cyrus;[399] and thus the opportune death of Kambysês placed the false Smerdis without opposition at the head of the Persians, who all, or for the most part, believed themselves to be ruled by a genuine son of Cyrus. Kambysês had reigned for seven years and five months. [397] Herodot. iii, 61-63. [398] Herodot. iii, 68-69.—“Auribus decisis vivere jubet,” says Tacitus, about a case under the Parthian government (Annal. xii, 14),—nor have the Turkish authorities given up the infliction of it at the present moment, or at least down to a very recent period. [399] Herodot. iii, 64-66.