The kings of Persia, while usually marrying but one legal wife, enjoyed the universal custom of supporting a vast harem, and of inviting into it daughters of neighboring kings. Usually the purposes were peaceful, but sometimes they were of a hostile character. This was the case when Cambyses, having resolved to carry out his father's plan of making a conquest of Egypt, demanded of Amasis, Egypt's king, his daughter in marriage, hoping thereby to pick a quarrel. Amasis replied by sending, not his own daughter, but another damsel of his realm, who, unable or unwilling to keep the secret, divulged to Cambyses the deception that had been practised upon him. The Persian king desired no better pretext for war, and the marriage trick was avenged by Egypt's fall. The wives of the kings sometimes exerted much influence in the realm, either for good or bad. Amestris, the only lawful wife of Xerxes, is said to have been instrumental in the death of her husband by the hands of two of his chief men. Amestris was his own cousin. That she instigated this murder is not at all improbable, since there was ample ground for jealousy on her part because of the notorious gallantries of Xerxes. Indeed, the Hebrew Book of Esther draws a picture of the corruptions of his court which in general outline is certainly true to the facts. Royal personages sometimes married their own sisters. This, however, was contrary to the ancient custom. Cambyses, who succeeded Cyrus upon the throne, fell in love with Meroe, his youngest sister, and wished to marry her. Not wishing to fly in the face of the custom of the Persians, he called together the judges of the empire and inquired of them whether there might not be a law which allowed the marriage of brother and sister. The judges informed him that there was no such law among the Persians, but that there was a law allowing the king to do whatever he pleased. Disgusted and enraged, the king ordered his sister to be put to death; so that if marriage with her was prohibited to him, it might not be possible to a lesser man. This was no surprise, however, to a people who had known of the cruelties of this tyrant, whose own brother Smerdis had been brutally executed at his command. Cambyses having died of a self-inflicted wound, his successor, known as the Pseudo-Smerdis, or Gomates, married all his predecessor's wives--a common custom among Oriental monarchs; for the harem might easily be regarded as a part of the spoils of conquest, or of the inheritance, as the case might be. Gomates kept his numerous wives confined in separate apartments, for the intrigues of the seraglio were the bane of the Persian as of the other Oriental dynasties.