The subjection of the Greek colonies on the Asia-Minor coast followed upon the subjugation of Lydia. From these colonies, the _Phocoeans_ went forth, and founded _Elea_ in Lower Italy, and Massilia (Marseilles) in Gaul. The Asian Greek cities were each allowed its own municipal rulers, but paid tribute to the Persian master. The conquest of _Babylon_ (538 B.C.), as it opened the way for the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles, enabled Cyrus to establish a friendly people in Judaea, as a help in fortifying his sway in Syria, and in opening a path to _Egypt_. But in 529 he lost his life in a war which he was waging against the _Massagetae_, a tribe on the Caspian, allied in blood to the Scythians. There was a tradition that the barbarian queen, _Tomyris_, enraged that Cyrus had overcome her son by deceit, dipped the slain king's head in a skin-bag of blood, exclaiming, "Drink thy fill of blood, of which thou couldst not have enough in thy lifetime!" CAMBYSES.--The successor of Cyrus, a man not less warlike than he, but more violent in his passions, reigned but seven years (529-522 B.C.). His most conspicuous achievement was the conquest of EGYPT. One ground or pretext of his hostility, according to the tale of Herodotus, was the fact that Amasis, the predecessor of _Psammeticus III._, not daring to refuse the demand of his daughter as a wife, to be second in rank to the Persian queen, had fraudulently sent, either to Cambyses, or, before his time, to Cyrus, _Nitetis_, the daughter of the king who preceded him, Apries. Defeated at _Pelusium_, and compelled to yield up _Memphis_ after a siege, it is said that Psammeticus, the _Psammenitus_ of Herodotus, the unfortunate successor of the powerful Pharaohs, was obliged to look on the spectacle of his daughters in the garb of working-women, bearing water, and to see his sons, with the principal young nobles, ordered to execution. But this tale lacks confirmation. His cruelties were probably of a later date, and were provoked by the chagrin he felt, and the satisfaction manifested by the people, at the failure of great expeditions which he sent southward for the conquest of _Meroe_, and westward against the _Oasis of Ammon_. His armies perished in the Lybian deserts. Even the story of his stabbing the sacred steer (_Apis_), after these events, although it may be true, is not sanctioned by the Egyptian inscriptions. His attack upon Ammon probably arose, in part at least, from a desire to possess himself of whatever lay between Egypt and the Carthaginian territory. But the Phoenician sailors who manned his fleet refused to sail against their brethren in Carthage. _Cambyses_ assumed the title and character of an Egyptian sovereign. The story of his madness is an invention of the Egyptian priests.