In Persia and the provinces nothing was known of the death of Bardiya. The neglect of the kingdom, the absence of the king for three years, inspire Gaumata with the courage to make use of his opportunity, and turn the secrecy of the crime against Cambyses. The Persians declare for the brother who is among them, as against the distant king who seemed to have forgotten Persia in Egypt; even the satraps of the other countries soon decide in favour of Bardiya, as for years they had seen nothing of Cambyses. In three months after his appearance Gaumata was formally crowned. The account of the rebellion startled Cambyses from his stupor in Egypt; he placed a satrap over the conquests he had made and hastened to Syria, where he learnt the full amount of the usurper's success. With anger he sees the crown of Cyrus on the head of a miserable pretender. If he is effectually to contend against the opponent who has risen to such power, he must acknowledge himself before the Persians and the kingdom as the murderer of his brother, and even if he makes this shameful confession, will the Persians believe and follow him? Will they not think that he announces the murder in order to thrust his brother from the throne? In despair he perceives that he has destroyed the house of Cyrus, and ruined the work of his father, the fruit of thirty years of effort and struggle. He sees no means of preventing the course of affairs, the ruin of the kingdom of which he is the cause. He acknowledges before the princes of the Persians what he has done, commands them to make good the damage which he has caused, and seals his declaration by taking his own life. Such was the tragical end of the son of the great Cyrus. FOOTNOTES: [176] Herod. 3, 27-30. [177] Herod. 3, 37. [178] Vol. I. 175. Diod. 1, 49. [179] Justin. 1, 8. [180] The reading "year 4" in the first is confirmed by "year 5" in the second inscription. Lepsius ("Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1854, s. 224, 495) has examined the difficulties which arise regarding the time of Cambyses' campaign against Egypt, from the contradiction between these dates and the statements of the Greeks. [181] The inscriptions also give the name Cambyses in the form Kambuza. [182] Lepsius, "Z. Aegypt. Spr." 1874, s. 76. [183] De Rougé, "Revue Archéol." 8, 37 ff.; Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypt," p. 267, 269. In the "History of Egypt," Brugsch reads Uzahorenpiris for Uzahorsun. [184] Stephen. Byz. [Greek: Agbatana Batana Amatha]. Cf. V. 307, and von Gutschmid, "N. Beitrage," s. 96. [185] Herod. 3, 3, 33. [186] "Excerpt. de virt." p. 557 = 10, 13. [187] Plato, "Legg." p. 691, 694, 695. [188] Herod. 3, 73. [189] Justin. 1, 9. [190] So Oppert according to the Persian inscription in "Journal Asiatique," 4, 17, 385, 386; and according to the second series, "Records of the Past," 7, 90. [191] Barziya in the Babylonian text. Smerdis, the favourite of Polycrates (Anacreon, fragm. 4, ed. Bergk), was no doubt named after the brother of Cambyses.