Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
32. About her death, as about the death of Smerdis, two different
stories are told. The Hellenes say that Cambyses had matched a lion's
cub in fight with a dog's whelp, and this wife of his was also a
spectator of it; and when the whelp was being overcome, another whelp,
its brother, broke its chain and came to help it; and having become two
instead of one, the whelps then got the better of the cub: and Cambyses
was pleased at the sight, but she sitting by him began to weep; and
Cambyses perceived it and asked wherefore she wept; and she said that
she had wept when she saw that the whelp had come to the assistance of
its brother, because she remembered Smerdis and perceived that there was
no one who would come to his 25 assistance. The Hellenes say that it was
for this saying that she was killed by Cambyses: but the Egyptians say
that as they were sitting round at table, the wife took a lettuce and
pulled off the leaves all round, and then asked her husband whether the
lettuce was fairer when thus plucked round or when covered with
leaves, and he said "when covered with leaves": she then spoke thus:
"Nevertheless thou didst once produce the likeness of this lettuce, when
thou didst strip bare the house of Cyrus." And he moved to anger leapt
upon her, being with child, and she miscarried and died.
33. These were the acts of madness done by Cambyses towards those of his
own family, whether the madness was produced really on account of Apis
or from some other cause, as many ills are wont to seize upon men; for
it is said moreover that Cambyses had from his birth a certain grievous
malady, that which is called by some the "sacred" disease: 26 and it
was certainly nothing strange that when the body was suffering from a
grievous malady, the mind should not be sound either.
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