Thalia   

immediately did the like. Cambyses received the Libyan presents very
graciously, but not so the gifts of the Cyrenaeans. They had sent no
more than five hundred minx of silver, which Cambyses, I imagine,
thought too little. He therefore snatched the money from them, and
with his own hands scattered it among his soldiers.
Ten days after the fort had fallen, Cambyses resolved to try the
spirit of Psammenitus, the Egyptian king, whose whole reign had been
but six months. He therefore had him set in one of the suburbs, and
many other Egyptians with him, and there subjected him to insult.
First of all he sent his daughter out from the city, clothed in the
garb of a slave, with a pitcher to draw water. Many virgins, the
daughters of the chief nobles, accompanied her, wearing the same
dress. When the damsels came opposite the place where their fathers
sate, shedding tears and uttering cries of woe, the fathers, all but
Psammenitus, wept and wailed in return, grieving to see their children
in so sad a plight; but he, when he had looked and seen, bent his head
towards the ground. In this way passed by the water-carriers. Next
to them came Psammenitus' son, and two thousand Egyptians of the
same age with him- all of them having ropes round their necks and
bridles in their mouths- and they too passed by on their way to suffer
death for the murder of the Mytilenaeans who were destroyed, with
their vessel, in Memphis. For so had the royal judges given their
sentence for each Mytilenaean ten of the noblest Egyptians must
forfeit life." King Psammenitus saw the train pass on, and knew his
son was being led to death, but while the other Egyptians who sate
around him wept and were sorely troubled, he showed no further sign
than when he saw his daughter. And now, when they too were gone, it
chanced that one of his former boon-companions, a man advanced in
years, who had been stripped of all that he had and was a beggar, came
where Psammenitus, son of Amasis, and the rest of the Egyptians
were, asking alms from the soldiers. At this sight the king burst into
tears, and weeping out aloud, called his friend by his name, and smote
himself on the head. Now there were some who had been set to watch
Psammenitus and see what he would do as each train went by; so these
persons went and told Cambyses of his behaviour. Then he, astonished
at what was done, sent a messenger to Psammenitus, and questioned him,
saying, "Psammenitus, thy lord Cambyses asketh thee why, when thou
sawest thy daughter brought to shame, and thy son on his way to death,
thou didst neither utter cry nor shed tear, while to a beggar, who is,
he hears, a stranger to thy race, thou gavest those marks of
honour." To this question Psammenitus made answer, "O son of Cyrus, my
own misfortunes were too great for tears; but the woe of my friend
deserved them. When a man falls from splendour and plenty into beggary
at the threshold of old age, one may well weep for him." When the
messenger brought back this answer, Cambyses owned it was just;
Croesus, likewise, the Egyptians say, burst into tears- for he too had
come into Egypt with Cambyses- and the Persians who were present wept.
Even Cambyses himself was touched with pity, and he forthwith gave
an order that the son of Psammenitus should be spared from the
number of those appointed to die, and Psammenitus himself brought from
the suburb into his presence.
The messengers were too late to save the life of Psammenitus' son,
who had been cut in pieces the first of all; but they took Psammenitus
himself and brought him before the king. Cambyses allowed him to
live with him, and gave him no more harsh treatment; nay, could he
have kept from intermeddling with affairs, he might have recovered
Egypt, and ruled it as governor. For the Persian wont is to treat
the sons of kings with honour, and even to give their fathers'
kingdoms to the children of such as revolt from them. There are many
cases from which one may collect that this is the Persian rule, and
especially those of Pausiris and Thannyras. Thannyras was son of
Inarus the Libyan, and was allowed to succeed his father, as was
also Pausiris, son of Amyrtaeus; yet certainly no two persons ever did
the Persians more damage than Amyrtaeus and Inarus. In this case