Thalia   

constant use of the water from it which makes them so long-lived. When
they quitted the fountain the king led them to a prison, where the
prisoners were all of them bound with fetters of gold. Among these
Ethiopians copper is of all metals the most scarce and valuable. After
they had seen the prison, they were likewise shown what is called "the
table of the Sun."
Also, last of all, they were allowed to behold the coffins of
the Ethiopians, which are made (according to report) of crystal, after
the following fashion:- When the dead body has been dried, either in
the Egyptian, or in some other manner, they cover the whole with
gypsum, and adorn it with painting until it is as like the living
man as possible. Then they place the body in a crystal pillar which
has been hollowed out to receive it, crystal being dug up in great
abundance in their country, and of a kind very easy to work. You may
see the corpse through the pillar within which it lies; and it neither
gives out any unpleasant odour, nor is it in any respect unseemly; yet
there is no part that is not as plainly visible as if the body were
bare. The next of kin keep the crystal pillar in their houses for a
full year from the time of the death, and give it the first fruits
continually, and honour it with sacrifice. After the year is out
they bear the pillar forth, and set it up near the town.
When the spies had now seen everything, they returned back to
Egypt, and made report to Cambyses, who was stirred to anger by
their words. Forthwith he set out on his march against the
Ethiopians without having made any provision for the sustenance of his
army, or reflected that he was about to wage war in the uttermost
parts of the earth. Like a senseless madman as he was, no sooner did
he receive the report of the Icthyophagi than he began his march,
bidding the Greeks who were with his army remain where they were,
and taking only his land force with him. At Thebes, which he passed
through on his way, he detached from his main body some fifty thousand
men, and sent them against the Ammonians with orders to carry the
people into captivity, and burn the oracle of Jupiter. Meanwhile he
himself went on with the rest of his forces against the Ethiopians.
Before, however, he had accomplished one-fifth part of the distance,
all that the army had in the way of provisions failed; whereupon the
men began to eat the sumpter beasts, which shortly failed also. If
then, at this time, Cambyses, seeing what was happening, had confessed
himself in the wrong, and led his army back, he would have done the
wisest thing that he could after the mistake made at the outset; but
as it was, he took no manner of heed, but continued to march forwards.
So long as the earth gave them anything, the soldiers sustained life
by eating the grass and herbs; but when they came to the bare sand,
a portion of them were guilty of a horrid deed: by tens they cast lots
for a man, who was slain to be the food of the others. When Cambyses
heard of these doings, alarmed at such cannibalism, he gave up his
attack on Ethiopia, and retreating by the way he had come, reached
Thebes, after he had lost vast numbers of his soldiers. From Thebes he
marched down to Memphis, where he dismissed the Greeks, allowing
them to sail home. And so ended the expedition against Ethiopia.
The men sent to attack the Ammonians, started from Thebes,
having guides with them, and may be clearly traced as far as the
city Oasis, which is inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe
Aeschrionia. The place is distant from Thebes seven days' journey
across the sand, and is called in our tongue "the Island of the
Blessed." Thus far the army is known to have made its way; but
thenceforth nothing is to be heard of them, except what the Ammonians,
and those who get their knowledge from them, report. It is certain
they neither reached the Ammonians, nor even came back to Egypt.
Further than this, the Ammonians relate as follows:- That the Persians
set forth from Oasis across the sand, and had reached about half way
between that place and themselves when, as they were at their midday
meal, a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it
vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops