Thaleia, Third Boook of Herodotus
April 22nd 2007 10:57
Thaleia, the Muse of Comedy source: theoi.com
After a careful description of Egypt, Herodotus returns to story of Persian dynasty in this book. Its central figure is Cambysses. Just as Cyrus is revered, Cambysses is abhorred. He is an archetype of a mad king, a capricious monarch who would stoop to do anything get power. The Persian imperial raid on Egypt is condemned. Central to this antagonistic interpretation of Cambysses are doubts about the validity of his ascension to power and his desecration of Apis bull and thereby, the Egyptian religion.
After all, even Cyrus is a imperialist who had marched over various kingdoms, but we know from other sources that he was careful to preserve and respect the religions of the conquered kingdoms. Is this the motive behind the two vastly different impressions of these two men preserved here?
Cambysses decides to invade Egypt when a well-known mercenary brings the tidings of an alternative route to Egypt through Arabia, rather than the well-known adn well-watched route through Syria. After a great battle, Egypt is taken and several expeditions against adjacent countries like Carthage and Libya are planned. In fact, an army sent against the oracle of Ammon got lost in the desert, a fact which provides the springboard of The Lost Army of Cambysses.
So far so good. But, once in Memphis, comes the desecration of Apis bull and the narrative changes. Cambysses then marries his own sister and later kills her, executs Persian nobles with little reason and ransacks ancient tombs and temples. No wonder people talk that he growing mad.
As he is growing madder in Egypt, a Magian conspiracy brews in Persia. Cambysses ascended the throne after killing his brother Smerdis and therefore, a magian priest props up a pseudo-Smerdis and declares him the true king. In the resulting confusion, Cambysses dies childless, heirless and advising his retainers not to let the Magians or Medes retake the power from under the Persians. The rest of the book describes how a small band of Persians dethrone the pretender and the ascension of Darius, resulting in a Babylonian revolt cruelly crushed by the new king.
I cannot but wonder how much the depiction of Cambysses as a mad king owed to the dynastic struggle and the Magian agenda. The parallels to recent events are uncanny.
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