With the conquests of Cambyses Egypt became subject to a new set of rulers, by whom its manners and customs were, in a degree, changed or modified. Yet such are its inherent characteristics that it has been often said of Egypt, as of Greece, that she rather impressed herself upon her masters, than was impressed by them. Through the Persian period, to that of the Ptolemies, women retired into the background, and no one name comes into prominence, at least in an official character. It is in connection with Persia rather than with Egypt that we learn of the queens, some, perhaps most of whom, remained in their own land, while their husbands were absent, engaged in wars and conquests. The kings, distracted by wars in all directions, often made hurried visits to their conquered territories, leaving satraps and deputies to rule in their absence. The legal queen, we may believe, tarried at home, while the warriors left their women behind or were accompanied by their concubines, to whom no formal honors were paid.
Hence it is more than possible that although nominally queens of Egypt but few of them ever[313] resided in the country, those of the kings who reigned longest, of course, being most likely to do so. The Persian kings usually chose their wives from among their own nobility, the concubines were of varied nationality.
In thinking of these royal ladies we seem to see a veiled figure, with beautiful shining eyes, wandering among the gardens of the palaces, which gardens were said to be less formally laid out than those of the native Egyptians, but she is silent. Or behind palace walls we hear the echo of distant music, and perchance the sound of soft singing, to the accompaniment of a lute, or some other instrument. If she looked forth from her windows it was from behind curtains and lattice work, and if she appeared in public it was with a veiled countenance, only the eyes showing.
The ruins at Persepolis, Ecbatana, the capital of Media, and Suza acquaint us with the construction of Persian palaces, which differ somewhat from the Egyptian. When in Egypt the Persian kings probably accepted, to a considerable extent, the architecture and general arrangements of that country. Madame Ragozin gives us, from an earlier source, an account of the palace built by Darius, at Persepolis. “A central hall flanked by two sets of apartments, of four rooms each, with a front entrance, composed of a door and four windows, opening on a porch, supported by four columns, and forming at the same time the landing between the two flights of stairs,” such the ruins disclose. “The throne and audience hall, the reception and banqueting hall, was two hundred and twenty-seven[314] feet every way, with cedar and cypress beams upborne by a hundred columns ten rows of ten, tall and slender, they rested lightly on their inverted flower base, carrying the raftered ceilings proudly and with ease on the strong, bent necks of the animals which adorned their capitals, of that peculiarly and matchless fanciful type which is the most distinctive feature of Akhaemenian architecture.”
The king’s throne was supported by rows of warriors and he wore the flowing Median garb, or the tight-fitting Persian doublet and hose. The master of ceremonies kept his hand before his mouth, and all who approached kept their hands hidden in their sleeves in token of peaceful intentions. The remains of the palace of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus of the Bible, have also been found, similar to, but not so fine as, those of Darius. The buildings were usually of one story and set on a terrace or platform, sometimes made of columns. Of the Great Hall of Xerxes Mr. Fergusson says: “We have no cathedral in England that at all comes near it in dimensions; nor indeed in France and Germany is there one that covers so much ground. Cologne comes nearest.”
Of the women’s appointed place we read:
“Between the porphyry pillars that upheld
The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold
Aloft the Haram’s curtained galleries rise
Where through the silken net-work glancing eyes,
From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow
[315]
Through autumn clouds, shine on the pomp below.”
The gardens attached to the palaces we may well believe favorite resorts of the queen and her attendant ladies. Shaded paths, sparkling fountains, retired resting places and beds ablaze with flowers, all these made a charming retreat. In the midst was usually a hall, kiosk or arbor, raised on several steps, a fountain in the centre making a musical murmur and spreading coolness around. It was enclosed with gilded lattices over which rioted in careless grace vines of jassamine, honeysuckle and other creepers—a fair green wall overhung and protected by tall trees. Here, too, doubtless the king enjoyed some of his hours of leisure, wrapped about with the perfume of violets and sipping a sherbet of violets and sugar, a favorite drink in Persia. We learn of a “Betel-carrier and Taster of Sherbets to the Emperor.” Lest poison might secretly be prepared for the royal palate it was always necessary to have a taster, the first victim in case of evil intent. To this other duties were added such as “Chief Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms and Grand Nazir or Chamberlain of the Harem.” King Canute sat on the brink of the ocean and ordered it to come no further; King Darius or Xerxes laid a similar prohibition on the waxing proportions of his spouse—neither perhaps was strictly obeyed by Dame Nature. At least it appears to have been the duty of the “Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms” to do what he could—“Permit me, most gracious Lady.[316] Alas, one inch beyond the line of beauty!” Subsequently perhaps starvation and tears to insure return to the stipulated measure.
Costly materials rather than shape were prized by the Persians, and their ornaments were less ornate and elaborate than those of the Egyptians; rings and bracelets were of plain gold, collars of twisted gold, but comparatively unartificial. Their household utensils too seem to have been few and simple in pattern, a covered dish and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it are often pictured in the hands of the royal attendants. Occasionally, but rarely, we hear of Persian women indulging in manly sports, as Roxane, daughter of Idernes, and half sister of Terituchmes was skilled in the use of the bow and the javelin.
The queen mother, when the widow of the late king, took precedence of her daughter-in-law, the wife of the reigning monarch, had certain privileges, peculiar to herself, was attended by a band of eunuchs and dined with her son in the women’s apartment. Though not nominally in public life her influence was often very great and at times used or abused most cruelly.
As in the earlier times, certain cities in Egypt were assigned to furnish the revenues of the queen, and that of Anthylla was appointed to provide her with shoes. This must also, it would seem, have applied to the females of her household, as a single pair of feet, even though royal, could have been but a slight tax on the revenues of a town.
To return to the thread of history which we[317] are following. King Apries was overthrown and succeeded by Amasis, who, usurper though he was, seems to have reigned long and well. The date given for the close of the reign of Apries is B. C. 579, and Amasis ruled for forty-five years; his son Psammetic III had been on the throne but a few months when Cambyses conquered Egypt.
Syria appears to have been held by Egypt during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, while later Egypt disputed its possession with Assyria, and lastly the Ptolemies and Califs ruled it from Egypt. But the Egypt of which we now make study was no longer a country united under one head and going forth to conquer and demand tribute from surrounding nations. She was alternately divided under the sovereignty of a number of petty kings or ground under the heel of some all-conquering but more or less temporary master. Wars and internal dissentions were constant, with now and then a longer period of comparative peace and tranquility, in which the country had breathing space to recover from the desolation and ruin that had preceded it.
The Persians, numbered as the Twenty-seventh Dynasty, came in as masters who desired rather to trample upon than conciliate their subjects. They outraged the sensibilities and prejudices of the people, and, it is said, that the arts, long in decline, received a severe blow from their invasion, while many of the finest buildings in Egypt were mutilated and destroyed by Cambyses, hence revolts against the new authority were frequent. Cambyses himself appears to have acted at times[318] like a cruel madman, and whether the story of his stabbing the revered Apis bull be true or not, and, like all old stories, its authenticity is sometimes disputed, the incident is but an illustration of the general course which he pursued.
He was son of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, said to be the grandson of the Median King Astyages, and his mother was said by Ctesias to be Amytias and, by Herodotus, to be Cassandane or Kassomdane, daughter of Pharnespes, a member of the royal family, who died before her husband. Cambyses was in every way inferior to his father. The children of this marriage were two sons and three daughters, the sons Cambyses and Smerdis, the daughters Atossa, Roxana and Artystone.
Cyrus left his kingdom to his elder son, but placed so much power also in the hands of the younger that Cambyses caused his brother to be secretly murdered that his rights might be undisputed. Following the Egyptian custom, or setting up a law for himself, since it does not seem to have been the habit of the Persian monarchs, he married his two sisters, Atossa and Roxana. The Persian judges said it was not lawful for a man to marry his sister, but the king could of course do as he pleased. The unfortunate Roxana excited the fury of this monster by mourning for her brother Smerdis, and is said also to have been killed by Cambyses with a kick. A Greek inscription at Behistan affirms that Smerdis was murdered before Cambyses started for Egypt; that the latter committed suicide in the end; that the rebellion was a religious one, and that the[319] Magian was not Smerdis but Gomates, and the discovery of the imposture is not as generally given. Other authorities claim that Smerdis was murdered by Cambyses’ orders during his absence, but the affair seems much involved in mystery.
Cambyses adopted as his Horus name “Horus, the Unifier of Two Lands,” and styled himself “Born of Ra.” For a third wife he took Nitetis, daughter of the Previous Egyptian king, Apries, but sent to him as the daughter of Amasis, the reigning monarch. Upon this deception, it is asserted, hinged the invasion of Egypt. There seems to be a discrepancy in dates, some holding that Nitetis would have been too old a bride for Cambyses, and therefore it must have been Cyrus that took her to wife, and that Cambyses was her son rather than her husband. But this tale is believed to be of Egyptian origin, made up to remove from their shoulders the stigma of being merely a conquered people and set up a pretence that Cambyses had some legal right to the throne by descent from an Egyptian princess.
Another tale is thus given by Herodotus. A Persian woman visited the harem of King Cyrus, was struck with the beauty of the children of Cassadane and praised them greatly to their mother. “Yet would you believe it,” said Cassadane, “Cyrus neglects me, the mother of such children as these, to pay honor to an Egyptian interloper!” On this Cambyses, her eldest son, a boy of ten years of age, exclaimed: “Therefore, mother, when I am a man, I will turn Egypt upside[320] down!” Which threat, if ever made by him, was most surely fulfilled.
Supposing Nitetis to have been the grand-daughter, rather than the daughter of Apries, the dates become more intelligible. It is this period of history that Ebers has selected for his romance of an “Egyptian Princess,” which, like all his historical novels, if lacking perhaps great vitality in the individual characters, has a carefully studied and interesting ground work of historical fact. The truth or the tradition, which ever it be, runs thus: Amassis, King of Egypt, sent by request to the King of Persia, suffering with some trouble of the eyes, his special oculist. The physician, resentful of long ostracism from home and friends, suggested to his patron that he should demand in marriage the daughter of the Egyptian king. The plan was proposed not in good faith, but with a desire to make trouble.
Perhaps the reputation of Cambyses was already evil and well known. At any rate, the proposal produced consternation rather than joy and satisfaction in the circle of the bride-elect. Possibly Amasis held with special tenderness the daughter in question. Be this as it may, he sent not the princess demanded, but one who was probably considered of inferior dignity. Doubtless she went adorned in regal splendor that the deception might not be suspected. Her finger tips would have been tinged with henna to look like branches of coral; she would perhaps wear the Persian head dress, composed of a light golden chain work set with small pearls, with a thin gold plate pendant about the size of a crown piece[321] on which was impressed an Arabian prayer and which hung upon the cheek below the ear. The kohl’s jetty dye would give that “long, dark, languish to the eye.” A small coronet of jewels would be placed upon her head and over all a rosy veil. The veils the Eastern women wore over the head were coquettishly managed to add to their attractions. Says the poet in “Lalla Rooke”:
“Veiled by such a mask as shades
The features of young Arab maids,
A mask that leaves but one eye free
To do its best in witchery.”
The Arab women wear black masks prettily disposed, and Niebuhr mentions their showing but one eye in conversation, and again says Moore:
“And bright the glancing looks they hide
Beneath their litters roseate veils.”
So Nitetis, hardly a happy bride, was wedded to the Persian king, and “nightingales warbled their enchanting notes and rent the thin veils of the rosebud and the rose,” according to a favorite image of the Oriental poets. But not joy, peace and happiness resulted—rather wars and bloodshed. Perhaps in innocence, perhaps in malice, the new queen revealed the secret of her identity to the king. Since he did not put her to death we may believe that she herself had some attractions for him, but the deception he[322] would not forgive and seized upon it, only too gladly, as a pretext for invading Egypt.
Across the desert which protected Egypt on the northeast marched Cambyses and his army, while his fleet, supplied by the Phoenician cities and the Greeks of Asia Minor, blockaded the Egyptian king (Psammetic III, only recently come to the throne) in Memphis. The herald was sent in a Greek vessel to demand surrender. The Egyptians, with mad and cruel folly, courting their own destruction, since such an act would be sure to infuriate the invader, seized the ship and tore the crew to pieces. If not before, from that moment their doom was sealed. Cambyses took Memphis, B. C. 525, on the pyramid plain, where later Napoleon bade his soldiers do their best, for the Centuries looked down upon them. It is said that Cambyses put cats and other sacred animals before his troops so that the Egyptians were afraid to attack. Be this as it may, the Persians obtained the mastery, and Cambyses took his revenge on Amasis for the affront offered him by causing his dead body to be burned.
One cannot help thinking of the homely phrase, “Give a dog a bad name,” in connection with this ancient king, all the ruin that occurred for hundreds of years seems set down to the credit of Cambyses, who, with the most evil intent in the world, could hardly have accomplished all that was claimed for him. He is said to have left nothing unburnt in Thebes that fire would consume. “An earthquake and Cambyses,” says Curtis, “divide the shame of the partial destruction of Memnon.” An old inscription at the base of the[323] statue reads: “I write after having heard Memnon. Cambyses has wounded me, a stone cut into the image of the sun king. I had once the sweet voice of Memnon, but Cambyses has deprived me of the accents which express joy and grief.”
Tradition also says that Cambyses threw down the magnificent statues set up to adorn the temple of victory, built by Seti I at old Quernah, yet Pliny has preserved a story that the same king was so struck by the beauty of a certain statue that he ordered the flames which he had kindled extinguished at its base.
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