Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

34 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
gested by
the secret execution of his brother Barcles :
though, even without this, his long absence from his
capital, a fatal error in Eastern countries, would have
given ample opportunities to any unquiet spirits at
home. On his way homeward we are told that he was
met by a herald, who announced that he had ceased
to reign, and that the allegiance of Persians was now
due to his brother Bardes. At first it would seem that
Cambyses was himself taken in, but he soon detected
the imposition, and then, with little reason, destroyed
himself by his own hand : Herodotus, writing many
years later, softens down this story, and makes him
die of a trifling accident.
It is difficult to imagine why Cambyses committed
an act at once so cowardly and so foolish ; especially
as he was returning to his own country at the head of
an army, not in itself likely, one would think, to make
common cause with the first usurper who might set up
his pretensions to the empire. Nor, indeed, can we
suppose that his soldiers would have been led to
act thus, or wholly endorse the legends Herodotus
has preserved, which represent Cambyses as a monster
of : tyranny Heeren speaks to the point, where he says
that we ought to be on our guard with reference
to the stories related of this prince, as our information
about him is mainly due to the report of his bitterest
enemies, the Egyptian priests. There is, indeed,
nothing, as Bishop Thirlwall has remarked, to shew
" that the actions ascribed to him are more extravagant
than those recorded of other despots, whose minds
were only disturbed by the possession of arbitrary
power "
yet Mr. Grote, generally so calm and dis-