218 HISTORY OF GREECE. hearth, since we find instances of noble Grecian ma- dens torfl from their parents for the harem of the satrap. 1 To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a con- queror like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm of which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them masters ; he was the first and greatest of national benefactors, 2 as well as the most forward of leaders in the field ; they followed him from one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his reign, their love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of ag- grandizement continued unabated during the reigns of his three next successors, Kambyses, Darius, and Xerxes, until it was at length violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Platoca and Salamis ; after which the Persians became content with defend- ing themselves at home, and playing a secondary game. But al the time when Kambyses son of Cyrus succeeded to his father's sceptre, Persian spirit was at its highest point, and he was not long in fixing upon a prey both richer and less hazardous than the Massagetae, at the opposite extremity of the empire. Phe- nicia and Judaea being already subject to him, he resolved to invade Egypt, then highly flourishing under the long and pros- perous reign of Amasis. Not much pretence was needed to color the aggression, and the various stories which Herodotus men- tions as causes of the war, are only interesting inasmuch as they imply a vein of Egyptian party feeling, affirming that the in- vasion was brought upon Amasis by a daughter of Apries, and was thus a judgment upon him for having deposed the latter. As to the manner in which she had produced this eflect, indeed, the most contradictory stories were circulated. 3 Kambyses summoned the forces of his empire for this new enterprise, and among them both the Phenicians and the Asiatic %ivi/tu Je vouaia Hspaai trpoaievTai avfipuv /J.a/.iara, Kdl Ev-adeiaf re navrodanuf irvvdavofievoi eTriTi]6evovoi. That rigid tenacity of customs and exclusiveness of tastes, which mark the modem Orientals, appear to be of the growth of Mohammedanism, and D distinguish them greatly from the old Zoroastrian Persians. 1 Herodot. ix, 76 ; Plutarch, Artarxerx. c. 26.
- Ilerodot. i 210; iii, 159. * Herodot Hi 1-4.
