The New Student's Reference Work/Cambyses

Cambyses (kăm-bī′sēz), king of the Medes and Persians, the son of Cyrus the Great, who became king in 529 B. C. He added Egypt to the Persian territory, but an army which he sent to take possession of the temple of Jupiter Ammon perished in the desert, and another army which he led against the Ethiopians was depleted by hunger and disease. These disasters seem to have made him a madman. He killed his brother Smerdis and one of his sisters, and treated the Egyptians with great cruelty. But a revolution arose, and one of the Magians assumed the character of the murdered Smerdis and seized the Persian throne. Cambyses marched against him from Egypt, but died on the way, in Syria, from an accidental wound in the thigh, in 522 B. C.