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Easton's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
(no entry)
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
kam-bi'-sez (Aram., c-n-b-n-z-y; Persian, Kambujiya;
Assyrian, Kambuzia; Egyptian, Kambythet; Susian, Kanpuziya):
The older son of Cyrus, king of Persia. Some have thought that he is the Ahasuerus
of Ezra 4:6. This seems to be most improbable, inasmuch as the Hebrew form of
Ahasuerus is the exact equivalent of the Old Persian form of Xerxes, and we have
no evidence that Cambyses was ever called Xerxes.
Ancient authorities differ as to who was the mother of Cambyses. It is variously
said that she was Cassandane, a Persian princess, Amytis, a Median princess, or
Nititis, a daughter of Apries king of Egypt. He had one brother, Bardes or Smerdes,
whom he put to death secretly shortly after his accession, probably because of
an attempted rebellion. Cambyses organized an expedition for the conquest of Egypt,
which was rendered successful by internal treachery and by the aid of the Phoenician,
Cyprian and Greek fleets. During this campaign Cambyses seems to have acted with
good generalship and with clemency toward the conquered. After the subjugation
of Egypt, Cyrene and Barca, the modern Tripoli, submitted to his sway. He then
desired to undertake the conquest of Carthage, but was compelled to give it up,
because his Phoenician allies, without whose ships it was impossible for him to
conduct his army in safety, refused to join in an attack upon a country that had
been colonized by them. He is said to have sent an army of 50,000 men against
the oasis of Jupiter Ammon. This army is said to have perished in the sands. A
little less unsuccessful expedition was made against Ethiopia. After some initial
successes, Cambyses was forced to return to Egypt with the shattered remains of
his army. He found that the Egyptians were in revolt, led by their king Psammetichus
III, whose life he had formerly spared. This revolt was put down with great harshness,
the Egyptian king being taken and executed, and many of the temples being destroyed.
Shortly after this, Cambyses heard that a certain Magian, who claimed to be his
brother Smerdes whom he had secretly put to death, had set himself up as king
of Persia, and that almost the whole of his Asiatic dominions had acknowledged
him as king. With the fragments of his army he started toward Persia to attack
the usurper, but on the way was killed by a wound inflicted by himself, it is
uncertain whether by accident or with intention. His general and cousin, Darius
Hystaspis, soon put down the false Smerdis and reigned in his stead.
For two or more years Cambyses was king of Babylon, while his father was king
of the lands. The son was a drunkard and subject to fits of unbridled passion,
but seems to have been of good capacity as a general and as an administrator.
Many of the tales that have been told against him were doubtless invented by his
enemies, and he has left us no records of his own. That he married his own sisters
is probable; but it must be remembered that this was the custom of the Egyptian
kings of that time and may have been of the Persian kings as well. As to his conduct
in Egypt, the only contemporary Egyptian authority says that he worshipped before
the holiness of Neit as all the pious kings had done, that he ordered that the
temple of Neit should be purified, and that its revenues should be restored as
they had been before they had been confiscated by Akhmes for his Greek troops.
He adds also that not merely were the strangers who had taken up their abode in
the temple of Neit ejected from her sanctuary, but that their goods were taken
away and their houses destroyed. Darius Hystaspis, the only other contemporary
source of information, says of him simply that he was the son of Cyrus, of the
same father and mother as Bardes, whom he slew secretly at some time before he
set out on his Egyptian campaign; and that he died by suicide shortly after he
had heard of the rebellion of Persia, Media and the other provinces against him,
and of the establishment of Gaumata the Magian as king under the claim that he
was "Barzia, the son of Cyrus and brother of Cambyses."
The name of Cambyses is found in three of the Elephantine papyri recently published
(September, 1911) by Professor Sachau of Berlin. The fragment numbered 59 1 is
so broken that it is impossible to make out the connection or the sense. In papyrus
I, we are told that when Cambyses came to Egypt he found in the fortress of Yeb
(Elephantine) a temple or synagogue ('agora'), which had been built in the days
of the Egyptian kings; and that although he had torn down the temples of the Egyptian
gods, he had allowed no harm to be done to that of Yahweh. The third papyrus is
so interesting, because of its mention of Bagoas, the Persian governor of Jerusalem
in 407 BC, who had hitherto been known only from Josephus, and of Dalayah the
son of the Sanballat who opposed the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem in the
time of Ezra-Nehemiah, that we shall now give a translation of it in full: "A
memorial of that which Bagoas and Dalayah said to me: Thou shalt say in Egypt
unto Arsames with regard to the house of the altar of the God of heaven that was
built in the fortress of Yeb before the time of Cambyses and which the accursed(?)
Waidrang destroyed in the 14th year of Darius the king, that it shall be built
again upon its place as it was before, and that meal-offerings and incense-offerings
shall be offered upon that altar as they used to be."
LITERATURE.
For further information as to the history of Cambyses see Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies;
Prasek, Geschichte der Meder und Perser; the Behistun inscription in the editions
of the various recensions by Bezold, Spiegel, Weisbach, Thomson, and King; Herodotus;
Josephus; the Sachau papyri; and Petrie, History of Egypt, III.
R. Dick Wilson
Tags:
became king of babylon, bible commentary, bible reference, bible study, history of, cambyses, son of cyrus
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