Cambyses

After the death of Cyrus, Cambyses inherited his throne.

He considered the Ionians and Aeolians slaves inherited from his father, and prepared an expedition against Egypt, taking with him some of these Greek subjects besides others whom he ruled.

Cambyses, when he had conquered Egypt and learned who Ladice was, sent her away to Cyrene unharmed.

Of the Persians, mother, my father is much the handsomest;

The father of Cyrus is said to have been Cambyses, king of the Persians:

But your father, at least, said Cyrus, is more shrewd at teaching people to have less than to have more, mother.

Cambyses was mad, in that he pricked and scourged the corpse of Amasis the king of the Egyptians.

But, O Egyptians and Cambyses, whether it was someone else who suffered these things or Amasis himself, it was a figure bloodless, fleshless, soulless.

and, by Zeus, if a man should be entrusted by a king or a tyrant with gold or silver, or ships, or arms, or a citadel, or the whole empire—as Leptines often received Syracuse from his brother, and Philistus from the younger Dionysius, and the Magi the royal palace of the Persians from Cambyses, when he was on campaign in Egypt, and Mithranes the citadel of Sardis from Darius, and Persaeus the Acro …

King Cambyses was too much given to wine, and Praexaspes, one of his dearest friends, warned him to drink more sparingly, saying that drunkenness was disgraceful in a king, whom the eyes and ears of all men followed.

Then he bent his bow and pierced the very heart of the youth—for that, he had said, was what he aimed at—and, cutting open the breast, showed the shaft lodged in the very heart, and, looking back at the father, asked whether he had a sure enough hand.

Anger still drove the king on headlong, when he had lost part of his army, eaten part, until he feared lest he himself too be called to the lot.

And if a Cambyses or a Darius or any other madman attempted such things, and if one slew the Egyptian Apis, I laugh that he slew their god, but am vexed that he did wrong for gain.

As for his soul, I persuade myself that it has returned to heaven, from which it came, not because he led great armies, for these the frenzied Cambyses too had, who used his frenzy with success, but on account of his remarkable moderation and devotion, which I judge more admirable in him when he left his country than when he defended it;

Run through Cyrus and Cambyses and the whole line of the Persian kingdom.

And the Ionians afterwards had a large navy in the time of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and Cambyses his son;