A two-wheeled wooden carriage was waiting for him there; he took his seat by the driver, the horses, decked out with bells and tassels, were urged into a sharp trot and quickly brought him to the gate of the harem-garden.
That day was a busy, stirring one in Cambyses' harem.

In order that the women might look their very best, Boges had commanded that they should all be taken to the bath before the banquet.

He therefore went at once to that wing of the palace, which contained the baths for the women.
While he was still at some distance a confused noise of screaming, laughing, chattering and tittering reached his ears.

In the broad porch of the large bathing-room, which had been almost overheated, more than three hundred women were moving about in a dense cloud of steam.
[We read in Diodorus XVII.77.that the king of Persia had as many wives as there are days in the year.

At the battle of Issus, Alexander the Great took 329 concubines, of the last Darius, captive.] The half-naked forms floated over the warm pavement like a motley crowd of phantoms.