I had come to complete my education after extensive travels through Greece, Assyria, and Persia, and had returned to my native laud to dwell in it until Thoth should call me before his terrible tribunal.

But to my undoing, on passing through Babylonia, I discovered an awful secret--the secret of the false Smerdis who usurped the throne, the bold Magian Gaumata who governed as an impostor.

Fearing that I would betray him to Cambyses, he determined upon my ruin through the instrumentality of the Egyptian priests, who at that time ruled my native country.

They were the owners of two-thirds of the land, the monopolizers of learning, they held the people down in ignorance and tyranny, they brutalized them, thus making them fit to pass without resistance from one domination to another.

The invaders availed themselves of them, and knowing their usefulness, protected and enriched them.