Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized his father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea of a magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped to become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which his victorious arms had now opened to him.

Apart from Egypt, Africa possessed but two powers capable, by their political organization and their military strength, of offering him serious resistance.

These were Ethiopia and Carthage--the one the great power of the South, the equal, if not even the superior, of Egypt--the other the great power of the West--remote, little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in which she was shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth.

The views of Cambyses comprised the reduction of both these powers, and also the conquest of the oasis of Ammon.

As a good Zoroastrian, he was naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the "gods of the nations;" and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best accomplished by its pillage and destruction.