Though we should do wrong to accept as true all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested his memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of his nation.

Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at all for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son of Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve noble Persians.

His own people called Cambyses a "despot" or "master," in contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a "father," because, as Herodotus says, he was "harsh and reckless," whereas his father was mild and beneficent.

Further, there was the religious aspect of the revolution, which had taken place, in the background.

Cambyses may have known that in the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism, and may have doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare, he could count on anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the Zoroastrian cause.