These various grounds, taken together, go far towards accounting for a suicide which at first sight strikes us as extraordinary, and is indeed almost unparalleled.
Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said.

He was brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his father's strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources.
Born in the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings of others, and impatient of admonition or remonstrance.

His pride made him obstinate in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally to harshness, and perhaps even to cruelty.

He is accused of "habitual drunkenness," and was probably not free from the intemperance which was a common Persian failing; but there is not sufficient ground for believing that his indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded to the extent of affecting his reason.

The "madness of Cambyses," reported to and believed in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian priests, who wished it to be thought that their gods had in this way punished his impiety.