The only step which, so far as we know, he took, implying that his authority reached so far, was the commission which he gave to Zerubbabel and the other chiefs of the Jewish nation to proceed from Babylonia to Judaea, and re-establish themselves, if they could, on the site of the destroyed Jerusalem.[14244] The return from the Captivity which followed was in some sense the occupation of a portion of the extreme West by a Persian garrison, and may be viewed as a step intended to be "preparatory towards obtaining possession of the entire sea-coast;"[14245] but it appears to have been an isolated movement, effected without active Persian support, and one whereby the neighbouring countries were only slightly affected.
That Phoenicia retained her independence until the reign of Cambyses is distinctly implied, if not actually asserted, by Herodotus.[14246] She saw without any displeasure the re-establishment in her neighbourhood of a nation with which her intercourse had always been friendly, and sometimes close and cordial.

Tyre and Sidon vied with each other in their readiness to supply the returned exiles with the timber which they needed for the rebuilding of their temple and city; and once more, as in the days of Solomon, the Jewish axes were heard amid the groves of Lebanon, and the magnificent cedars of that favoured region were cut down, conveyed to the coast, and made into floats or rafts, which Phoenician mariners transported by sea to Joppa, the nearest seaport to Jerusalem.[14247] In return, the Jews willingly rendered to the Phoenicians such an amount of corn, wine, and oil as was equivalent in value to the timber received from them,[14248] and thus the relations between the two peoples were replaced on a footing which recalled the time of their closest friendship, nearly five hundred years previously.
On the death of Cyrus, and the accession of his son Cambyses, B.C.

529, the tranquillity which South-western Asia had enjoyed since the time of the wars of Nebuchadnezzar came to an end.

Cyrus had, it is said, designed an expedition against Egypt,[14249] as necessary to round off his conquests, and Cambyses naturally inherited his father's projects.
He had no sooner mounted the throne than he commenced preparations for an attack upon the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs, which, under the dynasty of the Psamatiks, had risen to something of its early greatness, and had been especially wealthy and prosperous under the usurper Amasis.[14250] It was impossible to allow an independent and rival monarchy so close upon his borders, and equally impossible to shrink from an enterprise which had been carried to a successful issue both by Assyria and by Babylon.

Persian prestige required the subjugation and absorption of a country which, though belonging geographically to Africa, was politically and commercially an integral part of that Western Asia over which Persia claimed a complete and absolute supremacy.
The march upon Egypt implied and required the occupation of the Mediterranean seaboard.