Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/100

94 the servant of Jehovah. His good will toward the Jews was manifest, however, by the fact that he restored the holy vessels which Nebuchadrezar had seized. Presumably the Jews had given strong expression to their joy over the fall of Babylon.

Cambyses was as tolerant as Cyrus toward the prominent religions of the Persian empire. The annals of Nabû-na'id (rev. III., 25) state that Cambyses, immediately after the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, entered the temple Ê-šapa-kalama-summu. On the other hand Herodotus gives us a statement in regard to Cambyses which does not seem consistent with this liberality, for he attributes the killing of the Apis bull to the wrath of Cambyses at the joy which he supposed the Egyptians felt over his defeat. But the insult to the Egyptian idols (III., 27) would show that Cambyses was not inclined to spare the religious feelings of foreign nations. The several Egyptian documents, however, make the account of Herodotus exceedingly improbable. From an Egyptian inscription, preserved in the Vatican, we learn that Cambyses, after the conquest of Egypt, performed those religious duties which devolved upon him as the successor of the Pharaohs. He was initiated into the mysteries of the goddess Neith, and brought the holy offering to Osiris in the inner room of the temple. At his command the temple of Neith, in Sais, which had been seized by the soldiers, was purified and restored to its sacred use. (Compare "Justi, Geschichte des alten Persiens," p. 49.) According to Sayce, this bull, which Cambyses is said to have slain, was found in a granite sarcophagus. In the sculpture thereon Cambyses is represented as praying before the bull, and