Camby'ses

Camby'ses (Kambujiya), second king of the Medes and Persians, was the son of Cyrus, and succeeded his father in 529 B.C. He put his brother Smerdis to death, and in 527 or 525 invaded Egypt, defeated its king Psammenitus at Pelusium, and in six months made himself master of the whole country. He meditated further conquests, but the Tyrian mariners refused to serve against Carthage; an army which he sent to take possession of the temple of Ammon perished in the desert; and one which he led in person to Nubia purchased some conquests dearly at the price of myriads of lives. Cambyses, according to Sayce, was conciliatory on the whole towards the Egyptians; but latterly he gave himself up to drunkenness and hideous cruelties, when news came, in 522, that Gaumáta, a Magian, had assumed Smerdis' character, and seized on the Persian throne. Cambyses marched against him from Egypt, but died on the way in Syria from an accidental wound in the thigh.