Cambyses II  

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Cambyses II (Template:Lang-peo Kabūjiya) was the second King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 530 to 522 BC. He was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great (Template:Reign) and his mother was Cassandane.

Before his accession, Cambyses had briefly served as the governor of northern Babylonia under his father from April to December 538 BC. Afterwards, he resided in the Babylonian cities of Babylon and Sippar, before being appointed by his father as co-ruler in 530 BC. His father then set off on an expedition against the Massagetae of Central Asia, where he met his end. Cambyses thus became the sole ruler of the vast Achaemenid Empire, facing no reported opposition.

His relatively brief reign was marked by his conquests in northern Africa, notably Egypt, which he conquered after his victory over the Egyptian pharaoh Psamtik III (Template:Reign) at the battle of Pelusium in 525 BC. After having established himself in Egypt, he expanded the empire's holdings in Africa, including the conquest of Cyrenaica. In the spring of 522 BC, Cambyses hurriedly left Egypt to deal with a rebellion in Persia.

While en route in Syria (Eber-Nari), he received a wound to the thigh, which was soon affected by gangrene. Cambyses died three weeks later at a location called Agbatana, which is most likely the modern city of Hama. He died childless, and was thus succeeded by his younger brother Bardiya, who ruled for a short period before being overthrown by Darius the Great (Template:Reign), who went on to increase the power of the Achaemenids even further.

In fiction

Cambyses II has appeared as a character in several works of fiction. Thomas Preston's play King Cambyses, a lamentable Tragedy, mixed full of pleasant mirth was probably produced in the 1560s. A tragedy by Elkanah Settle, Cambyses, King of Persia, was produced in 1667. Cambyses and his downfall are also central to Egyptologist Georg Ebers's 1864 novel, Eine ägyptische Königstochter (An Egyptian Princess). Qambeez is 1931 play about him by Ahmed Shawqi is about him. In 1929, Robert E. Howard (under the pseudonym "Patrick Howard") published a poem, "Skulls and Dust", about Cambyses' death.

Cambyses' lost army also appears in Biggles Flies South (1938), and a 2002 novel by Paul Sussman, The Lost Army of Cambyses (ISBN 0-593-04876-8) recounts the story of rival archaeological expeditions searching for the remains of his army.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Cambyses II" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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