king, had made war upon Egypt, and subdued it. He is then seized with an ambition of extending his conquests still farther, and resolves to make war upon the Ethiopians. But before undertaking his expedition, he sends spies into the country disguised as friendly ambassadors, who carry costly presents from Cambyses. They arrive at the court of the Ethiopian prince, "a man superior to all others in the perfection of size and beauty," who sees through their disguise, and takes down a bow of such enormous size that no Persian could bend it. "Give your king this bow, and in my name speak to him thus:—
"'The king of Ethiopia sends this counsel to the king of Persia. When his subjects shall be able to bend this bow with the same ease that I do, then let him venture to attack the long-lived Ethiopians. Meanwhile, let him be thankful to the gods, that the Ethiopians have not been inspired with the same love of conquest as himself.'"[1]
Homer wrote at least eight hundred years before Christ, and his poems are well ascertained to be a most faithful mirror of the manners and customs of his times, and the knowledge of his age.
In the first book of the Iliad, Achilles is represented as imploring his goddess-mother to intercede with Jove in behalf of her aggrieved son. She grants his request, but tells him the intercession must be delayed for twelve days. The gods are absent. They have gone to the distant climes of Ethiopia to join in its festal rites. "Yesterday Jupiter went to the feast with the blameless Ethiopians, away upon the limits of the
- ↑ Herod iii: 21.
