Cambyses II ( Kambūjiya, Persian: کمبوجیه, d. 522 BC) was the son of Cyrus the Great (r. 559-530 BC), founder of the Persian Empire and its first dynasty. His grandfather was Cambyses I, king of Anshan. Following Cyrus' conquests of the Near East and Central Asia, Cambyses further expanded the empire into Egypt during the Late Period. His forces invaded the Kingdom of Kush (located in what is now the Republic of Sudan) without any breakthrough successes.

Rise to power

When Cyrus The Great conquered Babylon in 539 BC, he was employed in leading religious ceremonies, and in the cylinder which contains Cyrus' proclamation to the Babylonians his name is joined to that of his father in the prayers to Marduk. On a tablet dated from the first year of Cyrus, Cambyses is called king of Babylon, although his authority seems to have been quite ephemeral; it was only in 530 BC, when Cyrus set out on his last expedition into the East, that he associated Cambyses on the throne, and numerous Babylonian tablets of this time are dated from the accession and the first year of Cambyses, when Cyrus was "king of the countries" (i.e. of the world). After the death of his father in August 530, Cambyses became sole king. The tablets dated from his reign in Babylonia run to the end of his eighth year, i.e. March 522 BC. Herodotus (3.66), who dates his reign from the death of Cyrus, gives him seven years five months, i.e. from 530 BC to the summer of 523.

The traditions of Cambyses

The traditions about Cambyses, preserved by the Greek authors, come from two different sources. The first, which forms the main part of the account of Herodotus (3. 2-4; 10-37), is of Egyptian origin. Here Cambyses is made the legitimate son of Cyrus and a daughter of Apries named Nitetis (Herod. 3.2, Dinon fr. II, Polyaen. viii. 29), whose death he avenges on the successor of the usurper Amasis. Nevertheless, (Herod. 3.1 and Ctesias a/i. Athen. Xiii. 560), the Persians corrected this tradition:

Cambyses wants to marry a daughter of Amasis, who sends him a daughter of Apries instead of his own daughter, and by her Cambyses is induced to begin the war. His great crime is the killing of the Apis bull, for which he is punished by madness, in which he commits many other crimes, kills his brother and his sister, and at last loses his empire and dies from a wound in the thigh, at the same place where he had wounded the sacred animal. Intermingled are some stories derived from the Greek mercenaries, especially about their leader Phanes of Halicarnassus, who betrayed Egypt to the Persians. In the Persian tradition the crime of Cambyses is the murder of his brother; he is further accused of drunkenness, in which he commits many crimes, and thus accelerates his ruin.

These traditions are found in different passages of Herodotus, and in a later form, but with some trustworthy detail about his household, in the fragments of Ctesias. With the exception of Babylonian dated tablets and some Egyptian inscriptions, we possess no contemporary evidence about the reign of Cambyses but the short account of Darius in the Behistun Inscription. It is impossible from these sources to form a correct picture of Cambyses' character; but it seems certain that he was a wild despot and that he was led by drunkenness to many atrocious deeds.

Darius' account

Conquest of Egypt

It was quite natural that, after Cyrus had conquered the Middle East, Cambyses should undertake the conquest of Egypt, the only remaining independent state in that part of the world. Before he set out on his expedition, he killed his brother Bardiya (Smerdis), whom Cyrus had appointed governor of the eastern provinces. The date is given by Darius, whereas the Greek authors narrate the murder after the conquest of Egypt. The war took place in 525 BC, when Amasis II had just been succeeded by his son Psamtik III. Cambyses had prepared for the march through the desert by an alliance with Arabian chieftains, who brought a large supply of water to the stations. King Amasis had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand the threatened Persian attack by an alliance with the Greeks.

But this hope failed, as the Cypriot towns and the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, who possessed a large fleet, now preferred to join the Persians, and the commander of the Greek troops, Phanes of Halicarnassus, went over to them. In the decisive battle at Pelusium the Egyptian army was defeated, and shortly afterwards Memphis was taken. The captive king Psammetichus was executed, having attempted a rebellion. The Egyptian inscriptions show that Cambyses officially adopted the titles and the costume of the Pharaohs.

Attempts to conquer south and west of Egypt

From Egypt, Cambyses attempted the conquest of Kush, located in the modern Sudan. But his army was not able to cross the deserts and after heavy losses he was forced to return. In an inscription from Napata (in the Berlin museum) the Nubian king Nastasen relates that he had defeated the troops of "Kambasuten" and taken all his ships. This was once thought to refer to Cambyses II (H. Schafer, Die Aethiopische Königsinschrift des Berliner Museums, 1901); however, Nastasen lived far later and was likely referring to Khabash. Another expedition against the Siwa Oasis failed likewise, and the plan of attacking Carthage was frustrated by the refusal of the Phoenicians to operate against their kindred.

The death of Cambyses

According to most ancient historians, in Persia the throne was seized by a man posing as his brother Smerdis, who had really been killed by Cambyses some three years previously. Some modern historians consider that this person really was Smerdis, the story that he was an impostor was created by Darius after he became monarch.

Whoever this new monarch may have been, Cambyses attempted to march against him, but died shortly after under disputed circumstances. According to Darius, who was Cambyses' lance-bearer at the time, he decided that success was impossible, and died by his own hand March 522. Herodotus and Ctesias ascribe his death to an accident. Their story is that while mounting his horse, the tip of his scabbard broke and his sword pierced his thigh - Herodotus mentions it is the same place where he stabbed a sacred cow in Egypt. He died of gangrene of the bone and mortification of the wound. Some modern historians suspect that Cambyses may have been assassinated, either by Darius as the first step to usurping the empire for himself, or by supporters of Smerdis . According to Herodotus (3.64) he died in Ecbatana, i.e. Hamath; Josephus (Antiquites xi. 2. 2) names Damascus; Ctesias, Babylon, which is absolutely impossible.

Cambyses was buried in Pasargadae. The remains of his tomb were identified in 2006.

The Lost Army of Cambyses

thumb|right|The lost army of Cambyses II according to an XIX century engraving
According to Herodotus 3.26, Cambyses sent an army to threaten the Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis. The army of 50,000 men was halfway across the desert when a massive sandstorm sprang up, burying them all. Although many Egyptologists regard the story as a myth, people have searched for the remains of the soldiers for many years. These have included Count László Almásy (on whom the novel The English Patient was based) and modern geologist Tom Brown. Some believe that in recent petroleum excavations, the remains may have been uncovered.

In January 1933, Orde Charles Wingate--later famous for creating the Chindits, allied troops that fought behind enemy lines against the Japanese during World War II--searched unsuccessfully for the Lost Army of Cambyses in the Egypt's Western Desert, then known as the Libyan Desert.

On February 17, 1977, Associated Press reporter Marcus K. Smith wrote the following story, whose headline read: "Lost Army Found."

CAIRO—The remains of an invading Persian army that vanished in a sandstorm 2,500 years ago have been uncovered in the Egyptian Western Desert. An Egyptian archaeological mission discovered thousands of bones, swords, and spears of Persian manufacture of the vanished army of King Cambyses at the foot of Abu Balas Mountain. The site is in a region twice the size of Switzerland, known as the 'Great Sea of Sand.' Archaeologists are calling it one of the greatest finds of the century. The site is not far from the Siwa (Amon) Oasis, 350 miles west of Cairo which the Persian soldiers were trying to reach when they were overwhelmed by a desert storm...

This story proved to be a hoax.

From September 1983 to February 1984, Gary S. Chafetz, an American journalist and author, led an expedition--sponsored by Harvard University, The National Geographic Society, the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority, and the Ligabue Research Institute--that searched for the Lost Army of Cambyses. The six-month search was conducted along the Egyptian-Libyan border in a remote 100-square-kilometer area of complex dunes south west of the uninhabited Bahrein Oasis, approximately 100 miles south east of Siwa (Amon) Oasis. The $250,000 expedition had at its disposal 20 Egyptian geologists and laborers, a National Geographic photographer, two Harvard Film Studies documentary filmmakers, three camels, an ultra-light aircraft, and ground-penetrating radar. The expedition discovered approximately 500 tumili (Zoroastrian-style graves) but no artifacts. Several tumili contained bone fragments. Thermoluminence later dated these fragments to 1,500 B.C., approximately 1000 years earlier than the Lost Army. A recumbent winged sphinx carved in oolitic limestone was also discovered in a cave in the uninhabited Sitra Oasis (between Bahrein and Siwa Oases), whose provenance appeared to be Persian. Chafetz was arrested when he returned to Cairo in February 1984 for "smuggling an airplane into Egypt," even though he had the written permission of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority to bring the aircraft into the country. He was interrogated for 24 hours. The charges were dropped after he promised to donate the ultra-light to the Egyptian Government. The aircraft now sits in the Egyptian War Museum in Cairo with a plaque that reads: "Captured from an Israeli Spy."

In the summer of 2000, a Helwan University geological team, prospecting for petroleum in Egypt's Western Desert, came across well-preserved fragments of textiles, bits of metal resembling weapons, and human remains that they believed to be traces of the Lost Army of Cambyses. The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that it would organize an expedition to investigate the site, but released no further information.

In November 2009, two Italian archaeologists, Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, announced the discovery of human remains, tools and weapons which date to the era of the Persian army. These artifacts were located near Siwa Oasis. According to these two archaeologists this is the first archaeological evidence of the story reported by Herodotus.

However, these “two Italian archaelogists" presented their discoveries in a film rather than a scientific journal. Doubts have been raised because the Castiglioni brothers also happen to be the two filmmakers who produced five controversial African shockumentaries in the 1970s--including Addio ultimo uomo, Africa ama, and Africa dolce e selvaggia--films in which audiences saw unedited footage of the severing of a penis, the skinning of a human corpse, the deflowering of a girl with a stone phallus, and a group of hunters tearing apart an elephant’s carcass.

The Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has said in a press release that media reports of this "are unfounded and misleading" and that "The Castiglioni brothers have not been granted permission by the SCA to excavate in Egypt, so anything they claim to find is not to be believed."

Fictional representations of Cambyses

• 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' 1864 novel, Eine ägyptische Königstochter ("An Egyptian Princess").

• Cambyses' lost army appears in Biggles Flies South

• Robert E. Howard wrote a poem, "Skulls and Dust", about Cambyses' death.

• 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.