He was the Persian king (reigned 530 to 522 BC), son of Cyrus the Great, best known for conquering Egypt in 525 BC and adding it to the Achaemenid Empire.

What is Cambyses II famous for?

For the conquest of Egypt in 525 BC, and, in later Greek tradition, for a reputation as a cruel and unstable ruler.

How did Cambyses conquer Egypt?

In 525 BC he defeated the pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium near the Nile Delta and captured the capital, Memphis, making Egypt a Persian province.

Was Cambyses II really mad or cruel?

The lurid tales come mainly from Herodotus and from Egyptian sources hostile to Persian rule; modern historians treat them with caution and see a more measured picture in the Persian and Egyptian evidence.

How did Cambyses II die?

He died in 522 BC while returning to Persia to face a revolt; the exact circumstances are uncertain, and a succession crisis followed that brought Darius the Great to power.

Whose son was Cambyses II?

He was the son of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and his successor as king.

Cambyses II: the conqueror of Egypt

Cambyses II inherited the vast empire of his father Cyrus the Great and added to it the oldest and richest kingdom of the age: Egypt. His victory on the Nile made Persia master from the Aegean to the desert. Yet the Greek and Egyptian writers who shaped his memory painted him as a cruel and unstable tyrant, a portrait modern historians treat with caution¹.

Heir to Cyrus

Cambyses became king on the death of² Cyrus the Great around 530 BC. Where his father had conquered to the east and north, Cambyses looked south, to the one great power still beyond Persian reach, the ancient kingdom of Egypt.

Stepped stone tomb with a gabled chamber standing on an open plain — The tomb of Cyrus the Great, Cambyses' father, at Pasargadae in southwestern Iran. A. Davey, CC BY 2.0

The conquest of Egypt

In 525 BC Cambyses invaded and defeated the Egyptian pharaoh¹ Psamtik III at the battle of Pelusium, near the mouth of the Nile, then took the capital Memphis³. Egypt, the oldest kingdom in the world, became a Persian province, adding the ancient world's wealthiest realm to the empire he had inherited.

A 16th-century engraving of Cambyses II — Cambyses II in a 16th-century engraving. Public domain.

He added Egypt, the oldest kingdom of the age, to the Persian Empire.

A hostile memory

Much of what later ages believed about Cambyses came from Greek writers, above all Herodotus, and from Egyptian priests hostile to Persian rule⁴. They told of sacrilege and madness, of a king who mocked the gods of Egypt. Modern historians note that Persian and Egyptian evidence gives a more measured picture², and treat the tales of his cruelty with caution.

Dark stone statue of a standing Egyptian official covered in hieroglyphs — Statue of the Egyptian chief physician Udjahorresnet, from the 27th Dynasty (525 to 404 BC), the period of Persian rule over Egypt. Gregorian Egyptian Museum, Vatican. Public domain

A sudden end

In 522 BC, hurrying home to face a revolt⁴, Cambyses died in circumstances that remain unclear³. The crisis that followed brought a distant kinsman to the throne,⁵ Darius the Great, who would raise the empire to its height.

Rock relief of a king facing a line of bound captives beneath a winged symbol — The reliefs of the Behistun inscription in western Iran, carved for Darius the Great after he took the throne. Public domain

Meet his father Cyrus the Great, or explore the other great commanders of the Persian Empire.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

World History Encyclopedia (Daan Nijssen), “Cambyses II” ↩ a b
Encyclopaedia Iranica (Muhammad A. Dandamayev), “Cambyses” ↩ a b
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Cambyses II” ↩ a b
Herodotus, Histories, Book 3, 1 to 16 (the invasion of Egypt, Pelusium at 3.10 to 13, Memphis at 3.13 to 14), 27 to 38 (the Apis story and the charge of madness), 61 to 66 (the revolt in Persia and the death of Cambyses in Syria). ↩ a b
Pierre Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (Eisenbrauns, 2002). ↩
Wikipedia, “Cambyses II” ↩