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Cambyses no sooner heard the name of Smerdis than he was struck with
the truth of Prexaspes' words, and the fulfilment of his own dream -
the dream, I mean, which he had in former days, when one appeared to
him in his sleep and told him that Smerdis sate upon the royal throne,
and with his head touched the heavens. So when he saw that he had
needlessly slain his brother Smerdis, he wept and bewailed his loss:
after which, smarting with vexation as he thought of all his ill luck,
he sprang hastily upon his steed, meaning to march his army with all
haste to Susa against the Magus. As he made his spring, the button
of his sword-sheath fell off, and the bared point entered his thigh,
wounding him exactly where he had himself once wounded the Egyptian god
Apis. Then Cambyses, feeling that he had got his death-wound,
inquired the name of the place where he was, and was answered,
"Agbatana." Now before this it had been told him by the oracle at
Buto that he should end his days at Agbatana. He, however, had
understood the Median Agbatana, where all his treasures were, and
had thought that he should die there in a good old age; but the oracle
meant Agbatana in Syria. So when Cambyses heard the name of the
place, the double shock that he had received, from the revolt of the
Magus and from his wound, brought him back to his senses. And he
understood now the true meaning of the oracle, and said, "Here then
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, is doomed to die."
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