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Next, they read me from a papyrus the names of three hundred and
thirty monarchs, who (they said) were his successors upon the
throne. In this number of generations there were eighteen Ethiopian
kings, and one queen who was a native; all the rest were kings and
Egyptians. The queen bore the same name as the Babylonian princess,
namely, Nitocris. They said that she succeeded her brother; he had
been king of Egypt, and was put to death by his subjects, who then
placed her upon the throne. Bent on avenging his death, she devised a
cunning scheme by which she destroyed a vast number of Egyptians. She
constructed a spacious underground chamber, and, on pretence of
inaugurating it, contrived the following: Inviting to a banquet those
of the Egyptians whom she knew to have had the chief share in the
murder of her brother, she suddenly, as they were feasting, let the
river in upon them by means of a secret duct of large size. This and
this only did they tell me of her, except that, when she had done as
I have said, she threw herself into an apartment full of ashes, that
she might escape the vengeance whereto she would otherwise have been exposed.
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