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When the priests returned bringing Apis with them, Cambyses, like
the harebrained person that he was, drew his dagger, and aimed at the
belly of the animal, but missed his mark, and stabbed him in the
thigh. Then he laughed, and said thus to the priests: "Oh!
blockheads, and think ye that gods become like this, of flesh and
blood, and sensible to steel? A fit god indeed for Egyptians, such
an one! But it shall cost you dear that you have made me your
laughing-stock." When he had so spoken, he ordered those whose
business it was to scourge the priests, and if they found any of the
Egyptians keeping festival to put them to death. Thus was the feast
stopped throughout the land of Egypt, and the priests suffered
punishment. Apis, wounded in the thigh, lay some time pining in the
temple; at last he died of his wound, and the priests buried him
secretly without the knowledge of Cambyses.
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