Herodotus wrote The Histories in the fifth century BC, asking why Greeks and Persians fought. This is Book 3, called Thalia. Book 2 described Egypt; Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was coming next with a Persian army.

Now Persia takes the Nile and nearly takes itself apart. Cambyses, Great King, conquers Egypt, stabs the Apis bull — a god in animal form — kills his brother Smerdis, and dies of a wound in the same place. A Magus, a Median priest, steals the brother's name. Seven Persian nobles cut him down. Darius, a spearman's son, wins the crown by a horse trick at dawn. They first argue democracy, oligarchy, or kingship; kingship wins. Babylon in today's Iraq rebels; Zopyrus mutilates his own face to open the gates. On Samos, an island off Turkey, tyrant Polycrates throws a ring in the sea and a fish returns it. The man who will send armies against Greece sits on the throne.