Cambyses, the cats and the invasion of Egypt
It is well known that cats, in Egypt, were sacred.
In ancient Egypt the cat was the personification of the goddess Bast, to whom a city in Lower Egypt, Bastet, was also dedicated. Hurting a cat was one of the few crimes that could result in the death penalty!
Before the Assyrian and Persian invasions, money was unknown in Egypt. Everything was obtained exchanging something else and taxes were paid with the products of the land, mainly grains. These were stored in silos to pay the laborers who built monuments, the army, etc., and also to be redistributed in difficult time. These products therefore constituted the royal treasure. But, where there is grain there are also mice. Therefore, cats were, for all intents and purposes, the "chosen guard" of Pharaoh's treasury. Beware of touching them!
Herodotus narrates that Cambyses, who was an extremely smart man, well knew this weakness of the Egyptians. In 525 B.C.E., he decided to invade Egypt and at Pelusium (a place that means "the swamp" in Greek) he was confronted by the entire Egyptian army well intentioned not to let him pass. Given the uncertain result of the fight, what did he come up with? He gave each soldier a cat (no one knows how willingly)!! The mighty Egyptian army, rather than face the risk of hurting the cats, dissolved.
Thus, without a blow - if we do not consider the scratches made by the cats to the soldiers - Cambyses was given the green light and the Egypt's invasion begins.
It then went badly for him because he died, swept away by a sandstorm along with four thousand of his soldiers, in an attempt to reach the oasis of Siwa from Thebes to subdue the Libyans as well.
Recently has been reported that artifacts such as shields and weapons have surfaced along this route amid the shifting dunes, which would identify the remains of this army. The exact location is not disclosed in fears of looting and because of the difficulties of manning the site. Moreover, precisely because of the extreme mobility of the sands, it seems that the search is very difficult to conduct.
