“How indeed is it possible that monarchy should be a well-adjusted thing, when it allows a man to do as he likes without being answerable? Such licence is enough to stir strange and unwonted thoughts in the heart of the worthiest of men. Give a person this power, and straightway his manifold good things puff him up with pride, while envy is so natural to human kind that it cannot but arise in him.”
~ ‘The History’ (Book 3) by Herodotus (George Rawlinson transl. GB6 - p. 107)
Book 3 takes us back to the Persian Empire, and the main story is about Cyrus’ son, Cambyses’ reign and fall and the rise of Darius. But you do get to read about many other kings, their decisions, and leadership strategies that had far-reaching consequences beyond their reign.
Amasis, the Egyptian king, who Herodotus (in Book 2) called the greatest of Egyptian rulers, sends the most skilled eye-doctor to Cyrus when Cyrus asks for one. But the physician is completely upset due to being torn away from his family and sent to a foreign land. He puts the idea into Cambyses’ (Cyrus’ son) mind to ask for Amasis’ daughter in marriage. Amasis, fearing his daughter would be a mere concubine, sends the daughter of the former king, Nitetis, instead. When Cambyses finds out about this, he invades Egypt due to the insult. Amasis dies before Cambyses reaches Egypt, and the brunt of Cambyses’ wrath is borne by his son, Psammenitus. Could Amasis have been more careful in selecting which doctor to send to Cyrus? Would it have been better for him to have given up his daughter?