Pelusium and the sacred cats
Legend says the Persians used cats as shields against Egypt
Cambyses’ victory at Pelusium gave Egypt to Persia. Seven centuries later the writer Polyaenus claimed that Cambyses placed cats and other sacred animals before his army, and the Egyptians dared not shoot.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 6th century BC
Did you know
Legend says Persia conquered Egypt with the help of cats. Polyaenus wrote that at Pelusium in 525 BC Cambyses placed animals sacred to the Egyptians in front of his army, and the Egyptians would not shoot. Share →
When a cat died in an Egyptian house, everyone in it shaved off their eyebrows, Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC. Diodorus claimed that killing a cat, even by accident, could get you lynched. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 509 BC Founding of the Roman Republic — 16 years later
- 508 BC Cleisthenes' reforms and the birth of democracy — 17 years later
Middle East
- 550 BC Cyrus the Great founds the Achaemenid Empire — 25 years earlier
- 539 BC Fall of Babylon to Cyrus — 14 years earlier
- c. 520 BC The Behistun inscription — 5 years later
Asia
- c. 500 BC Sun Tzu's The Art of War — 25 years later
Alive at the time
- Pythagoras (aged 45)
- Gautama Buddha (aged 38)
- Confucius (aged 26)
- Darius the Great (aged 25)
- Sun Tzu (aged 19)
- Leonidas I (aged 15)
- Heraclitus (aged 10)