The worst crime that a judge can commit in the exercise of his office is prevarication, that is, knowingly handing down an unjust sentence. And such a negative conception is not current but dates back to Antiquity, a period from which we preserve a famous example outlined by Herodotus:that of the Persian judge Sisamnes, ordered to be executed by King Cambyses II after learning that he had accepted a bribe in a trial and handed down a ruling in favor of the person who paid him. The case acquired truculent overtones when he was also skinned and his son was appointed to replace him, having to sit on the skin of his father.
Cambyses II was the son of Cyrus the Great , the founder of the Persian Empire and the Achaemenid dynasty, whom he succeeded to the throne in 530 BC. after murdering his brother Bardiyas; This is what the Behistún inscription tells us at least. According to Herodotus, he ruled for eight years until his death in Ecbatana of Syria (present-day Hama, although other sources point to Damascus or Babylon as the place of death). The highlight of his reign was the conquest of Egypt, which culminated successfully in 525 after previously seizing Cyprus and then defeating Pharaoh Psammetichus II at the Battle of Pelusium, incorporating that country into his domain and creating a Persian dynasty. Also famous is the lost expedition he sent to the Siwa oasis.
The military campaign for Cyrenaica (Libya) then continued, although he was forced to interrupt it because his absence from Persia was taken advantage of by a magician named Gaumata, who posed as the late Bardiyas, to lead an insurrection. Cambyses left Ariandes as Egyptian satrap and undertook the return trip but did not reach his destination:in 522 he lost his life passing through Syria, according to Herodotus from an accident and according to others from gangrene caused by an arrow wound in a leg; the quoted Behistun inscription is more poetic and says that he "died his own death" (which Flavius Josephus interprets as a suicide).
Gaumata could not stay in power for a long time and fell a year later at the hands of Darío I. It should be noted that the existence of this magician is not certain and some authors think that it was an invention of Darío himself to justify his accession to the throne. , since he was only the son of the governor of Parthia, although he was related to the Achaemenids:he was a cousin of Cambyses and had been named arštibara (spear bearer), a position of honour. The Persian court had several such positions, generally reserved for more or less direct members of the imperial family. One of them was the royal judge, whose title fell to Sisamnes.
We do not know much about Sisamnes (neither about Cambyses, in fact) because Herodotus does not specifically review the tremendous episode that made him go down to posterity, but rather as a mere reference in the context of the changes that Darius introduced when he ascended the throne. Specifically in the appointment of Ótanes as general in command of the coastal garrisons. The thing can be a bit confusing because there were two characters with that name; the other was the brother of Casandane, the wife of Cyrus the Great , and therefore uncle of Cambyses, and Herodotus considers him the first to realize that Gaumata was an impostor because she had married one of his daughters to him. Otanes agreed with Darius and other conspirators to assassinate the magician.
Once the assassination was consummated, they discussed the form of government to establish; some wanted a monarchy, others an oligarchy... Otanes was a supporter of Greek democracy but in the end Darius's imperial ambition prevailed and he chose to remain on the sidelines; perhaps he himself aspired to the crown, for after all he had royal blood. Instead, he married a sister of Darius, with whom he had a daughter named Amestris who years later would marry Xerxes I. This is roughly the story of the first Otanes; but, as we said, there was another. He was the son of Sisamnes, the royal judge. In the fifth of his Nine history books , Herodotus says verbatim:
Apparently, the judge accepted a bribe to dictate a sentence in favor of the one he paid him. We do not know what the cause in question was about, but the matter reached the ears of Cambyses, who, terribly irritated because he was not just any magistrate but the real one, wanted to make a lesson. Sisamnes was arrested and executed but before he was skinned while still alive. Persian capital punishment was fearsome and the Egyptians, for example, did not take well the despotism with which they were governed, so they would end up taking up arms.
Finally, with the leather strips obtained, the seat used by the judge to preside over the court was upholstered. Later, the king gave a twist to the sentence by appointing Otanes, his own son, substitute in office. To exercise it, he would have to sit on the skin of his father; an expeditious way of reminding him what would happen if he deviated from the law. Let's go back to Herodotus:
This episode is known as the Judgment of Cambyses and has been represented in art with some frequency, as can be seen in the images that illustrate this article, by great masters:Rubens, Lucas Cranach, Dirk Vellert, Gérard David etc By the way, Otanes must have acted as an exemplary judge, since there was no doubt about it and in the end even he was rewarded with the satrapy of Ionia.