It appears certain to me, by a great variety of proofs, that Cambyses was raving mad; otherwise he would not have set himself to make a mock of holy rites and long-established usages (nomaia). For if one were to invite men to choose out of all customs (nomoi) in the world such as seemed to them the best, they would, after examining them all, end by prefering their own; so convinced are they that their own usages are the best. Unless, therefore, a man was mad, it is not likely that he would make a sport of such matters. That people have this feeling about their customs may be seen by many very proofs: among others, by the following. Darius, after he had got the kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks who were at hand, and asked what he should have to pay them to eat the bodies of their dead fathers; to which they replied, that there was no sum that would tempt them to do such a thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and asked them, while the Greeks stood by, and understood by means of an interpreter all that was said, what he should have to give them to burn the bodies of their fathers at their decease. The Indians exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such language. Such is men's wont herein; and Pindar was right, in my judgement, when he said: 'Nomos is king (basileus) of all'.
Heródoto, Histórias III.38
in Richard Winton, "Herodotus, Thucydides and the Sophists" in Christopher Rowe & Malcolm Schofield (eds.),
The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. CUP, Cambridge: 2000.
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