Sisamnes was, according to Herodotus' Histories, a corrupt royal judge active in the Persian empire during the reign of Cambyses II of Persia. When Cambyses learned that Sisamnes had accepted a bribe to influence a verdict, he had him promptly arrested and sentenced him to be flayed alive. He had the skin of the flayed Sisamnes cut into leather strips. Cambyses then appointed Otanes, the son of the condemned Sisamnes, as his father's judicial successor. In order to remind Otanes what happens to corrupt judges and not forget the importance of judicial integrity, Cambyses ordered that the new judge's chair be draped in the leather strips made from the skin of the flayed Sisamnes. Otanes later became a Satrap in Ionia. Cambyses warned Otanes to continually keep in mind the source of the leather of the chair upon which he would be seated to deliberate and deliver his judgment. The story was also referred to by the first century Latin author Valerius Maximus in his Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX (The nine books of memorable deeds and sayings). Whereas in Herodotus' version Sisamnes' skin is cut into strips, Maximus has the skin stretched across the chair. Interpretation In the original story Herodotus may have wanted to suggest that King Cambyses had gone mad. Valerius Maximus included the story of King Cambyses in a chapter on the severity of foreigners. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, images of judges who were warned, restrained and punished by their kings were common. Cambyses' judgement was included in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais (died in 1264). The late 13th-century Flemish writer Jacob van Maerlant liberally translated the Speculum in middle Dutch as Spiegel historiael (Mirror of History), thus providing the first recounting of the Cambyses story in the Dutch language. The story became increasingly associated with the concept of the impartial administration of justice. An inscription on a mid-sixteenth century German medal depicting the Cambyses story reads: "Cambyses maintained the law and administered it justly, as one can perceive here from the punishment." The Renaissance seems to have reinterpreted the Cambyses story as an illustration of the need for a king to exert appropriate control over the judiciary. The sovereigns of that time may have found the story useful to remind the populace of their power or reminding their judges of the punishment that they could receive if they