Chapter VI: Of The Fertility Of Egypt (2)

Till the reign of Sethon, the Egyptian priests computed three hundred and forty-one generations of men;(448) which make eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; allowing three generations to a hundred years. They counted the like number of priests and kings. The latter, whether gods or men, had succeeded one another without interruption, under the name of Piromis, an Egyptian word signifying good and virtuous. The Egyptian priests showed Herodotus three hundred and forty-one wooden colossal statues of these Piromis, all ranged in order in a great hall. Such was the folly of the Egyptians, to lose themselves as it were in a remote antiquity, to which no other people could dare to pretend.

(M86) THARACA. He it was who joined Sethon, with an Ethiopian army, to relieve Jerusalem.(449) After the death of Sethon, who had sitten fourteen years on the throne, Tharaca ascended it, and reigned eighteen years. He was the last Ethiopian king who reigned in Egypt.

After his death, the Egyptians, not being able to agree about the succession, were two years in a state of anarchy, during which there were great disorders and confusions among them.

(M87) At last,(450) twelve of the principal noblemen, conspiring together, seized upon the kingdom, and divided it amongst themselves into as many parts. It was agreed by them, that each should govern his own district with equal power and authority, and that no one should attempt to invade or seize the dominions of another. They thought it necessary to make this agreement, and to bind it with the most dreadful oaths, to elude the prediction of an oracle, which had foretold, that he among them who should offer his libation to Vulcan out of a brazen bowl, should gain the sovereignty of Egypt. They reigned together fifteen years in the utmost harmony: and to leave a famous monument of their concord to posterity, they jointly, and at a common expense, built the famous labyrinth, which was a pile of building consisting of twelve large palaces, with as many edifices underground as appeared above it. I have spoken elsewhere of this labyrinth.

One day, as the twelve kings were assisting at a solemn and periodical sacrifice offered in the temple of Vulcan, the priests, having presented each of them a golden bowl for the libation, one was wanting; when Psammetichus,(451) without any design, supplied the want of this bowl with his brazen helmet, (for each wore one,) and with it performed the ceremony of the libation. This accident struck the rest of the kings, and recalled to their memory the prediction of the oracle above mentioned. They thought it therefore necessary to secure themselves from his attempts, and therefore, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had passed some years there, waiting a favourable opportunity to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon him, a courier brought him advice, that brazen men were landed in Egypt. These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon the coasts of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets, cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to mind the oracle, which had answered him, that he should be succoured by brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt but the prediction was now fulfilled. He therefore made a league with these strangers; engaged them with great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces; and put these Greeks at their head; when giving battle to the eleven kings, he defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

(M88) PSAMMETICHUS. As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, (from which all foreigners hitherto had been excluded;) and, by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed revenues, he made them forget their native country.(452) By his order, Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a correspondence with the Greeks; and from that æra, the Egyptian history, which, till then, had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ. They were eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government,(453) thought it high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Assyrian, his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this purpose, he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident related by Diodorus;(454) that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks posted on the right wing by the king himself, in preference to them, quitted the service, to the number of upwards of two hundred thousand men, and retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement.

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine,(455) where his career was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country, which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it twenty-nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege mentioned in ancient history.

This was anciently one of the five capital cities of the Philistines. The Egyptians, having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such care, that it was their strongest bulwark on that side. Nor could Sennacherib enter Egypt, till he had first made himself master of this city,(456) which was taken by Tartan, one of his generals. The Assyrians had possessed it hitherto; and it was not till after the long siege just now mentioned, that the Egyptians recovered it.

In this period,(457) the Scythians, leaving the banks of the Palus Mæotis, made an inroad into Media, defeated Cyaxares, the king of that country, and deprived him of all Upper Asia, of which they kept possession during twenty-eight years. They pushed their conquests in Syria as far as to the frontiers of Egypt. But Psammetichus marching out to meet them, prevailed so far, by his presents and entreaties, that they advanced no farther, and by that means delivered his kingdom from these dangerous enemies.

Till his reign,(458) the Egyptians had imagined themselves to be the most ancient nation upon earth. Psammetichus was desirous to prove this himself, and he employed a very extraordinary experiment for this purpose. He commanded (if we may credit the relation) two children, newly born of poor parents, to be brought up (in the country) in a hovel, that was to be kept continually shut. They were committed to the care of a shepherd, (others say, of nurses, whose tongues were cut out,) who was to feed them with the milk of goats; and was commanded not to suffer any person to enter into this hut, nor himself to speak even a single word in the hearing of these children. At the expiration of two years, as the shepherd was one day coming into the hut to feed these children, they both cried out, with hands extended towards their foster-father, _beccos, beccos_. The shepherd, surprised to hear a language that was quite new to him, but which they repeated frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself might be a witness to the truth of what was told him; and accordingly both of them began, in his presence, to stammer out the sounds above mentioned. Nothing now was wanting but to ascertain what nation it was that used this word; and it was found that the Phrygians called bread by this name. From this time they were allowed the honour of antiquity, or rather of priority, which the Egyptians themselves, notwithstanding their jealousy of it, and the many ages they had possessed this glory, were obliged to resign to them. As goats were brought to these children, in order that they might feed upon their milk, and historians do not say that they were deaf, some are of opinion that they might have learnt the word _bec_, or _beccos_, by mimicking the cry of those creatures.

Psammetichus died in the 24th year of Josias, king of Judah, and was succeeded by his son Nechao.

(M89) NECHAO.(459) This prince is often mentioned in Scripture under the name of Pharaoh-Necho.(460)

He attempted to join the Nile to the Red-Sea, by cutting a canal from one to the other. The distance which separates them is at least a thousand stadia.(461) After a hundred and twenty thousand workmen had lost their lives in this attempt, Nechao was obliged to desist; the oracle which had been consulted by him, having answered, that this new canal would open a passage to the Barbarians (for so the Egyptians called all other nations) to invade Egypt.

Nechao was more successful in another enterprise.(462) Skilful Phœnician mariners, whom he had taken into his service, having sailed from the Red-Sea in order to discover the coasts of Africa, went successfully round it; and the third year after their setting out, returned to Egypt through the Straits of Gibraltar. This was a very extraordinary voyage, in an age when the compass was not known. It was made twenty-one centuries before Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, (by discovering the Cape of Good Hope, in the year 1497,) found out the very same way to sail to the Indies, by which these Phœnicians had come from thence into the Mediterranean.

The Babylonians and Medes, having destroyed Nineveh, and with it the empire of the Assyrians, were thereby become so formidable, that they drew upon themselves the jealousy of all their neighbours.(463) Nechao, alarmed at the danger, advanced to the Euphrates, at the head of a powerful army, in order to check their progress. Josiah, king of Judah, so famous for his uncommon piety, observing that he took his route through Judea, resolved to oppose his passage. With this view, he raised all the forces of his kingdom, and posted himself in the valley of Megiddo, (a city on this side Jordan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, and called Magdolus by Herodotus.) Nechao informed him, by a herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war, for fear lest it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by these reasons: he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea, would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after the defeat of the Babylonians, would fall upon him, and dispossess him of part of his dominions. He therefore marched to engage Nechao; and was not only overthrown by him, but unfortunately received a wound, of which he died at Jerusalem, whither he had ordered himself to be carried.

Nechao, animated by this victory, continued his march, and advanced towards the Euphrates. He defeated the Babylonians; took Carchemish, a large city in that country; and securing to himself the possession of it by a strong garrison, returned to his own kingdom, after having been absent from it three months.

Being informed in his march homeward, that Jehoahaz had caused himself to be proclaimed king at Jerusalem, without first asking his consent, he commanded him to meet him at Riblah in Syria.(464) The unhappy prince was no sooner arrived there, than he was put in chains by Nechao’s order, and sent prisoner to Egypt, where he died. From thence, pursuing his march, he came to Jerusalem, where he placed Eliakim, (called by him Jehoiakim,) another of Josiah’s sons, upon the throne, in the room of his brother: and imposed an annual tribute on the land, of a hundred talents of silver, and one talent of gold.(465) This being done, he returned in triumph to Egypt.

Herodotus, mentioning this king’s expedition,(466) and the victory gained by him at Magdolus,(467) (as he calls it,) says, that he afterwards took the city Cadytis, which he represents as situated in the mountains of Palestine, and equal in extent to Sardis, the capital at that time not only of Lydia, but of all Asia Minor: this description can suit only Jerusalem, which was situated in the manner above described, and was then the only city in those parts that could be compared to Sardis. It appears besides from Scripture, that Nechao, after his victory, made himself master of this capital of Judea; for he was there in person, when he gave the crown to Jehoiakim. The very name Cadytis, which in Hebrew signifies the Holy, clearly denotes the city of Jerusalem, as is proved by the learned Dean Prideaux.(468)

(M90) Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, observing that, since the taking of Carchemish by Nechao, all Syria and Palestine had shaken off their allegiance to him, and that his years and infirmities would not permit him to march against the rebels in person, he therefore associated his son Nabuchodonosor, or Nebuchadnezzar, with him in the empire, and sent him at the head of an army into those countries. This young prince vanquished the army of Nechao near the river Euphrates, recovered Carchemish, and reduced the revolted provinces to their allegiance, as Jeremiah had foretold.(469) Thus he dispossessed the Egyptians of all that belonged to them,(470) from the little river(471)(472) of Egypt to the Euphrates, which comprehended all Syria and Palestine.

Nechao dying after he had reigned sixteen years, left the kingdom to his son.

(M91) PSAMMIS. His reign was but of six years’ duration; and history has left us nothing memorable concerning him, except that he made an expedition into Ethiopia.(473)

It was to this prince that the Eleans sent a splendid embassy, after having instituted the Olympic games. They had established all the regulations, and arranged every circumstance relating to them, with such care, that, in their opinion, nothing seemed wanting to their perfection, and envy itself could not find any fault with them. However, they did not desire so much to have the opinion, as to gain the approbation of the Egyptians, who were looked upon as the wisest and most judicious people in the world.(474) Accordingly, the king assembled the sages of his nation. After every thing had been heard which could be said in favour of this institution, the Eleans were asked, whether citizens and foreigners were admitted indifferently to these games; to which answer was made, that they were open to every one. To this the Egyptians replied, that the rules of justice would have been more strictly observed, had foreigners only been admitted to these combats; because it was very difficult for the judges, in their award of the victory and the prize, not to be prejudiced in favour of their fellow citizens.

(M92) APRIES. In Scripture he is called Pharaoh-Hophra. He succeeded his father Psammis, and reigned twenty-five years.(475)

During the first years of his reign, he was as fortunate as any of his predecessors. He turned his arms against the island of Cyprus; besieged the city of Sidon by sea and land; took it, and made himself master of all Phœnicia and Palestine.(476)

So rapid a success elated his heart to a prodigious degree, and, as Herodotus informs us, swelled him with so much pride and infatuation, that he boasted, it was not in the power of the gods themselves to dethrone him; so great was the idea he had formed to himself of the firm establishment of his own power. It was with a view to these arrogant notions, that Ezekiel put the vain and impious words following into his mouth: “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.”(477) But the true God proved to him afterwards that he had a master, and that he was a mere man; and he had threatened him long before, by his prophets, with all the calamities he was resolved to bring upon him, in order to punish him for his pride.

Shortly after Hophra had ascended the throne, Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent an embassy, and concluded an alliance with him; and the year following, breaking the oath of fidelity which he had taken to the king of Babylon, he rebelled openly against him.(478)

Notwithstanding God had so often forbidden his people to have recourse to the Egyptians, or to put any confidence in that people; notwithstanding the repeated calamities which had ensued upon the various attempts which they had made to procure assistance from them; they still thought this nation their most sure refuge in danger, and accordingly could not forbear applying to it. This they had already done in the reign of the holy king Hezekiah; which gave occasion to God’s message to his people, by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah: “Wo to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses and trust in chariots, because they are many; but they look not unto the holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, not spirit: when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they shall fail together.”(479) But neither the prophet nor the king were heard; and nothing but the most fatal experience could open their eyes, and make them see evidently the truth of God’s threatenings.

The Jews behaved in the very same manner on this occasion. Zedekiah, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of Jeremiah to the contrary, resolved to conclude an alliance with the Egyptian monarch; who, puffed up with the success of his arms, and confident that nothing could resist his power, declared himself the protector of Israel, and promised to deliver it from the tyranny of Nabuchodonosor. But God, offended that a mortal had dared to intrude himself into his place, thus declared himself to another prophet: “Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt. Speak and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws,”(480) &c. God, after comparing him to a reed, which breaks under the man who leans upon it, and wounds his hand, adds, “Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee; the land of Egypt shall be desolate, and they shall know that I am the Lord, because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.”(481) The same prophet, in several succeeding chapters, continues to foretell the calamities with which Egypt was going to be overwhelmed.(482)

Zedekiah was far from giving credit to these predictions. When he heard of the approach of the Egyptian army, and saw Nabuchodonosor raise the siege of Jerusalem, he fancied that his deliverance was completed, and anticipated a triumph. His joy, however, was but of short duration; for the Egyptians seeing the Chaldeans advancing, did not dare to encounter so numerous and well-disciplined an army. (M93) They therefore marched back into their own country, and left the unfortunate Zedekiah exposed to all the dangers of a war in which they themselves had involved him.(483) Nabuchodonosor again sat down before Jerusalem, took and burnt it, as Jeremiah had prophesied.

(M94) Many years after, the chastisements with which God had threatened Apries (Pharaoh-Hophra) began to fall upon him.(484) For the Cyrenians, a Greek colony, which had settled in Africa, between Libya and Egypt, having seized upon, and divided among themselves, a great part of the country belonging to the Libyans, forced these nations, who were thus dispossessed by violence, to throw themselves into the arms of this prince, and implore his protection. Immediately Apries sent a mighty army into Libya to oppose the Cyrenians; but this army being defeated and almost cut to pieces, the Egyptians imagined that Apries had sent it into Libya, only to get it destroyed; and by that means to attain the power of governing his subjects without check or control. This reflection prompted the Egyptians to shake off the yoke of a prince, whom they now considered as their enemy. But Apries, hearing of the rebellion, despatched Amasis, one of his officers, to suppress it, and force the rebels to return to their allegiance. But the moment Amasis began to address them, they placed a helmet upon his head, in token of the exalted dignity to which they intended to raise him, and proclaimed him king. Amasis having accepted the crown, staid with the mutineers, and confirmed them in their rebellion.

Apries, more exasperated than ever at this news, sent Patarbemis, another of his great officers, and one of the principal lords of his court, to put Amasis under an arrest, and bring him before him; but Patarbemis not being able to carry off Amasis from the midst of the rebel army, by which he was surrounded, was treated by Apries, at his return, in the most ignominious and inhuman manner; for his nose and ears were cut off by the command of that prince, who never considered, that only his want of power had prevented his executing his commission. So barbarous an outrage, committed upon a person of such high distinction, exasperated the Egyptians so much, that the greatest part of them joined the rebels, and the insurrection became general. Apries was now forced to retire into Upper Egypt, where he supported himself some years, during which Amasis made himself master of the rest of his dominions.

The troubles which thus distracted Egypt, afforded Nabuchodonosor a favourable opportunity to invade that kingdom; and it was God himself who inspired him with the resolution. This prince, who was the instrument of God’s wrath (though he did not know himself to be so) against a people whom he was resolved to chastise, had just before taken Tyre, where himself and his army had laboured under incredible difficulties. To recompense their toils, God abandoned Egypt to their arms. It is wonderful to hear the Creator himself revealing his designs on this subject. There are few passages in Scripture more remarkable than this, or which give a clearer idea of the supreme authority which God exercises over all the princes and kingdoms of the earth: “Son of man, (says the Almighty to his prophet Ezekiel,) Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled:(485) yet had he no wages, nor his army,(486) for the service he had served against it. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey, and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour, wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God.”(487) Says another prophet: “He shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment, and he shall go forth from thence in peace.”(488) Thus shall he load himself with booty, and thus cover his own shoulders, and those of his fold, with all the spoils of Egypt. Noble expressions! which show the ease with which all the power and riches of a kingdom are carried away, when God appoints the revolution; and shift, like a garment, to a new owner, who has no more to do but to take it, and clothe himself with it.

The king of Babylon, taking advantage, therefore, of the intestine divisions which the rebellion of Amasis had occasioned in that kingdom, marched thither at the head of his army. He subdued Egypt from Migdol or Magdol, a town on the frontiers of the kingdom, as far as Syene, in the opposite extremity where it borders on Ethiopia. He made a horrible devastation wherever he came; killed a great number of the inhabitants, and made such dreadful havoc in the country, that the damage could not be repaired in forty years. Nabuchodonosor, having loaded his army with spoils, and conquered the whole kingdom, came to an accommodation with Amasis; and leaving him as his viceroy there, returned to Babylon.

APRIES (Pharaoh-Hophra) now leaving the place where he had concealed himself, advanced towards the sea-coast, (probably on the side of Libya;) and hiring an army of Carians, Ionians, and other foreigners, he marched against Amasis, to whom he gave battle near Memphis; but being overcome, Apries was taken prisoner, carried to the city of Sais, and there strangled in his own palace.(489)

The Almighty had given, by the mouth of his prophets, an astonishing relation of the several circumstances of this mighty event. It was He who had broken the power of Apries, which was once so formidable; and put the sword into the hand of Nabuchodonosor, in order that he might chastise and humble that haughty prince. “I am,” said he, “against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, which were strong, but now are broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.”(490)—“But I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword into his hand.”(491)—“And they shall know that I am the Lord.”(492)

He enumerates the towns which were to fall a prey to the victors; Pathros, Zoan, No, (called in the Vulgate Alexandria,) Sin, Aven, Phibeseth, &c.(493)(494)

He takes notice particularly of the unhappy end of the king, who was to be delivered up to his enemies. Thus saith the Lord; “Behold, I will give Pharaoh-Hophra, the king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life.”(495)

Lastly, he declares, that during forty years the Egyptians shall be oppressed with every species of calamity, and be reduced to so deplorable a state, “That there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.”(496) The event verified this prophecy, which was gradually accomplished. Soon after the expiration of these forty years, Egypt was made a province of the Persian empire, to which its kings, though natives of the country, were tributary, and thus the accomplishment of the prediction began. It was completely fulfilled on the death of Nectanebus, the last king of Egyptian extraction, A.M. 3654.

Since that time, Egypt has constantly been governed by foreigners. For since the ruin of the Persian monarchy, it has been subject, successively, to the Macedonians, the Romans, the Saracens, the Mamalukes, and lastly, to the Turks, who possess it to this day.

God was not less punctual in the accomplishment of his prophecies, with regard to such of his own people as had retired, contrary to his prohibition, into Egypt, after the taking of Jerusalem; and had forced Jeremiah along with them.(497) The instant they had reached Egypt, and were arrived at Tahpanhes, (or Tanis,) the prophet, after having hid in their presence (by God’s command) stones in a grotto, which was near the king’s palace, declared to them, that Nabuchodonosor should soon arrive in Egypt, and that God would establish his throne in that very place; that this prince would lay waste the whole kingdom, and carry fire and sword into all places; that themselves should fall into the hand of these cruel enemies, when one part of them would be massacred, and the rest led captive to Babylon; that only a very small number should escape the common desolation, and be at last restored to their country. All these prophecies had their accomplishment in the appointed time.

(M95) AMASIS. After the death of Apries, Amasis became peaceable possessor of Egypt, and reigned over it forty years. He was, according to Plato, a native of the city of Sais.(498)

As he was but of mean extraction, he met with no respect in the beginning of his reign, but was only contemned by his subjects:(499) he was not insensible of this; but, nevertheless, thought it his interest to subdue their tempers by management and address, and win their affections by gentleness and reason. He had a golden cistern, in which himself and those persons who were admitted to his table, used to wash their feet: he melted it down, and had it cast into a statue, and then exposed the new god to public worship. The people hasted in crowds to pay their adoration to the statue. The king having assembled the people, informed them of the vile uses to which this statue had once been put, which, nevertheless, was now the object of their religious prostrations: the application was easy, and had the desired success; the people thenceforward paid the king all the respect that is due to majesty.

He always used to devote the whole morning to public business, to receive petitions, give audience, pronounce sentence, and hold his councils: the rest of the day was given to pleasure: and as Amasis, in hours of diversion, was extremely gay, and seemed to carry his mirth beyond due bounds, his courtiers took the liberty to represent to him the unsuitableness of such a behaviour; when he answered, that it was as impossible for the mind to be always serious and intent upon business, as for a bow to continue always bent.(500)

It was this king who obliged the inhabitants of every town to enter their names in a book, kept by the magistrate for that purpose, with their profession, and manner of living. Solon inserted this custom among his laws.

He built many magnificent temples, especially at Sais, the place of his birth. Herodotus admired especially a chapel there formed of one single stone, which was twenty-one cubits(501) in front, fourteen in depth, and eight in height; its dimensions within were not quite so large; it had been brought from Elephantina, and two thousand men had employed three years in conveying it along the Nile.

Amasis had a great esteem for the Greeks. He granted them large privileges; and permitted such of them as were desirous of settling in Egypt, to live in the city of Naucratis, so famous for its harbour. When the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt, was debated on, and the expense was computed at three hundred talents,(502) Amasis furnished the Delphians with a very considerable sum towards discharging their quota, which was the fourth part of the whole charge.

He made an alliance with the Cyrenians, and married a wife from among them.

He is the only king of Egypt who conquered the island of Cyprus, and made it tributary.

Under his reign Pythagoras came into Egypt, being recommended to that monarch by the famous Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who had contracted a friendship with Amasis, and will be mentioned hereafter. Pythagoras, during his stay in Egypt, was initiated in all the mysteries of the country; and instructed by the priests in whatever was most abstruse and important in their religion. It was here he imbibed his doctrine of the Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.

In the expedition in which Cyrus conquered so great a part of the world, Egypt doubtless was subdued, like the rest of the provinces; and Xenophon positively declares this in the beginning of his _Cyropædia_, or institution of that prince.(503) Probably, after that the forty years of desolation, which had been foretold by the prophet, were expired, Egypt beginning gradually to regain strength, Amasis shook off the yoke, and recovered his liberty.

Accordingly, we find, that one of the first cares of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, after he had ascended the throne, was to carry his arms into Egypt. On his arrival there, Amasis was just dead, and succeeded by his son Psammenitus.

(M96) PSAMMENITUS. Cambyses, after having gained a battle, pursued the enemy to Memphis; besieged the city, and soon took it: however, he treated the king with clemency, granted him his life, and assigned him an honourable pension; but being informed that he was secretly concerting measures to reascend his throne, he put him to death. Psammenitus reigned but six months: all Egypt submitted immediately to the victor. The particulars of this history will be related more at large, when I come to that of Cambyses.

Here ends the succession of the Egyptian kings. From this æra the history of this nation, as was before observed, will be blended with that of the Persians and Greeks, till the death of Alexander. At that period, a new monarchy will arise in Egypt, founded by Ptolemy the son of Lagus, which will continue to Cleopatra, that is, for about three hundred years. I shall treat each of these subjects, in the several periods to which they belong.