est to its own frontier.

** This seems to be implied by the terms in which Berosus
speaks of Necho: he considers him as a rebel satrap over the
provinces of Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, and
enumerates Egypt in conjunction with Syria, Phoenicia, and
Arabia among the dependencies of Nabopolassar and
Nebuchadrezzar. Just as the Egyptian state documents never
mentioned the Lotanu or the Kharu without entitling them
_Children of Rebellion_, so the Chaldaean government, the
heir of Assyria, could only look upon the kings of Syria,
Arabia, and Egypt as rebellious vassals.

[Illustration: 330. MAP OF THE EASTERN WORLD IN THE TIME OF
NEBUCHADNEZZAR]

The Pharaoh, however, did not long tolerate this pretension, and far
from looking forward to bend the knee before a Chaldaean monarch, he
believed himself strong enough to reassert his ancestral claims to the
possession of Asia. Egypt had experienced many changes since the day
when Tanuatamanu, returning to Ethiopia, had abandoned her to the
ambition of the petty dynasties of the Delta. One of the romances
current among the people of Sais in the fifth century B.C. related that
at that time the whole land was divided between twelve princes. They
lived peaceably side by side in friendly relations with each other,
until an oracle predicted that the whole valley would finally belong to
that prince among them who should pour a libation to Phtah into a brazen
cup, and thenceforward they jealously watched each other each time they
assembled to officiate in the temple of Memphis. One day, when they had
met together in state, and the high priest presented to them the golden
cups they were wont to use, he found he had mistaken their number, and
had only prepared eleven. Psammetichus was therefore left without one,
and in order not to disarrange the ceremonial he took off his brazen
helmet and used it to make his libation; when the rest perceived this,
the words of the oracle came to their remembrance, and they exiled the
imprudent prince to the marshes along the sea-coast, and forbade him
ever to quit them. He secretly consulted the oracle of Isis of Buto to
know what he might expect from the gods, and she replied that the means
of revenge would reach him from the sea, on the day when brazen soldiers
should issue from its waters. He thought at first that the priests were
mocking him, but shortly afterwards Ionian and Carian pirates,