to exist, after more than twenty
centuries of glorious life, and was replaced by the Little Egypt of the
first ages of history. The defeat of the military chiefs of the north,
the annexation of the principality of Amon, and the final expulsion of
the Ethiopians and the Asiatics had occupied scarcely nine years, but
these feats constituted only the smaller part of the work Psammetichus
had to accomplish: his subsequent task lay in restoring prosperity to
his kingdom, or, at all events, in raising it from the state of misery
into which two centuries of civil wars and invasions had plunged it. The
important cities had suffered grievously: Memphis had been besieged and
taken by assault by both Pionkhi and Esar-haddon, Thebes had been twice
sacked by the veterans of Assur-bani-pal, and from Syene to Pelusium
there was not a township but had suffered at the hands of foreigners
or of the Egyptians themselves. The country had enjoyed a moment's
breathing-space under Sabaco, but the little good which this prince had
been able to accomplish was effaced immediately after his death: the
canals and dykes had been neglected, the supervision of the police
relaxed, and the population, periodically decimated or driven to take
refuge in the strongholds, had often allowed the lands to lie waste, so
that famine had been superadded to the other evils under which the land
already groaned. Psammetichus, having forced the feudal lords to submit
to his supremacy, deprived them of the royal titles they had unduly
assumed; he no longer tolerated their habits of private warfare, but
restricted them to the functions of hereditary governors, which their
ancestors had exercised under the conquering dynasties of former times,*
and this enforced peace soon allowed the rural population to devote
themselves joyfully to their regular occupations.

* During the last few years records of a certain number of
persons have been discovered whose names and condition prove
that they were the descendants of semi-independent princes
of the Ethiopian and Bubastite periods: e.g. a certain
Akaneshu, who was prince of Sebennytos under Psammetichus
I., and who very probably was the grandson of Akaneshu,
prince of the same town under Pionkhi; and a Sheshonq of
Busiris, who was perhaps a descendant of Sheshonq, prince of
Busiris under Pionkhi.

With so fertile a soil, two or three years of security, during which
the fellahin