enians
took part in the battle of Papremis; Thucydides and
Herodotus do not speak of their being there, and several
modern historians take this silence as a proof that their
squadron arrived after the battle had been fought.

His good fortune did not yet forsake him. Some days afterwards, the
Athenian squadron of Charitimides came up by chance with the Phoenician
fleet, which was sailing to the help of the Persians, and had not yet
received the news of the disaster which had befallen them at Papremis.
The Greeks sunk thirty of the enemy's vessels and took twenty more, and,
after this success, the allies believed that they had merely to show
themselves to bring about a general rising of the fellahin, and effect
the expulsion of the Persians from the whole of Egypt. They sailed up
the river and forced Memphis after a few days' siege; but the garrison
of the White Wall refused to surrender, and the allies were obliged to
lay siege to it in the ordinary manner (459):* in the issue this proved
their ruin. Artaxerxes raised a fresh force in Cilicia, and while
completing his preparations, attempted to bring about a diversion in
Greece. The strength of Pharaoh did not so much depend on his Libyan and
Egyptian hordes, as on the little body of hoplites and the crews of
the Athenian squadron; and if the withdrawal of the latter could be
effected, the repulse of the others would be a certainty. Persian agents
were therefore employed to beg the Spartans to invade Attica; but the
remembrance of Salamis and Plataea was as yet too fresh to permit of the
Lacedaemonians allying themselves with the common enemy, and their virtue
on this occasion was proof against the darics of the Orientals.** The
Egyptian army was placed in the field early in the year 456, under the
leadership of Megabyzos, the satrap of Syria: it numbered, so it was
said, some 300,000 men, and it was supported by 300 Phoenician vessels
commanded by Artabazos.***

* The date of 459-8 for the arrival of the Athenians is
concluded from the passage of Thucydides, who gives an
account of the end of the war after the cruise of Tolmides
in 455, in the sixth year of its course.

** Megabyzos opened these negotiations, and his presence at
Sparta during the winter of 457-6 is noticed.

*** Ctesias here introduces the Persian admiral Horiscos,
but Diodorus places Artabazos and Megabyzos side by side, as
was the