ress of Memphis;
the exhaustion of Libya had pre-vented any movement on the part of
Thannyras; the aged Amyrtaeus had passed from the scene, and his son,
Pausiris, bent his neck submissively to the Persian yoke. More than
once, however, unexpected outbursts had shown that the fires of
rebellion were still smouldering. A Psammetichus, who reigned about 445
B.C. in a corner of the Delta, had dared to send corn and presents to
the Athenians, then at war with Artaxerxes I., and the second year of
Darius II. had been troubled by a sanguinary sedition, which, however,
was easily suppressed by the governor then in power; finally, about
410 B.C., a king of Egypt had, not without some show of evidence,
laid himself open to the charge of sending a piratical expedition into
Phoenician waters, an Arab king having contributed to the enterprise.*

* The revolt mentioned by Ctesias has nothing to do with the
insurrection of the satrap of Egypt which is here referred
to, the date of which is furnished by the Syncellus.

It was easy to see, moreover, from periodical revolts--such as that of
Megabyzos in Syria, those of Artyphios and Arsites, of Pissuthnes and
Amorges in Asia Minor--with what impunity the wrath of the great king
could be defied: it was not to be wondered at, therefore, that, about
405 B.C., an enemy should appear in the heart of the Delta in the person
of a grandson and namesake of Amyrtaeus. He did not at first rouse the
whole country to revolt, for Egyptian troops were still numbered in the
army of Artaxerxes at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C.; but he succeeded
in establishing a regular native government, and struggled so resolutely
against the foreign domination that the historians of the sacred
colleges inscribed his name on the list of the Pharaohs. He is there
made to represent a whole dynasty, the XXVIIIth which lasted six years,
coincident with the six years of his reign. It was due to a Mendesian
dynasty, however, whose founder was Nephorites, that Egypt obtained its
entire freedom, and was raised once more to the rank of a nation. This
dynasty from the very outset adopted the policy which had proved so
successful in the case of the Saites three centuries previously, and
employed it with similar success. Egypt had always been in the position
of a besieged fortress, which needed, for its complete security, that
its first lines of defence should be well in advance of its citadel: she
must either p