on, instead of treating their challenge with
indifference, accepted it, and engaged in a combat which lasted till
nightfall. On the following day, Lacrates, having drawn off the waters
of the canal and thrown a dyke across it, led his entire force up to the
glacis of the fortifications, dug some trenches, and brought up a
line of battering-rams. He would soon have effected a breach, but the
Egyptians understood how to use the spade as well as the lance, and
while the outer wall was crumbling, they improvised behind it a second
wall, crowned with wooden turrets. Nectanebo, who had come up with
thirty thousand native, five thousand Greek troops, and half the
Libyan contingent, observed the vicissitudes of the siege from a short
distance, and by his presence alone opposed the advance of the bulk
of the Persian army. Weeks passed by, the time of the inundation was
approaching, and it seemed as if this policy of delay would have its
accustomed success, when an unforeseen incident decided in a moment the
fate of Egypt. Among the officers of Ochus was a certain Nicostratus of
Argos, who on account of his prodigious strength was often compared to
Heracles, and who out of vanity dressed himself up in the traditional
costume of that hero, the lion's skin and the club. Having imbibed,
doubtless, the ideas formerly propounded by Iphicrates, Nicostratus
forced some peasants, whose wives and children he had seized as
hostages, to act as his guides, and made his way up one of the canals
which traverse the marshes of Menzaleh: there he disembarked his men in
the rear of Nectanebo, and took up a very strong position on the
border of the cultivated land. This enterprise, undertaken with a very
insufficient force, was an extremely rash one; if the Egyptian generals
had contented themselves with harassing Nicostratus without venturing on
engaging him in a pitched battle, they would speedily have forced him to
re-embark or to lay down his arms. Unfortunately, however, five thousand
mercenaries, who formed the garrison of one of the neighbouring towns,
hastened to attack him under the command of Clinias of Cos, and suffered
a severe defeat. As a result, the gates of the town were thrown open
to the enemy, and if the Persians, encouraged by the success of this
forlorn hope, had followed it up boldly, Nectanebo would have run the
risk of being cut off from his troops which were around Pelusium, and of
being subsequently crushed. He thought it wi