rcophagus was for a long time preserved near the
mosque of Ibn-Tulun, and was credited with peculiar virtues
by the superstitious inhabitants of Cairo.

The basalt torso of Nectanebo II., which attracts so much admiration
in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris for accuracy of proportion and
delicacy of modelling, deserves to rank with the finest statues of the
ancient empire. The men's heads are veritable portraits, in which such
details as a peculiar conformation of the skull, prominent cheekbones,
deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, or the modelling of the chin, have all
been observed and reproduced with a fidelity and keenness of observation
which we fail to find in such works of the earlier artists as have come
down to us. These later sculptors display the same regard for truth in
their treatment of animals, and their dog-headed divinities; their dogs,
lions, and sphinxes will safely bear comparison with the most lifelike
presentments of these creatures to be found among the remains of the
Memphite or Theban eras. Egypt was thus in the full tide of material
prosperity when it again fell under the Persian yoke, and might have
become a source of inexhaustible wealth to Ochus had he known how to
secure acceptance of his rule, as Darius, son of Hystaspes, had done in
the days of Amasis.

[Illustration: 317.jpg ONE OF THE LIONS IN THE VATICAN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Flinders Petrie.

The violence of his temperament, however, impelled him to a course of
pitiless oppression, and his favourite minister, the eunuch Bagoas,
seems to have done his best to stimulate his master's natural cruelty.
In the days when they felt themselves securely protected from his anger
by their Libyan and Greek troops, the fellahin had freely indulged in
lampoons at the expense of their Persian suzerain; they had compared him
to Typhon on account of his barbarity, and had nicknamed him "the Ass,"
this animal being in their eyes a type of everything that is vile.
On his arrival at Memphis, Ochus gave orders that an ass should be
installed in the temple of Phtah, and have divine honours paid to it; he
next had the bull Apis slaughtered and served up at a set banquet which
he gave to his friends on taking possession of the White Wall. The
sacred goat of Mendes suffered the same fate as the Apis, and doubtless
none of the other sacred animals were spared. Bagoas looted the temples
in the most systematic way, despatch