to copy all sorts of handiwork procured from the valley of the Nile. This is proved not only by the excavations in Greece, but by the results of Sir Henry Layard's investigations at Nimrud, where many Phoenician bowls of Egyptizing style were found in the north-west palace, as well as by the results of M. Renan's mission to Phoenicia.

the French savants, who accompanied to Egypt the army of Bonaparte, went with an eager expectation that they would find in the land of the Pyramids the source alike of the religions and of the civilization of antiquity. They hoped to find the origin not only of the laws of Solon, but also of those of Moses, and to prove that the earliest civilization in the world was also one of the wisest and most fruitful. What kind of an influence it was which, It is hardly necessary to say that the read-after the building of Naucratis, Egyptian ing of the hieroglyphic texts, combined civilization exercised upon Greek beliefs with the progress of the historical sci- and laws and arts, we shall presently conences, has put an end to all such sanguine sider; for the present we will resume the anticipations. We now know that, high thread of Egyptian history, which exhibits as was the development of Egyptian civil- the other phase of the connection, the inization in certain directions, it was by no fluence of Greek character and valor on means the fertile mother of other civiliza- the political fortunes of the valley of the tions; rather, like that of China, a com- Nile. plete and fully developed growth, but not in the main line of human progress. All modern writers are agreed, that religious cults and national customs are exactly what the Greeks did not borrow from Egypt, any more than the Hebrews borrowed thence their religion or the Phoeni- the only reason for passing them by in cians their commerce. All are agreed that, before the reign of Psammitichus and the founding of Naucratis, Egypt was a sealed book to the Greeks.

Excavations such as those carried on in Greece, at Mycena and Menidi, fully confirm this opinion. At these places, amid the remains of prehistoric Greece, there has been found nothing to point to any useful intercourse between Egypt and Greece. A few objects have indeed been discovered, which, if not the work of Egyptian handicraftsmen, bear traces of their teaching; but archæologists, almost with one accord, agree to regard their presence on Greek sites as due to the commercial and manufacturing industry of the Phoenicians, and to consider the people of Tyre and Sidon as the sole mediators between the manufactories of Egypt and the shores of Greece in prehistoric times. It is likely that the Phoenicians, who were from time to time the subjects of the Pharaohs, were admitted, where aliens like the Greeks were excluded. We have indeed positive evidence that the Egyptians did not wish strange countries to learn their art, for in a treaty between them and the Hittites it is stipulated that neither country shall harbor fugitive artists from the other. But however the fact may be accounted for, it is an undoubted fact, that long before Psammitichus threw Egypt open to the foreigner, the Phoenicians had studied in the school of Egyptian art, and learned

Psammitichus made his birthplace, Sais, the capital of Egypt. All the country had greatly suffered in the wars with the fierce and brutal Assyrians, and the ancient capitals Memphis and Thebes were greatly reduced; but this was not

favor of a site in the Delta. The fatal step of calling in armed strangers compelled Psammitichus, after becoming king, still to lean on their support. He attracted to Egypt large bodies of Carian and Ionian mercenaries, and settled them at Daphnæ, on the Pelusian branch of the Nile, a spot well chosen as an outpost against possible invasion from Asia. Here the new-comers occupied fortified camps on both sides of the river. Herodotus says that the king entrusted to them certain Egyptian children to bring up, and that these became the parents of the entire caste of interpreters, who in the next age became the go-betweens between Greek and Egyptian. If the mercenaries came, as was probable, without wife or child, it is likely that Egyptian women were assigned to them, and that a large number of halfbreeds arose, of whom a separate caste would naturally be formed by the exclusive and stranger-hating dwellers by the Nile; indeed, we are inclined to interpret in this way the statement of Herodotus. Within the last few months Mr. Petrie has investigated Daphnæ, and found the site of the Greek camps, where weapons and horsegear may still be found underground, together with a quantity of fragmentary early Greek pottery, in the neighborhood of a palace proved by a cartouche found under the foundations to have been erected by Psammitichus.

As a patient in a dying state is sometimes revived by the infusion of the blood

of one in vigorous health, so Egypt seems | fleet of his ships, we are told, succeeded at once to have recovered some prosperity in sailing round Africa, a very great feat under the new ruler with his new allies. for the age. The king even attempted Temples of the gods arose, or were re- the task, of which the completion was restored, on all sides, as we learn from many served for the Persian Darius, the Ptolea dedicatory inscription still preserved. mies, and Trajan, of making a canal from And it is interesting to find in the art of the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Hethe Saïte kings a marked new impulse. At rodotus says that, after sacrificing the this period, writes Wiedemann, in sculp- lives of one hundred and twenty thousand tured figures, “the proportions of the body men to the labor and heat of the task, he grow slimmer and more shapely, the mus- gave it up, in consequence of the warning cles are worked out with greater natural- of an oracle that he was toiling only for ism. The features of the face, even the the barbarians. It is an easy task with hair, shows a treatment careful in the Wiedemann to suggest reasons for its smallest detail, and in the modelling of the abandonment of a more political and ear and nose especially we may discern the statesmanlike character, such as a wish industry and talent of the artists." And to stop the waste of human life, or a fear the new impulse was not less visible in which in such cases has at all periods of arms than in art. After securing Egypt history terrined engineers, that the levels from invasion, by fixing strong garrisons of the two seas might prove quite differon its eastern, western, and southern bor-ent, and that the waters might make a ders, Psammitichus marched with his native army and his Greek allies into Syria. Ashdod was taken after a long siege, and inscriptions found at Aradus and Tyre prove that all Palestine fell at this time into the hands of the Pharaohs. But a still more powerful invader came from the north; the dreaded and destructive host of the Scythians poured down into Syria, burning and slaying like the Mongol hordes of later times. Psammitichus was fain to retire; he is said to have bought his safety with money, and perhaps, but for his castle of Daphne, the plague of human locusts might have followed him to the banks of the Nile.

According to Herodotus and Diodorus, the favor shown to the Greeks by the king was the cause of a great revolt of the native Egyptian troops, who left the frontier fortresses, and marched south beyond Elephantine, where they settled, resisting all the entreaties of Psammitichus, who naturally deplored the loss of the mainstay of his dominions, and developed into the race of the Sebridæ. Wiedemann, however, rejects the whole story as unhistorical, and certainly, if we closely consider it, it contains great inherent improbabilities. Even among a people naturally so unwarlike as the Egyptians, a great revolt of troops, and the march of an armed force from end to end of Egypt, could scarcely take place without some fighting. Psammitichus died in B. C. 610, and was succeeded by his son Necho, who was his equal in enterprise and vigor. This king paid great attention to the fleet of Egypt, and Greek shipwrights were set to work on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas to build triremes for the State navy. A

breach over the land. But, after all, we have no reason for assuming that a Pharaoh would always act from motives which we would approve, and the simplest plan is to take the story as it stands, perhaps with a grain of salt.

Necho, like his father, must needs try the edge of his new weapon, the Ionian mercenaries, on Asia. At first he was successful. Josiah, king of Judah, came out against him, but was slain, and his army dispersed. Greek valor carried Necho as far as the Euphrates, and in gratitude the king dedicated to Apollo in the temple of the Branchide at Miletus the linen cuirass which he wore. But Nebuchadnezzar, son of the king of Babylon, marched against the invaders, and defeated them in a great battle near Carchemish. His father's death recalled him to Babylon, and Egypt was for the mo ment saved from counter-invasion by the stubborn resistance offered to the Babylo nian arms by Jehoiakim, king of Judah, a resistance fatal to the Jewish race; for Jerusalem was captured after a long siege, and most of the inhabitants carried into captivity.

Of Psammitichus II., who succeeded Necho, we should know but little were it not for the archæological record. Herodotus only says that he attacked Ethiopia, and died after a reign of six years. But of the expedition thus summarily recorded we have a lasting and memorable result in the well-known inscriptions written by Rhodians and other Greek mercenaries on the legs of the Colossi at Abu Simbel in Nubia, which record how certain of them came thither in the reign of Psammitichus, pushing up the river in boats as far

not feel, in the presence of facts like these, that our grasp of many scenes of ancient history is becoming stronger, and our outlook clearer.

as it was navigable, that is perhaps, up to | pavement on which, according to the the second cataract. The importance of prophet, Nebuchadnezzar should set up these inscriptions to the history of Greek his tent. There are few people who do epigraphy is well known; but their testimony had hitherto lost much of its force, because it could not be finally determined whether they belonged to the reign of the first or the second Psammitichus. Of late most scholars have agreed with Wiedemann in assigning them to the later monarch; and the excavations at Naucratis seem to prove definitely that this view is right. Mr. Ernest Gardner, who publishes with care and accuracy the numerous Greek inscriptions found at Naucratis, proves that many of them are of considerably earlier date than the inscriptions of Abu Simbel. As the earliest Naucratic inscriptions, however, cannot date from an earlier time than the reign of the first Psammitichus, when Naucratis was founded, it is certain that the Abu Simbel inscriptions must belong to the reign of the second king of that name.

The fall of Apries was brought about by his ingratitude to the Greeks, and his contempt for the lives of his own subjects. He had formed the project of bringing under his sway the Greek cities of the Cyrenaica, at that time in a most wealthy and flourishing condition, prospering under the rule of the Battiad princes, and drawing within the circle of Hellenic commerce all the nomadic nations of northern Africa. Apries despatched against Cyrene a large force; but the Cyreneans bravely defended themselves, and as the Egyptians on this occasion marched without their Greek allies, they were entirely defeated, and most of them perished by the sword, or in the deserts which separate Cyrene from Egypt. The defeated troops, and their countrymen who remained behind in garrison in Egypt, imputed the disaster to treachery on the part of Apries, believing that he would willingly reduce the number of his Egyptian warriors in his partiality for their Greek allies. They revolted, and chose as their leader Amasis, a man of experience and daring. But Apries, though deserted by his subjects, hoped still to maintain his throne by Greek aid. At the head of thirty thousand Ionians and Carians he marched against Amasis. At Momemphis a battle took place between the rival kings and the rival nations; but the numbers of the Egyptians prevailed over the arms and discipline of the mercenaries, and Apries was defeated and captured by his rival, who, however, allowed him for some years to retain the name of joint king.

Apries, the Hophra of the Bible, was the next king. The early part of his reign was marked by successful warfare against the Phoenicians and the peoples of Syria; but, like his predecessor, he was unable to maintain a footing in Asia in the face of the powerful and warlike Nebuchadnezzar. The hostility which prevailed be tween Egypt and Babylon at this time, caused King Apries to open a refuge for those Jews who fled from the persecution of Nebuchadnezzar. He assigned to their leaders, among whom were the daughters of the king of Judah, a palace of his own at Daphne, Pharaoh's house at Tahpanhes, as it is called by Jeremiah. That prophet was among the fugitives, and uttered in the palace a notable prophecy (xliii. 9) that King Nebuchadnezzar should come and spread his conquering tent over its pavement. Formerly it was supposed that this prophecy remained unfulfilled, but this opinion has to be abandoned. Recently It is the best possible proof of the soliddiscovered Egyptian and Babylonian in-ity of Greek influence in Egypt at this scriptions prove that Nebuchadnezzar time that Amasis, though set on the throne conquered Egypt as far as Syene, at which by the native army after a victory over point a certain general, named Hor, claims to have stopped his advance. Mr. Petrie, while investigating the site of Daphne, has found fresh evidence to the same effect. He has discovered the ruins of a royal palace built by Psammitichus I., which to this day, most curiously, bears the title of "the house of the Jew's daughter;" ruins which by their condition prove that the palace was destroyed by a hostile invader, in all likelihood by the Babylonian monarch. He has even found the square

the Greek mercenaries, yet did not expel these latter from Egypt, but, on the contrary, raised them to higher favor than before. The troops which had been settled at Daphne in the camps, he brought to Memphis to be his body-guard. Herodotus says that it was Amasis who gave Naucratis to the Greeks to settle in; this is incorrect, since the inscriptions found at Naucratis prove beyond a doubt that the city was in the possession of Greeks before the time of Psammiti

chus II.; but it may well be that Amasis accorded to the city special privileges, and laid the foundation of its great prosperity. Mr. Petrie's careful investigations enable us to conjecture what it was that Naucratis owed to the favor of Amasis, the building of the Hellenion, of which we shall presently have to speak.

bound to make new theories in such a case; but the tale of Herodotus will outlive them all, and afford a starting-point for fresh theories a thousand years hence. The alliance of Amasis and Croesus must in any case be taken as a historical fact, for there were Egyptian troops, perhaps we should rather say a body of Egypto-Greek mercenaries, in the Lydian army when Cyrus defeated it; the Persian king especially noticed their valor, and gave them lands for settlement in Asia Minor, where their descendants dwelt in later times.

Amasis entered more fully than his predecessors into the stream of the history of the Levant. He conquered Cyprus and the cities of Phoenicia, and he won victories over the Arabs. He won by wisdom what Apries had vainly sought by In the days of Psammitichus III., the arms, a predominant influence in Cyrene; son of Amasis, the storm which had overand a fair daughter of that city became shadowed Asia broke upon Egypt. One his queen. He gave fresh impulse to the of the leaders of the Greek mercenaries cutting of canals and the extension of agri- in Egypt, named Phanes, a native of Haliculture, and we are told that in his day carnassus, made his way to the Persian there were in Egypt twenty thousand flour-court, and persuaded Cambyses, who, acishing cities, a statement which seems to be an exaggeration. To him was ascribed the promulgation of the law, that every year each dweller in Egypt should report to the ruler of the district where he lived by what means he made a living, those who could make no satisfactory statement being condemned to death. Perhaps this is the earliest of recorded poor-laws, and it is certainly the most drastic; whether there was any relation between it and the flourishing condition of the country, we cannot venture to say.

cording to the story, had received from Amasis one of those affronts which have so often produced wars between despots, to invade Egypt in full force. In a battle fought at Pelusium about B. C. 525, the Egyptians and their Greek allies were utterly defeated by the Persian king, and this one victory laid Egypt at his feet. As the Persian conquest is the beginning of quite a new era in Egyptian history, and as it closes the time of the greatest prosperity of Naucratis, we will at this point interrupt our sketch of Egyptian history, in order to trace the fortunes of that city during the reigns of the Philhellenic monarchs of the Saïte line.

On the subject of the position of Naucratis there is distinct and irreconcilable contradiction between Ptolemy and the map of Peutinger on one side and Strabo on the other. The two former authorities place the city to the left (looking down the stream) of the Canobic branch of the Nile, that is to say, outside the Delta enclosed by the Canobic and Pelusiac branches; while Strabo as clearly places the city within the Delta and on the right of the Canobic branch. Most modern writers had followed Strabo; but certainty would never have been attained, but for the spade. That useful instrument has settled the controversy.

In the delightful dawn of connected European history we see Amasis as a wise and wealthy prince, ruling in Egypt at the time when Polycrates was tyrant of Samos, and Croesus of Lydia, the richest king of his time, was beginning to be alarmed by the rapid expansion of the Persian power under Cyrus. We hear of Pythagoras visiting him and obtaining letters from him to the priests of Egypt, which induced them to communicate to that earliest of mystics some of their choicest secrets. Thales was also a welcome guest at the court of Amasis. We need not repeat the story, familiar in these days to children, of the friendship between Amasis and Polycrates, and how Amasis broke off that friendship because he was convinced that some calamity impended over Polycrates. Wiedemann's version is that Amasis was afraid that he might be It was by the merest accident [writes Mr. landed in difficulties, supposing that Po-Petrie] that I got the clue to the site of lycrates should quarrel with his subjects; but we must confess that the German professor's explanation seems to us uncomfortably modern, while the story of the ring of Polycrates suits admirably the whole mental and religious atmosphere of Greek antiquity. Critical historians are

Naukratis. An Arab at the Pyramids sold me an archaic Greek statuette, and, crossquestioning him, I heard of the place from which he had brought it. I visited the site as soon as I could, and found that the ground which the Arabs had cleared was strewn with

• Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885, p. 15.

pieces of early Greek pottery. When I went ing, he has his fact. The site of Nauthere to begin work this past season [1884-5] cratis is now on a canal, and must have I saw at the very house, where I obtained been so originally, unless the course of quarters, a decree of the city of Naukratis the Nile has changed, which is scarcely which had been found in the ruins; and it only unlikely.

needed the results of our excavations to turn a hopeful probability into a certainty.

The site thus identified is at present on a canal to the west of the westernmost branch of the Nile; thus, by the logic of facts, Ptolemy is proved to be right and Strabo wrong.

On another point the correction of classical authorities is rather less conclusive. At present the site of Naucratis is on a canal which joins the Nile some miles off, while in many statements of ancient writers it seems to be implied that the city stood on the river itself. Mr. Petrie is at no loss for reasons why a canal would be a more satisfactory channel of communication with the outer world than a river.

By a close attention to the stratification of the remains of Naucratis, Mr. Petrie has recovered for us the outlines of the history of the city. The lowest stratum of all is a bed of charcoal and ashes, which seems to be the result of a conflagration of a cluster of poor houses built in large part of wood. This village may have been the earliest settlement of the Greeks; but it seems to us equally probable that it may have been a native Egyptian village, or perhaps a settlement of Phoenicians, conquered and destroyed by the Milesians when they came to make a settlement in the land. The next stage of the history of Naucratis, corresponding almost to a certainty with the reign of Psammitichus I., has left us more distinct and solid memorials. Among these memorials must

If Naukratis had been on an open branch of the river, it would have been almost unap-first be mentioned a large quantity of proachable during the three months of the

inundation. And then these three months

were the most valuable of all for trade; since then the natives had nothing to do, the whole land being under water, and at the same time they had all the proceeds of the harvest lying by in hand. This was then the great time for the Greek traders; and when the villages stood out of the water like the islands of the Ægean, as Herodotus describes them, the Greek pedlars were doubtless pushing their fortunes actively in shallow boats, sailing from village to village.

Perhaps this argument, that a city on the Nile itself could not be approached during the inundation, must not be too much relied on, since almost all the cities of Egypt did stand on the Nile. And when Mr. Petrie goes on to cite Herodotus as a witness in favor of the position of Naucratis on a canal, he seems to us to misquote Herodotus. He writes, "Herodotus expressly says that, when the Nile was in flood, they sailed up from Naukratis to Memphis by the canal which flowed past the Pyramids, owing to the stream of the river being too strong against them." But what Herodotus really says (ii. 97) is quite different. "At this season [of inundation] boats no longer keep the course of the river, but sail right across the plain. On the voyage from Naucratis to Memphis at this season, you pass close to the Pyramids, whereas the usual course is by the apex of the Delta." But though we cannot agree with Mr. Petrie's reason

scarabs and moulds for scarabs, evidently the stock in trade of a maker of seals and amulets. Of these many bear the name of Psammitichus I., some of those of Psammitichus II., and apparently of Apries. Here the series comes to an abrupt conclusion, and it would seem from the extent of the stock suddenly thrown away or buried, that the cessation of the factory must have been caused by some event which greatly disturbed the trade of Naucratis, perhaps, as Mr Petrie suggests, the defeat of Apries's Greek mercenaries. We may observe in passing, that scarabs imitated from those of Egypt, and like those produced in the factory just mentioned, have been found in Rhodes, and on other Greek sites. They have always hitherto been supposed to be of Phoenician work, but in future archæologists will be more inclined to regard them as imported from Naucratis.

To the same period as the factory of scarabs belongs the foundation of the earliest Greek temples of Naucratis. Of these several are mentioned in a wellknown passage of Herodotus (ii. 178), who says that, besides the Hellenion, which belonged to the Greeks in common, the Æginetans founded a temple of Zeus, the Samians one of Hera, and the Milesians one of Apollo. An early temple of Aphrodite is also spoken of by Athenæus (xv. 18). Of these temples the Hellenion and the temple of Apollo were found by Mr. Petrie in 1885; the temples of Hera and • Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885, p. 21. | Aphrodite have been discovered during