Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/342

 32G HISTORY OI' 1 GREECE. Bidered, though unintentionally, to have fulfilled the condition of the prophecy, by making libations in a brazen goblet, he became an object of terror to his eleven colleagues, who united to de spoil him of his dignity, and drove him into the inaccessible marshes. In this extremity, he sent to seek counsel from the oracle of Leto at Buto, and received for answer an assurance, that " vengeance would come to him by the hands of brazen men showing themselves from the seaward." His faith was for the moment shaken by so startling a conception as that of brazen men for his allies : but the prophetic veracity of the priest at Buto was speedily shown, when an astonished attendant came to acquaint him, in his lurking-place, that brazen men were ravaging the sea-coast of the delta. It was a body of Ionian and Karian soldiers, who had landed for pillage, and the messenger who came to inform Psammetichus had never before seen men in an entire suit of brazen armor. That prince, satisfied that these were the pjlies whom the oracle had marked out for him, immediately entered into negotiation with the lonians and Karians, enlisted them in his service, and by their aid in conjunction with his other partisans overpowered the other eleven kings, thus making himself the one ruler of Egypt. 1 Such was the tale by which the original alliance of an Egyp- tian king with Grecian mercenaries, and the first introduction of Greeks into Egypt, was accounted for and dignified. What fol- lowed is more authentic and more important. Psammetichus provided a settlement and lands for his new allies, on the Pelu- siac or eastern branch of the Nile, a little below Bubastis. The lonians were planted on one side of the river, the Karians on 1 Herodot. ii, 149-152. This narrative of Herodotus, however little satis- factory in an historical point of view, bears evident marks of being the genuine tale which he heard from the priests of Hephsestos. Diodorus gives an account more historically plausible, but he could not well have had any positive authorities for that period, and he gives us seemingly the ideas of Greek authors of the days of the Ptolemies. Psammetichus (he tells us), as one of the twelve kings, ruled at Sa'is and in the neighboring part of the delta: he opened a trade, previously unknown in Egypt, with Greeks nnd Phenicians, so profitable that his eleven colleagues became jealous of his riches and combined to attack him. He raised an army of foreign merce- naries and defeated them (Diodor. i, 66-67). Polyosnus gives a different itory about Psfimmctichus and the Karian mercenaries lvi 3).