Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/343

 OPENING OF THE NILE. NAUKBATIS 327 the other ; and the place was made to serve as a military position, not only for the defence of the eastern border, but also for the support of the king himself against malcontents at home : it was called the Stratopeda, or the Camps. 1 He took pains, moreover, to facilitate the intercourse between them and the neighboring in- habitants, by causing a number of Egyptian children to be domi- ciled with them, in order to learn the Greek language ; and hence sprung the interpreters ; who, in the time of Herodotus, consti- tuted a permanent hereditary caste or breed. Though the chief purpose of this first foreign settlement in Egypt, between Pelusium and Bubastis, was to create an inde- pendent military force, and with it a fleet for the king, yet it was of course an opening both for communication and traffic to all Greeks and to all Phenicians, such as had never be 'ore been available. And it was speedily followed by the throwi.)^ open of the Kanopic or westernmost branch of the river for the purposes of trade specially. According to a statement of Strabo, it was in the reign of Psammetichus that the Milesians with a fleet of thirty ships made a descent on that part of the coast, first built a fort in the immediate neighborhood, and then presently founded the town of Naukratis, on the right bank of the Kanopic Nile. There is much that is perplexing in this affirmation of Strabo ; but on the whole I am inclined to think that the establishment of the Greek factories and merchants at Naukratis may be consid- ered as dating in the reign of Psammetichus, 2 Naukratis being 1 Herodot. ii, 154. 8 Strabo, xvii, p. 801. nal TO hliAjjaiuv ret^of K?.EvaavTe<; -/up eirl ^ra/j.- ftTjTtxov rpiuKOVTO, vavalv MiA^crtoi Karit Kvafup?; (OVTOC 6e ruv 'M.fjduv) KuTEff^ov elf rd aro/na rd BoX/3mi>ov fZr' enfidvTes erei^iaav rb /.et?i> Krlofia xpovu 6" ar ov 7ro/U) TJ?f 2^fdi'af ' What is meant by the allusion to Kyaxares, or to Inarus, in this passage, I do not understand. We know nothing of any relations either between Kyaxares and Psammetichus, or between Kyaxares and the Milesians . moreover, if by Kara Kva^upij be meant in the time of Kyaxarcs, as the trans- lators render it, we have in immediate succession lirl tapfafrijcw, HUTU Kuafdp-7, with the same meaning, which is, to say the leas; of it, a very awkward sentence. The words ovrof 6i TUV M^Jwv Iocs not nnlike a tomment added l>v some early reader of Strabo, who could not understand