Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/345

 NEKOS. 329 treated the native soldiers in a manner which showed of how much less account they had become since the " brazen helmeis " had got footing in the land. It had hitherto been the practice to distribute such portions of the military as were on actual service in three different posts : at Daphne, near Pelusium, on the north- eastern frontier, at Marea, on the north-western frontier, near the spot where Alexandria was afterwards built, and at Ele- phantine, on the southern or Ethiopian boundary. Psammeti- chus, having no longer occasion for their services on the eastern frontier, since the formation of the mercenary camp, accumulated them in greater number and detained them for an unusual time at the two other stations, especially at Elephantine. Here, as Herodotus tells us, they remained for three years unrelieved, and Diodorus adds that Psammetichus assigned to those native troops who fought conjointly with the mercenaries, the least honorable post in the line ; until at length discontent impelled them to emi- grate in a body of two hundred and forty thousand men into Ethiopia, leaving their wives and children behind in Egypt, nor could they be induced by any instances on the part of Psam- metichus to return. This memorable incident, 1 which is said to have given rise to a settlement in the southernmost regions of Ethiopia, called by the Greeks the Automoli (though the emigrant soldiers still called themselves by their old Egyptian name), at- ests the effect produced by the introduction of the foreign mer- cenaries in lowering the position of the native military. The number of the emigrants, however, is a point noway to be relied upon: we shall presently see that there were enough of them left behind to renew effectively the struggle for their lost dignity. It was probably with his Ionian and Karian troops that Psam- metichus carried on those warlike operations in Syria which filled so large a proportion of his long and prosperous reign of fifty-four years. 2 He besieged the city of Azotus in Syria for twenty-nine years, until he took it, the longest blockade which the historian had ever heard of: moreover, he was in that coun- try when the destroying Scythian nomads, who had defeated the llerodot. ii, 30 : Diodor. i, 67. 'ATTpitff of fifra ^anfj.riTi.xov Tbv iuvroij Trponuropa iyevert uv irporepoi' (3aaiAeuv (Herodot. ii, 161).