Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/350

 334 HISTORY OF GREECE. terms, though the few particulars which he recounts are of a con- trary tenor. It was not till after a reign of twenty-five years, that A pries undertook that expedition against the Greek colonies in Libya, Kyrene and Barca, which proved his ruin. The native Libyan tribes near those cities, having sent to surrender themselves to him, and entreat his aid against the Greek settlers, Apries despatched to them a large force composed of native Egyptians ; who, as has been before mentioned, were stationed on the north-western frontier of Egypt, and were, therefore, most available for the march against Kyrene. The Kyrenean citizens advanced to oppose them, and a battle ensued in which the Egyp- tians were completely routed with severe loss. It is affirmed that they were thrown into disorder from want of practical knowl- edge of Grecian warfare, 1 a remarkable pi'oof of the entire iso- lation of the Grecian mercenaries (who had now been long in the service of Psammetichus and his successors) from the native Egyptian?. This disastrous reverse provoked a mutiny in Egypt against Apries, the soldiers contending that he had despatched them on the enterprise with a deliberate view to their destruction, in order to assure his rule over the remaining Egyptians. The malcon- tents found so much sympathy among the general population, that Amasis, a Sai'tic Egyptian of low birth, but of considerable in- telligence, whom Apries had sent to conciliate them, was either persuaded or constrained to become their leader, and prepared to march immediately against the king at Sai's. Unbounded and reverential submission to the royal authority was a habit so deeply rooted in the Egyptian mind, that Apries could not believe the re- sistance to be serious. He sent an officer of consideration named Patarbemis to bring Amasis before him, and when the former re- turned, bringing back from the rebel nothing better than a con- temptuous refusal to appear except at the head of an army, the exasperated king ordered his nose and ears to be cut off. This act of atrocity caused such indignation among the Egyptians round him, that most of them deserted and joined the revolters, who thus became irresistibly formidable in point of numbers. There yet remained to Apries the foreign mercenaries, thirty 1 Hcrodot. ii,lGl; iv, 159