Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/303

 *merce of every kind. Greek factories were built, and Greek merchants settled in Egypt in large numbers, more especially at Naukratis, which became the emporium of Greek trade. In spite of the favour they showed to foreigners neither Psammetichus nor his successors neglected the national religion and the national superstitions. They cared for the temples, and when an Apis died they buried him with lavish and extraordinary magnificence. The long reign of Psammetichus (666-612) was distinguished by one military enterprise, the taking of Azotus, after a prolonged siege of twenty-nine years. And it was during his reign that the devastating hordes of the Scythians from the far north poured over the Assyrian provinces like a countless swarm of locusts, leaving ruin and desolation behind. They approached the confines of Egypt, but Psammetichus succeeded in buying them off; they may have been sated with plunder and spoil, or may not have cared to undertake the hard and weary journey through the waterless Sinai desert. They disappeared from sight suddenly as they had come into sight, but their terrible onslaught and the havoc they