Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/317

 æon that was closing, Greece representing all that was brightest and fairest in the era that was opening. Homer already knew, concerning Egypt, that it was a fertile and a wealthy land—a land especially famed for the skill of its physicians; he tells of its 'god-descended stream,' and of the Isle of Pharos, with the safe anchorage by it afforded to storm-tossed mariners. Nor was he ignorant of Thebes in the far south, and her imperial magnificence—Egyptian Thebes, the 'treasure-house of countless wealth, who boasts her hundred gates—through each of which with horse and car two hundred warriors march.'

To the Egyptians of Homer's time, the Greeks were probably known as roving pirates of the Mediterranean; afterwards, by a natural transition, as mercenary troops—later on, as busy and successful merchants. Greeks, however, visited Egypt on nobler errands than the mere pursuit of wealth. In the reign of Amasis, Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, resided for a while both at the 'city of the Sun,' the most ancient seat of Egyptian learning, and at Sais, the