Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/189

 io8-iio] END OF THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION 73 the son of Tolmaeus, sailed round Peloponnesus and B.C. 455. burnt the Lacedaemonian dockyard ». They also took the ° ^ ^' Corinthian town of Chalcis, and, making a descent upon Sicyon, defeated a Sicyonian force. The Athenians and their allies were still in Egypt, 109 where they carried on the war with ^r, • /r. / •^ AJter an uieffectiial varying fortune. At first they were oitmipt to obtain assist- masters of the country. The King ""^e/roinLacedaenwn, sent to Lacedaemon Megabazus a /,'„//,'!'"" / •'"■■/ " o length sticcecds m driv- Persian, who was well supplied with ing the Athenians out money, in the hope that he might per- 0/ Mempius. suade the Peloponnesians to invade Attica, and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt. He had no success; the money was being spent and nothing done ; so, with what remained of it, he found his way back to Asia. The King then sent into Egypt Megabyzus the son of Zopyrus, a Persian, who marched overland with a large army and defeated the Egyptians and their allies. He drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and finally shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he blockaded them for eighteen months. At length he drained the canal and diverted the water, thus leaving their ships high and dry and joining nearly the whole island to the mainland. He then crossed over with a land force, and took the island. Thus, after six years' fighting, the cause of the Hellenes no in Egypt was lost. A few survivors ,,, ^, , , r °-' ^ Nearly the whole of of their great army found their way the expedition to Egypt, through Libya to Cyrene ; by far the including a rcinforce- 1 1 • 1 J 17 i. • ^nent of fiflv tiirones, larger number perished. Lgypt agani •.^. / ,/ became subject to the Persians, al- though Amyrtaeus, the king in the fens, still held out. He escaped capture owing to the extent of the fens and the bravery of their inhabitants, who are the most warlike of all the Egyptians. Inaros, the king of Libya, the chief author of the revolt, was betrayed and impaled. Fifty additional triremes, which had been sent by the Athenians " i. e. Gythium.