King Hophra, hearing of her beauty and talent, sent for her to Memphis,
and offered to buy her of Charaxus, but the latter had already long,
though secretly, given Rhodopis her freedom, and loved her far too well
to allow of a separation. She too, loved the handsome Lesbian and refused
to leave him despite the brilliant offers made to her on all sides. At
length Charaxus made this wonderful woman his lawful wife, and continued
to live with her and her little daughter Kleis in Naukratis, until the
Lesbian exiles were recalled to their native land by Pittakus. He then
started homeward with his wife, but fell ill on the journey, and died
soon after his arrival at Mitylene. Sappho, who had derided her brother
for marrying one beneath him, soon became an enthusiastic admirer of the
beautiful widow and rivalled Alcaeus in passionate songs to her praise.

After the death of the poetess, Rhodopis returned, with her little
daughter, to Naukratis, where she was welcomed as a goddess. During this
interval Amasis, the present king of Egypt, had usurped the throne of the
Pharaohs, and was maintaining himself in its possession by help of the
army, to which caste he belonged.

[Amasis, of whom much will be said in our text, reigned 570-526 B.
C. His name, in the hieroglyphic signs, was Aahmes or young moon
but the name by which he was commonly called was Sa-Nit "Son of
Neith." His name, and pictures of him are to be found on stones in
the fortress of Cairo, on a relief in Florence, a statue in the
Vatican, on sarcophagi in Stockholm and London, a statue in the
Villa Albani and on a little temple of red granite at Leyden. A
beautiful bust of gray-wacke in our possession probably represents
the same king.]

As his predecessor Hophra had accelerated his fall, and brought the army
and priesthood to open rebellion by his predilection for the Greek
nation, and for intercourse with foreigners generally, (always an
abomination in the eyes of the Egyptians), men felt confident that Amasis
would return to the old ways, would rigorously exclude foreigners from
the country, dismiss the Greek mercenaries, and instead of taking counsel
from the Greeks, would hearken only to the commands of the priesthood.
But in this, as you must see yourself, the prudent Egyptians had guessed
wide of the mark in their choice of a ruler; they fell from Scylla into
Charybdis. If Hophra was called the Greeks' friend, Amasis must be named