Byblus situated in the isle of Prosopitis,
resolved to defend themselves to the last.

The blockade endured a year and a half, such was the singular
ignorance of the art of sieges in that time. At length, when the
channel was drained, as I have related, the Persians marched across
the dry bed, and carried the place by a land assault. So ended this
wild and romantic expedition. The greater part of the Athenians
perished; a few, however, either forced their way by arms, or, as
Diodorus more probably relates, were permitted by treaty to retire,
out of the Egyptian territory. Taking the route of Libya, they
arrived at Cyrene, and finally reached Athens.

Inarus, the author of the revolt, was betrayed, and perished on the
cross, and the whole of Egypt once more succumbed to the Persian yoke,
save only that portion called the marshy or fenny parts (under the
dominion of a prince named Amyrtaeus), protected by the nature of the
soil and the proverbial valour of the inhabitants. Meanwhile a
squadron of fifty vessels, despatched by Athens to the aid of their
countrymen, entered the Mendesian mouth of the Nile too late to
prevent the taking of Byblus. Here they were surprised and defeated
by the Persian troops and a Phoenician fleet (B. C. 455), and few
survived a slaughter which put the last seal on the disastrous results
of the Egyptian expedition.

At home the Athenians continued, however, their military operations.
Thessaly, like the rest of Greece, had long shaken off the forms of
kingly government, but the spirit of monarchy still survived in a
country where the few were opulent and the multitude enslaved. The
Thessalian republics, united by an assembly of deputies from the
various towns, elected for their head a species of protector--who
appears to have possessed many of the characteristics of the podesta
of the Italian states. His nominal station was that of military
command--a station which, in all save the most perfect constitutions,
comprehends also civil authority. The name of Tagus was given to this
dangerous chief, and his power and attributes so nearly resembled
those of a monarch, that even Thucydides confers on a Tagus the title
of king. Orestes, one of these princes, had been driven from his
country by a civil revolution. He fled to Athens, and besought her
assistance to effect his restoration. That the Athenians should exert
themselves in favour of a man whose rank so nearly resembled the
odiou