ings, and recalled
to their memory the prediction of the oracle above mentioned. They thought
it therefore necessary to secure themselves from his attempts, and
therefore, with one consent, banished him into the fenny parts of Egypt.

After Psammetichus had passed some years there, waiting a favourable
opportunity to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon
him, a courier brought him advice, that brazen men were landed in Egypt.
These were Grecian soldiers, Carians and Ionians, who had been cast upon
the coasts of Egypt by a storm, and were completely covered with helmets,
cuirasses, and other arms of brass. Psammetichus immediately called to
mind the oracle, which had answered him, that he should be succoured by
brazen men from the sea-coast. He did not doubt but the prediction was now
fulfilled. He therefore made a league with these strangers; engaged them
with great promises to stay with him; privately levied other forces; and
put these Greeks at their head; when giving battle to the eleven kings, he
defeated them, and remained sole possessor of Egypt.

(M88) PSAMMETICHUS. As this prince owed his preservation to the Ionians
and Carians, he settled them in Egypt, (from which all foreigners hitherto
had been excluded;) and, by assigning them sufficient lands and fixed
revenues, he made them forget their native country.(452) By his order,
Egyptian children were put under their care to learn the Greek tongue; and
on this occasion, and by this means, the Egyptians began to have a
correspondence with the Greeks; and from that aera, the Egyptian history,
which, till then, had been intermixed with pompous fables, by the artifice
of the priests, begins, according to Herodotus, to speak with greater
truth and certainty.

As soon as Psammetichus was settled on the throne, he engaged in war
against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two
empires. This war was of long continuance. Ever since Syria had been
conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that
separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of continual discord; as
afterwards it was between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. They were
eternally contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger.
Psammetichus, seeing himself the peaceable possessor of all Egypt, and
having restored the ancient form of government,(453) thought it high time
for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against the Ass