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. 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 era, 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 a war
against the king of Assyria, on account of the limits 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
perpetually 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, thought it
high time for him to look to his frontiers, and to secure them against
the Assyrian, his neighbour, whose power increased daily. For this
purpose he entered Palestine at the head of an army.

Perhaps we are to refer to the beginning of this war, an incident
related by Diodorus; that the Egyptians, provoked to see the Greeks
posted on the right wing by the king himself in preference to them,
quitted the service, being upwards of two hundred thousand men, and
retired into Ethiopia, where they met with an advantageous settlement

Be this as it will, Psammetichus entered Palestine, where his career
was stopped by Azotus, one of the principal cities of the country,
which gave him so much trouble, that he was forced to besiege it
twenty nine years before he could take it. This is the longest siege
mentioned in ancient history. Psammetichus died in the 24th year of
the reign of Josiah king of Judah; and was succeeded by his son Nechoa
or Necho--in Scriptures frequently called Pharaoh Necho.

9. _Nechao_ or _Pharaoh-Necho_ reigned sixteen years king of Egypt, (2
Chron. xxxv. 20,) whose expeditions are often mentioned in profane
history

The Babylonians and Medes having destroyed Nineveh, a