ully. The reorganisation of the native
army furnished them at once with the means of insurrection, of which
they had temporarily been deprived. Although Pharaoh had lavished
privileges on the Hermotybies and Calasiries, she had not removed the
causes for discontent which had little by little alienated the good will
of the Mashauasha: to do so would have rendered necessary the disbanding
of the Ionian guard, the object of their jealousy, and to take this step
neither he nor his successors could submit themselves. The hatred
of these mercenaries, and the irritation against the sovereigns who
employed them, grew fiercer from reign to reign, and now wanted nothing
but a pretext to break forth openly: such a pretext was furnished by the
defeat at Irasa. When the fugitives arrived at the entrenched camp of
Marea, exasperated by their defeat, and alleging doubtless that it was
due to treachery, they found others who affected to share their belief
that Pharaoh had despatched his Egyptian troops against Cyrene with
the view of consigning to certain death those whose loyalty to him was
suspected, and it was not difficult to stir up the disaffected soldiers
to open revolt. It was not the first time that a military tumult had
threatened the sovereignty of Apries. Some time previous to this, in
an opposite quarter of the Nile valley, the troops stationed at
Elephantine, composed partly of Egyptians, partly of Asiatic and Greek
mercenaries--possibly the same who had fought in the Ethiopian campaign
under Psammetichus II.--had risen in rebellion owing to some neglect
in the payment of their wages: having devastated the Thebaid, they had
marched straight across the desert to the port of Shashirit, in the hope
of there seizing ships to enable them to reach the havens of Idumaea
or Nabatoa. The governor of Elephantine, Nsihor, had at first held them
back with specious promises; but on learning that Apries was approaching
with reinforcements, he attacked them boldly, and driving them before
him, hemmed them in between his own force and that of the king and
massacred them all. Apries thought that the revolt at Marea would have a
similar issue, and that he might succeed in baffling the rebels by
fair words; he sent to them as his representative Amasis, one of his
generals, distantly connected probably with the royal house. What took
place in the camp is not clearly known, for the actual events have been
transformed in the course of popular tr