rangers as a sacrilege. Had not the Greeks brought their divinities
with them? Did they not pervert the simple country-folk, so that they
associated the Greek religion with that of their own country? Money
was scarce; Amasis had been obliged to debit the rations and pay of
his mercenaries to the accounts of the most venerated Egyptian
temples--those of Sais, Heliopolis, Bubastis, and Memphis; and each
of these institutions had to rebate so much per cent. on their annual
revenues in favour of the barbarians, and hand over to them considerable
quantities of corn, cattle, poultry, stuffs, woods, perfumes, and
objects of all kinds. The priests were loud in their indignation, the
echo of which still rang in the ears of the faithful some centuries
later, and the lower classes making common cause with their priests, a
spirit of hatred was roused among the populace as bitter as that which
had previously caused the downfall of Apries. As the fear of the army
prevented this feeling from manifesting itself in a revolt, it found
expression in the secret calumnies which were circulated against the
king, and misrepresented the motives of all his actions. Scores of
malicious stories were repeated vilifying his character. It was stated
that before his accession he was much addicted to eating and drinking,
but that, suffering from want of money, he had not hesitated in
procuring what he wished for by all sorts of means, the most honest of
which had been secret theft. When made king, he had several times given
way to intoxication to such an extent as to be incapable of attending to
public business; his ministers were then obliged to relate moral tales
to him to bring him to a state of reason. Many persons having taunted
him with his low extraction, he had caused a statue of a divinity to be
made out of a gold basin in which he was accustomed to wash his feet,
and he had exposed it to the adoration of the faithful. When it had been
worshipped by them for some time, he revealed the origin of the idol,
and added "that it had been with himself as with the foot-pan.... If he
were a private person formerly, yet now he had come to be their king,
and so he bade them honour and reverence him." Towards the middle and
end of his reign he was as much detested as he had been beloved at the
outset.

He had, notwithstanding, so effectively armed Egypt that the Persians
had not ventured to risk a collision with her immediately after their
conquest of Ba