e Ammonite of the chamber in the
temple which he had formerly prepared for him, and things were
almost imperceptibly drifting back into the same state as before the
reformation, when Nehemiah returned from Susa towards the close of the
reign of Artaxerxes. He lost no time in re-establishing respect for the
law, and from henceforward opposition, if it did not entirely die out,
ceased to manifest itself in Jerusalem.**

* Neh. viii., ix., with an interpolation in ver. 9 of chap,
viii., inserted in order to identify Nehemiah with the
representative of the Persian government.

** Neh. xiii.

Elsewhere, however, among the Samaritans, Indumaeans, and Philistines, it
continued as keen as ever, and the Jews themselves were imprudent enough
to take part in the political revolutions that were happening around
them in their corner of the empire. Their traditions tell how they
were mixed up in the rising of the Phoenician cities against Ochus, and
suffered the penalty; when Sidon capitulated, they were punished with
the other rebels, the more recalcitrant among them being deported into
Hyrcania.

Assyria was nothing more than a name, Babylon and Phoenicia were growing
weaker every day; the Jews, absorbed in questions of religious ethics,
were deficient in material power, and had not as yet attained sufficient
moral authority to exercise an influence over the eastern world: the
Egypt indestructible had alone escaped the general shipwreck, and
seemed fated to survive her rivals for a long time. Of all these ancient
nations it was she who appealed most strongly to the imagination of the
Greeks: Greek traders, mercenaries, scholars, and even tourists wandered
freely within her borders, and accounts of the strange and marvellous
things to be found there were published far and wide in the writings
of Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and Hellanicus of
Lesbos. As a rule, they entered the country from the west, as European
tourists and merchants still do; but Eakotis, the first port at which
they touched, was a mere village, and its rocky Pharos had no claim to
distinction beyond the fact that it had been mentioned by Homer.
From hence they followed the channel of the Canopic arm, and as
they gradually ascended, they had pointed out to them Anthylla,
Arkandrupolis, and Gyna> copolis, townships dependent on Naucratis,
lying along the banks, or situated some distance off on one of the minor
canals; th