The Historians' History of the World 01 [Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]

The new state, in which, after some two hundred years of anarchy, the kingdom of the Pharaohs was again established, was only partly national. The dynasty was, as the name teaches, not of Egyptian origin, but in all probability Libyan. The troops which the princes of Saïs could raise were doubtless for the greater part Libyans, and the particular characteristic was due to the mercenaries who had come across the sea. In future days the Ionians and Carians who were colonised in the “camps” between Bubastis and Pelusium, on that most dangerous east border of the land, were the chief support of the throne; under Uah-ab-Ra [Apries] their number increased to thirty thousand men.

[612-596 B.C.]

Thus from the beginning the kings of the restoration, like the Ptolemies, held a much freer position, which raised them far above their predecessors. They, manifestly with intention, held Saïs as residence, although Memphis was honoured as the oldest capital, and structures were built on the ruins of ancient Thebes. With full knowledge they carried on a considerable commerce. Psamthek’s son, Neku II (612-596), began to build a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea; he sent out a Phœnician fleet to circumnavigate Africa, which returned to the Mediterranean three years after its departure from Suez. A fleet was maintained on the Arabian as well as in the Mediterranean Sea.

With the Greeks, who in earlier times came to Egypt only as pirates or were driven there by storm, but now sought to draw all the coasts of the Mediterranean into their commerce, active negotiations were taken up. From trading with them arose the numerous caste of the interpreters. Neku II sends oblations to Brandichæ; to his son, Psamthek II, there came an embassy from Elis; the Egyptian divinities begin to become known to the Greeks: whilst amongst Asiatics closely related to the culture and customs of the Egyptians there reigned active negotiation and a reciprocal influence, the Hellenes, of quite other disposition and more active in commerce, remained strangers to the Egyptians. They were met with suspicion, and restrictions were laid upon them. Aahmes was the first to assign them a place in Naucratis, south of Saïs, where they gained influence and property and could organise themselves as an independent community, but the Greek merchants were forbidden to navigate in any other branch of the Nile.

Internally the XXVIth Dynasty in every sense bears the stamp of restoration. The end of a formidable crisis had come, and the endeavour was made to re-establish conditions as they were conceived to have been of old—that is to say—to introduce the abstract ideal.

Therefore the Egyptians held themselves more aloof from the strangers, most carefully observing all laws as to cleanliness; the god of the strangers and hostile powers, the till-now-honoured Set, was cast out of the Pantheon, his name and image effaced everywhere: also the divinities taken up from the Syrian neighbours, such as Astarte and Anata, completely disappeared. In religion they turned back to the oldest laws; the dead formulas of the tombs of the Pyramids were revived, the worship of the early kings of Memphis, Sneferu, Khufu, Sahu-Ra, was again taken up.