It is we, and not the Greek world for which he wrote, who are the sufferers. It is frequently difficult, if not impossible, for us to tell whether Herodotos is speaking from his own experience or quoting from others, whose trustworthiness is doubtful or whose statements may have been misunderstood. From time to time internal evidence assures us that we are dealing, not with Herodotos himself, but with some other writer whose remarks he has embodied. His commentators have continually argued on the supposition that, wherever the first person is used, it is Herodotos himself who is speaking. Statements of his accordingly have been declared to be true, in spite of the contrary evidence of oriental research, because, it is urged, he is a trustworthy witness and has reported honestly what he heard and saw. But if he did not hear and see the supposed facts, the case is altered and the argument falls to the ground.
Herodotos took part in the foundation of the colony of Thurii in southern Italy in B.C. 445, and there, rather than at the Olympic festival, as later legend believed, he read to the assembled Greeks the whole or a part of his history. His travels in Egypt, therefore, must have already taken place. Their approximate date, indeed, is fixed by what he tells us about the battlefield of Paprêmis (iii. 12).
At Paprêmis, for the first time, an Egyptian army defeated the Persian forces. Its leader was Inarôs the Libyan, and doubtless a large body of Libyans was enrolled in it. Along with Amyrtæos he had led the Egyptians to revolt in the fifth year of the reign of Artaxerxes I. (B.C. 460). Akhæmenes, the satrap of Egypt, was routed and slain, and for six years Egypt maintained a precarious freedom. The fortresses at Memphis and Pelusium, however, remained in the hands of the Persians, and in spite of all the efforts of the Egyptians, they could not be dislodged. Greek aid accordingly was sought, and the Athenians, still at war with Persia, sent two hundred ships from Cyprus to the help of the insurgents. The ships sailed up the Nile as far as Memphis, where the Persian garrison still held out.
All attempts to oust it proved unavailing, and the approach of a great Persian army under Megabyzos obliged the Greeks to retreat to the island of Prosopites. Here they were blockaded for a year and a half; then the besiegers turned the river aside and marched over its dry bed against the camp of the allies, which they took by storm. The Greek expedition was annihilated, and Inarôs fell into the hands of his enemies, who sent him to Persia and there impaled him. Amyrtæos, however, still maintained himself in the marshes of the Delta, and in B.C. 449 Kimon sent sixty ships of the Athenian fleet to assist him in the struggle. But before they could reach the coast of Egypt news arrived of the death of Kimon, and the ships returned home. Four years later, if we may trust Philokhorus, another Egyptian prince, Psammetikhos, who seems to have succeeded Amyrtæos, sent 72,000 bushels of wheat to Athens in the hope of buying therewith Athenian help. But it does not appear to have been given, and Egypt once more sullenly obeyed the Persian rule. We learn from Herodotos (iii. 15) that “the great king” even allowed Thannyras and Pausiris, the sons of his inveterate enemies Inarôs and Amyrtæos, to succeed to the principalities of their fathers.