=165.= Those northern barbarians who had terrified the Assyrians had now overrun Palestine and threatened an invasion of Egypt; but the messengers of Psammetichus met them at Ascalon with bribes which induced them to return.
=166.= B. C. 610-594. In the reign of Necho, son of Psammetichus, the navy and commerce of Egypt were greatly increased, and Africa was for the first time circumnavigated by an Egyptian fleet. This expedition sailed by way of the Red Sea. Twice the seamen landed, encamped, sowed grain, and waited for a harvest. Having reaped their crop, they again set sail, and in the third year arrived in Egypt by way of the Mediterranean. The foreign conquests of Necho may even be compared with those of the great Rameses, for he enlarged his dominions by all the country between Egypt and the Euphrates. But he met a stronger foe in Nebuchadnezzar, and when he fled from the field of Car´chemish all his Asiatic conquests fell into the hands of the great Babylonian.
=167.= B. C. 588-569. His grandson, Apries, the Pharaoh-hophra of Scripture, resumed the warlike schemes of Necho. He besieged Sidon, fought a naval battle with Tyre, and made an unsuccessful alliance with Zedekiah, king of Judah, against Nebuchadnezzar. He was deposed, and his successor, Ama´sis, held his crown at first as a tributary to the Babylonian. He afterward made himself independent; and many monuments throughout Egypt bear witness to his liberal encouragement of the arts, while his foreign policy enriched the country. He was on friendly terms with Greece and her colonies, and many Greek merchants settled in Egypt.
=168.= Alarmed by the increasing power of Persia, he sought to strengthen himself by alliances with Crœsus of Lydia, and Polycrates of Samos. The precaution was ineffectual, but Amasis did not live to see the ruin of his country. Cambyses, king of Persia, was already on his march at the head of a great army, when Psammen´itus, son of Amasis, succeeded to the throne of Egypt. The new king hastened to meet the invader at Pelusium, but was defeated and compelled to shut himself up in Memphis, his capital, where the Persians now advanced to besiege him. The city was taken and its king made captive, after a reign of only six months. A little later he was put to death; and the Kingdom of Egypt, after a thousand years of independent existence, became a mere province of the Persian Empire, B. C. 525.