XXV.

THREE DESPERATE REVOLTS.


The first revolt of the Egyptians against their conquerors, appears to
have been provoked by the news of the battle of Marathon. Egypt heard,
in B.C. 490, that the arms of the oppressor, as she ever determined to
consider Darius, had met with a reverse in European Greece, where
200,000 Medes and Persians had been completely defeated by 20,000
Athenians and Platæns. Darius, it was understood, had taken greatly to
heart this reverse, and was bent on avenging it. The strength of the
Persian Empire was about to be employed towards the West, and an
excellent opportunity seemed to have arisen for a defection on the
South. Accordingly Egypt, after making secret preparations for three
years, in B.C. 487 broke out in open revolt. She probably overpowered
and massacred the Persian garrison in Memphis, which is said to have
numbered 120,000 men, and, proclaiming herself independent, set up a
native sovereign.

The Egyptian monuments suggest that this monarch bore the
foreign-sounding name of Khabash. He fortified the coast of Egypt
against attempts which might be made upon it by the Persian fleet, and
doubtless prepared himself also to resist an invasion by land. But he
was quite unable to do anything effectual. Though Darius died in the
year after the revolt, B.C. 486, yet its suppression was immediately