surrendered, and crucified. Amyrtæus, who had been recognized as king of
Egypt during the six years that the struggle lasted, took refuge in the
Nile marshes, where he dragged out a miserable existence for another
term of six years. The Egyptians offered no further resistance; and
Egypt became once more a Persian satrapy (B.C. 455).

It was at about this time that Herodotus, the earliest Greek historian,
the Father of History, as he has been called, visited Egypt in pursuance
of his plan of gathering information for his great work. He was a young
man, probably not far from thirty years of age (for he was born between
the dates of the battles of Marathon and Thermopylæ). He travelled
through the land as far as Elephantine, viewing with his observant eyes
the wonders with which the "Story of Egypt" has been so much occupied;
and he described them with the enthusiasm that we have occasionally
noted. He saw the battle-field on which Inarus had just been
defeated--the ground strewn with the skulls and other bones of the
slain; he made his longest stay at Memphis, then at the acme of its
greatness; he visited the quarries on the east of the Nile whence the
stone had been dug for the pyramids, and he gazed upon the great
monuments themselves, on the opposite side of the stream. We have seen
that he visited Lake Mœris, and examined the famous Labyrinth, which he
thought even more wonderful than the pyramids themselves. Finally, he
sailed away for Tyre, and Egypt was again closed to travellers from
Greece.

A second period of tranquillity followed, which covered the space of
about half a century. Nothing is known of Egypt during this interval;
and it might have been thought that she had grown contented with her
lot, and that her aspirations after independence were over. For fifty
years she had made no sign. Even the troubled time between the death of