embassy into Asia Minor.  Gyges received his application favourably, and sent him a strong Asiatic contingent, chiefly composed of Ionians and Carians.  Both races were at this time warlike, and wore armour of much greater weight and strength than any which the Egyptians were accustomed to carry.  It was in reliance, mainly, on these foreigners, that Psamatik ventured to proclaim himself “King of the Two Countries,” and to throw out a gage of defiance at once to his Assyrian suzerain and to his nineteen fellow-princes.

The gage was not taken up by Assyria.  Immersed in her own difficulties, threatened in three quarters, on the south, on the south-east, and on the east by Babylonia, by Elam, and by Media, she had enough to do at home in guarding her own frontiers, and seeking to keep under her immediate neighbours, and was therefore in no condition to engage in distant expeditions, or even to care very much what became of a remote and troublesome dependency.  Thus Assyria made no sign.  But the petty princes took arms at once.  To them the matter was one of life or death; they must either crush the usurper or be themselves swept out of existence.  So they gathered together in full force.  Pakrur from Pisabtu, and Petubastes from Tanis, and Sheshonk from Busiris, and Tafnekht from Prosopitis, and Bek-en-nefi from Athribis, and Nakh-he from Heracleopolis, and Pimai from Mendes, and Lamentu from Hermopolis, and Mentu-em-ankh from Thebes, and other princes from other cities, met and formed their several contingents into a single army, and stood at bay near Momemphis, the modern Menouf, in the western Delta, on the borders of the Libyan Desert.  Here a great battle was fought, which was for some time doubtful; but the valour of the Greco-Carians, and the superiority of their equipment, prevailed.  The victory rested with Psamatik; his adversaries were defeated and dispersed; following up his first success, he proceeded to attack city after city, forcing all to submit, and determined that he would nowhere tolerate even the shadow of a rival.  Disintegration had been the curse of Egypt for the space of above a century; Psamatik put an end to it.  No more princes of Bubastis, or of Tanis, or of Sais, or of Mendes, or of Heracleopolis, or of Thebes!  No more eikosiarchies, dodecarchies, or heptarchies even!  Monarchy pure, the absolute rule of one and one only sovereign over the whole of Egypt, from the cataracts of Syene to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from Pelusium and Migdol to Momemphis and Marea, was established, and henceforth continued, as long as Egyptian rule endured.  The lesson had been learnt at a tremendous cost, but it had now at last been thoroughly learnt, that only in unity is there strength—­that the separate sticks of the faggot are impotent to resist the external force which the collective bundle might without difficulty have defied and scorned.