could not contest the superiority of their Greek rivals, they concluded that their own part was played out, and rather than be relegated to the second rank, they preferred to quit the land in a body.  Psammetichus, thus deprived of their support at the moment when Egypt had more than ever need of all her forces to regain her rightful position in the world, reorganised the military system as best he could.  He does not seem to have relied much upon the contingents from Upper Egypt, to whom was doubtless entrusted the defence of the Nubian frontier, and who could not be withdrawn from their posts without danger of invasion or revolt.  But the source of imminent peril did not lie in this direction, where Ethiopia, exhausted by the wars of Taharqa and Tanuatamanu, perhaps needed repose even more than Egypt itself, but rather on the Asiatic side, where Assur-bani-pal, in spite of the complications constantly arising in Karduniash and Elam, had by no means renounced his claims to the suzerainty of Egypt.  The Pharaoh divided the feudatory militia of the Delta into two classes, which resided apart in different sets of nomes.  The first group, who were popularly called Hermotybies, were stationed at Busiris, Sais, and Khemmis, in the island of Prosopitis, and in one half of Natho—­in fact, in the district which for the last century had formed the centre of the principality of the Saite dynasty:  perhaps they were mostly of Libyan origin, and represented the bands of Mashauasha who, from father to son, had served under Tafnakhti and his descendants.  Popular report numbered them at 160,000 men, all told, and the total number of the other class, known as the Calasiries, at 250,000; these latter belonged, in my opinion, to the pure Egyptian race, and were met with at Thebes, while the troops of the north, who were more generally called out, were scattered over the territory which formerly supported the Tanite and Bubastite kings, and latterly Pakruru, and which comprised the towns of Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytos, Athribis, Pharbaathos, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis, and Myecphoris.  Each year one thousand Hermotybies and one thousand Calasiries were chosen to form the royal body-guard, and these received daily five minae of bread apiece, two minas of beef, and four bowls of wine; the jealousy which had been excited by the Greek troops was thus lessened, as well as the discontent provoked by the emigration.*

* Calasiris, the exact transcription of Khala-shiri, Khala-shere, signifying young man.  The meaning and original of the word transcribed Hermotybies by Herodotus, and Hermotymbies according to a variant given by Stephen of Byzantium, is as yet unknown, but it seems to me to conceal a title analogous to that of Hir-mazaiu, and to designate what remained of Libyan soldiers in Egypt.  This organisation of the army is described by Herodotus as existing in his own days, and there were Calasiries and Hermotybies in the Egyptian contingent which