Ladike, the daughter, according to some, of Arkesilas or of Battos, according to others, of a wealthy private individual named Kritobulos.* The Greeks of Europe and Asia Minor fared no less to their own satisfaction at his hand than their compatriots in Africa; following the example of his ally Croesus, he entered into relations with their oracles on several occasions, and sent them magnificent presents.  The temple of Delphi having been burnt down in 548, the Athenian family of the Alcmaeonides undertook to rebuild it from the ground for the sum of three hundred talents, of which one-fourth was to be furnished by the Delphians.  When these, being too poor to pay the sum out of their own resources, made an appeal to the generosity of other friendly powers, Amasis graciously offered them a thousand talents of Egyptian alum, then esteemed the most precious of all others.  Alum was employed in dyeing, and was an expensive commodity in the markets of Europe; the citizens of Delphi were all the more sensible of Pharaoh’s generosity, since the united Greeks of the Nile valley contributed only twenty minae of the same mineral as their quota.  Amasis erected at Cyrene a statue of his wife Ladike, and another of the goddess Neit, gilded from head to foot, and to these he added his own portrait, probably painted on a wooden panel.**

* The very fact of the marriage is considered by Wiedemann as a pure legend, but there is nothing against its authenticity; the curious story of the relations of the woman with Amasis told by the Cyrenian commentators is the only part which need be rejected.

     ** The text of Herodotus can only mean a painted panel
     similar to those which have been found on the mummies of the
     Graeco-Roman era in the Fayum.

He gave to Athene of Lindos two stone statues and a corselet of linen of marvellous fineness;* and Hera of Samos received two wooden statues, which a century later Herodotus found still intact.  The Greeks flocked to Egypt from all quarters of the world in such considerable numbers that the laws relating to them had to be remodelled in order to avoid conflicts with the natives.

* It seems that one of these statues is that which, after being taken to Constantinople, was destroyed in a fire in 476 A.D.  Fragments of the corselet still existed in the first century of our era, but inquisitive persons used to tear off pieces to see for themselves whether, as Herodotus assures us, each thread was composed of three hundred and sixty-five strands, every one visible with the naked eye.

The townships founded a century earlier along the Pelusiac arm of the Nile had increased still further since the time of Necho, and to their activity was attributable the remarkable prosperity of the surrounding region.  But the position which they occupied on the most exposed side of Egypt was regarded as permanently endangering the security of the country:  her