III.] THE GREEKS IN EGYPT. 57
same time, as it would seem, he permitted the Milesians to form a
trading station on the western or Canobic branch
at Naucratis—the discovery of which place by
Mr Flinders Petrie is one of the most interesting
results of recent excavation. At the commence-
ment of the following century, in the reign of Psammitichus II.1,
we have evidence of Greek soldiers in the service of the king of
Egypt having reached the frontiers of Aethiopia, in the famous
Greek inscriptions on the legs of the colossi in front of the
temple of Abu Sirabel in Nubia. Fifty years later, in the reign
of Amasis, special privileges seem to have been accorded to
Naucratis, which became an important commercial centre. From
this time onwards the intercourse between Greece and Egypt,
though still intermittent, was less restricted than before. Amasis
himself married a Greek wife, and removed the Ionian mercenaries
from Daphnae to Memphis, that they might become his body-
guard. Both Pythagoras and Thales are said to have resorted to
his court, and the story of his alliance with Polycrates of Samos,
and of the romantic circumstances which led to its dissolution, is
familiar to every one. The point of view of the two peoples,
indeed, the one looking back towards an immemorial past, the
other reaching forward eagerly towards the future, presented
too strong a contrast for them to be able to learn much one from
another, and the jealousy of the Egyptian priesthood rendered
their accumulated learning a sealed book to the outer world. At
the same time, by their residence in Egypt the Greeks became
acquainted with a country unique in character, and with races and
products of which otherwise they would have had no cognisance.
When we compare the knowledge of the lands in the neighbour-
hood of the Mediterranean which had been acquired
by the medium of these colonies, with that which ummary-
existed in the Homeric age, we cannot fail to be struck with the
marked advance that had been made in every direction. Even
the Pillars of Hercules, and the limit there set to the Mediter-
ranean sea, of which in earlier days they had only become aware
1 That the expedition took place in this reign, and not in that of Psam-
mitichus I., is proved by inscriptions found at Naucratis: see Prof, Gardner's
New Chapters in Grtek History> p. 198.