3. _Neco_, son and successor of Psammetichus. His extensive plans of conquest. First formation of a naval power; and unsuccessful attempt to unite by a canal the Mediterranean with the Red sea. Conquests in Asia as far as the Euphrates; but quick secession of the conquered, in consequence of the loss of the battle of Circesium. Circumnavigation of Africa undertaken at his command by the Phoenicians, and successfully performed. 4. _Psammis his son and successor._ Expedition against Ethiopia, and conquests in the interior of Africa. 5. Reign of _Apries_, (the Pharaoh-hophra of the Hebrews). Plans of conquest against Asia;--siege of Sidon, and naval battle with the Tyrians;--expedition against Cyrene in Africa; its fatal result. A revolution caused thereby in Egypt, the inhabitants of which were averse to foreign wars, carried on mostly by mercenary aliens: the revolution headed by Amasis. In the civil war which Apries now wages with his mercenaries against the Egyptians commanded by Amasis, he loses both his throne and life; and with him ends the family of Psammetichus, which had reigned to this time. 6. The usurper _Amasis_ took possession of the sovereign power; and although he had to contend with a strong party, who despised him on account of his low origin, he contrived by popular measures, and by the respect he showed to the sacerdotal caste, to establish himself upon the throne.--His monuments, both at Sais and Memphis.--The Egyptians and Greeks become better acquainted and more closely connected with each other, partly in consequence of the marriage of the king with a Greek woman; but principally owing to the mouths of the Nile being opened to the Greek merchants, and the cession of Naucratis as a factory for their merchandise. Great and beneficial consequences to Egypt, which, under the long reign of Amasis, reaches its highest pitch of prosperity. This prince had already been engaged in disputes with the Persian conqueror, Cyrus, whose son and successor, Cambyses, led an expedition against Egypt, which Amasis, however, luckily for himself, escaped by a seasonable death. 7. His son Psammenitus, the last of the Egyptian Pharaohs, is attacked by Cambyses in the very first year of his reign. After a single battle, fought at Pelusium, and a short siege of Memphis, the empire of the Pharaohs is overthrown, and Egypt merges into a Persian province. The powerful caste of the priests suffered most from the hatred of the conqueror; but the persecution to which they were subjected must be attributed rather to policy than fanaticism.