The supplanted Saitic dynasty now returned to the throne, and again unfolded in the seventh and eighth centuries the splendour, which in this country, so rich in resources and in outward might, was able to be displayed under an energetic and wise sceptre. That dynasty first opened Egypt for peaceful communication with foreign countries; Greeks settled among them, commerce flourished and accumulated new and immense riches, formerly alone obtained by rapine and tribute. But the excitement was only artificial, for the fresh energy of the nations had long been broken; art, too, matured luxury rather than practical worth. The last national glory soon passed away. The country could no longer withstand the coming storm of the Persians. In the year 525 B.C., it was conquered by Cambyses, and trodden down by barbarian fanaticism. Many monuments were destroyed, and no sanctuary, no wall was raised within this period; at least nothing has been preserved to our times of that era, not even of the long and mild government of Darius, of whom a temple, or only sculptures with his name alone, are found in the Oasis of Kargeh. Under Darius II., just one hundred years after the beginning of the Persian supremacy, Egypt again became independent, and we immediately find again the names of the native kings in the temples of Karnak, but after three dynasties had followed one another in rapid succession within sixty-four years, it again fell under the dominion of the Persians, who soon afterward lost it to Alexander of Macedonia, in the year 332 B.C. After that the land was obliged to accustom itself to foreign rule; it had lost its national independence, and passed from one hand to another, the last always worse than the preceding, down to the present day. Egypt still had vivifying power enough under the Macedonians and Greeks to keep up its religion and institutions in the ancient way. The foreign princes occupied in every way the places and footsteps of the ancient Pharaohs. Karnak also bears testimony to that. We here find the names of Alexander and Philip Aridæus, who preceded the Ptolemies in the restoration of that which the Persians had destroyed. Alexander rebuilt the back, Philip the front sanctuary of the great temple; the Ptolemies added sculptures to it, restored other parts, and even erected new sanctuaries at no small cost, but of course no longer in the magnificent, classic-Egyptian style of ancient times. Even the last epoch of expiring Egypt, that of the Roman supremacy, is still represented in Karnak by a number of representations, carried out under Augustus Cæsar.