It was impossible for so violent and so prolonged a crisis to take place without in some degree injuring the prestige of the empire. Subjects and allies of long standing remained loyal, but those only recently subjugated by conquest, as well as the neighbouring independent kingdoms, without hesitation threw off the yoke of suzerainty or of obligatory friendship under which they had chafed. Egypt freed herself from foreign domination as soon as the possibilities of war with Elam had shown themselves, and it was Psammetichus of Sais, son of Necho, one of the princes most favoured by the court of Nineveh, who set on foot this campaign against his former patron. He expelled the Assyrian garrisons, reduced the petty native princes to submission, and once more set up the kingdom of the Pharaohs from Elephantine to the Syrian desert, without Assur-bani-pal having been able to spare a single soldier to prevent him, or to bring him back to a sense of his duty. The details of his proceedings are unknown to us: we learn only that he owed his success to mercenaries imported from Asia Minor, and the Assyrian chroniclers, unaccustomed to discriminate between the different peoples dwelling on the shores of the AEgean, believed that these auxiliaries were supplied to the Pharaoh by the only sovereign with whom they had had any dealings, namely, Gyges, King of Lydia. That Gyges had had negotiations with Psammetichus and procured assistance for him has not yet been proved, but to assert that he was incapable of conceiving and executing such a design is quite a different matter. On the contrary, all the information we possess concerning his reign shows that he was daring in his political undertakings, and anxious to court alliances with the most distant countries. The man who tried to draw Assur-bani-pal into a joint enterprise against the Cimmerians would not have hesitated to ally himself with Psammetichus if he hoped to gain the least profit from so doing. Constant intercourse by sea took place between Ionia or Caria and Egypt, and no event of any importance could occur in the Delta without being promptly reported in Ephesus or Miletus. Before this time the Heraclid rulers of Sardes had lived on excellent terms with most of the AEolian or Ionian colonies: during the anxious years which followed his accession Gyges went still further, and entered into direct relations with the nations of Greece itself. It was no longer to the gods of Asia, to Zeus of Telmissos, that he addressed himself in order to legitimatise his new sovereignty, but, like Midas of Phrygia, he applied to the prophetic god of Hellas, to the Delphian Apollo and his priests. [Illustration: 235.jpg PSAMMETICHUS I.] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.