24. The entire number of their dynasties of kings, as they have handed them down to us, is thirty-two, the last being the Ptolemies, founded by a Greek general of that name, after the death of Alexander the Great, which lasted more than three hundred years, closing B. C. 44. The first twelve dynasties are called the Old Empire, whose period it is impossible to determine accurately. The five following dynasties are ascribed to the reign of foreigners, called “shepherd kings,” who are supposed to have established their authority between the times of Joseph and Moses, and are called the Middle Empire; while thirteen dynasties, including the royal families that reigned down to the time of the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, comprise the New Empire. They were generally exclusive, shut up within themselves, too much absorbed in exact observance of the endless routine prescribed by their priests to be inclined to the ambition of foreign conquest; but several of their kings gathered large armies and invaded Palestine and Syria, or made a trial of strength with the Assyrians or Babylonians. They never made permanent conquests in that direction. Some of the later kings became friendly to the Greeks, and employed them in their armies, to the great disgust of their subjects, the soldier caste retiring, almost in a body, to Ethiopia, and refusing to return. The kingdom soon after fell into the hands of foreigners, and the accumulated discipline, knowledge and wealth of that wise people became the inheritance of humanity. Nebuchadnezzar was the first who made a conquest of Egypt, but the country soon regained its independence. It was not till after the death of Cyrus, and when the details of the new Medo-Persian kingdom had been settled, that Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, subdued the whole of Egypt, and made it a Persian province, in which condition it remained most of the time to the Grecian invasion. 25. About twenty-five hundred years before the time of Alexander the Great, the cities of Sidon and Tyre were founded, in Phenicia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea. Their territory extended only twenty miles back, from the sea. They were of the Semite race, and their enterprising spirit led them to build ships and become at first pirates and then merchants. They were thrifty and grew rich, improved their vessels and became famous for their commerce. They at length planted colonies for trading purposes on the northern coasts of Africa, in Sicily and in Spain.