“Smarting under this outrage, and resolved to avenge himself on the authors of his exile, he sent to Buto to consult the oracle of Leto, the most veracious of the Egyptian oracles. Answer was returned that he would be avenged by men of bronze, coming from the sea. At first he could not persuade himself that men of bronze could come to his aid; but a short time after, some Ionian and Carian pirates, being obliged to put into Egypt, came on shore clothed in bronze armour. An Egyptian ran to carry the news to Psammetichus, and as this Egyptian had never seen men armed in such a manner, he told them that men of bronze, coming from the sea, were pillaging the countryside. The king, perceiving that the oracle was accomplished, made alliance with the Ionians and Carians, and engaged them by large promises to take his part. With these auxiliary troops and the Egyptians who had remained faithful to him, he dethroned the eleven kings.” Upper Egypt submitted without resistance, and the names of the Ethiopian kings were struck off the Theban monuments. They seem, however, to have retained some partisans, for Psamthek espoused a wife of their race, the means employed by each dynasty to legitimatise its usurpation. He recompensed his auxiliaries by giving them territories near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, and made them his guard of honour. This was not an innovation; for a long time the kings of Egypt had been wont to take foreigners into their pay, and there is no doubt that there were in the native army many soldiers of Libyan or Ethiopian race; but they were annoyed at the favour shown the newcomers, and emigrated into Ethiopia to the number of two hundred thousand men. Psamthek tried to detain them by appealing to their patriotism, but they struck their lances on their shields and answered that so long as they had arms they would find their own country wherever they chose to establish themselves. This wholesale desertion was a benefit to Egypt, which it thus relieved from military rule. Conquests lead to inevitable reprisals. Armies, like all privileged classes, end by becoming corrupted, and then, useless in the face of the enemy, they become a heavy burden and an instrument of civil war. Psamthek had no reason to regret these soldiers, who had been unable to repel foreign invasion. The labours of peace repaired the recent disasters; the temples were rebuilt; the arts shone with a new brilliancy; the whole activity of the nation was turned towards commerce and industry. Psamthek inaugurated a new policy by opening the country to foreigners. “He received those who visited Egypt with hospitality,” says Diodorus; “he was the first of the Egyptian kings to open markets to other nations, and to give great security to navigators.”