What took place in the individual fights is not known; that is, we have no knowledge of the battles with the Assyrians. But about the year 655 the object was obtained, Egypt freed and united. So as to establish his rule safely, the king married Shepenapet, daughter of Queen Ameniritis. The chief opponents of the new ruler were doubtless the mercenaries organised as a warrior caste, the Ma, who had shared the land under the Ethiopian and Assyrian supremacy. Herodotus relates that 240,000 warriors “who stood to the left of the king” had wandered to Ethiopia, under Psamthek, since for three years they were not relieved in the garrisons; the king, who hastened after them, could not persuade them to return. Although the recital is legendary with regard to the immense number, the fact fits in clearly with the history of the times that a considerable number of the warrior caste, who would not submit to the new circumstances, should have left the land, been taken up by the king of Napata and colonised the valley of the Upper Nile. It has already been mentioned that Psamthek, so as to protect himself against the renewed invasion of the Assyrians, also turned to Asia. As Aahmes I, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, invested Sherohan in Palestine, so for twenty-nine years Psamthek took the field against Ashdod, until he conquered the town. His power does not seem to have extended farther south than the First Cataract. His grandson, Psamthek II, first took the field against Ethiopia. To his time probably belong the inscriptions which Greek, Carian, and Phœnician soldiers have inscribed on the colossi of the temples of Abu Simbel in their mother tongues. Southern Nubia did not remain long conquered. The three strong border fortresses of Elephantine in the south, Daphne in the east, and Marea in the west, essentially determine the limits of Egyptian power. The new state, in which, after some two hundred years of anarchy, the kingdom of the Pharaohs was again established, was only partly national. The dynasty was, as the name teaches, not of Egyptian origin, but in all probability Libyan. The troops which the princes of Saïs could raise were doubtless for the greater part Libyans, and the particular characteristic was due to the mercenaries who had come across the sea. In future days the Ionians and Carians who were colonised in the “camps” between Bubastis and Pelusium, on that most dangerous east border of the land, were the chief support of the throne; under Uah-ab-Ra [Apries] their number increased to thirty thousand men. [Sidenote: [612-596 B.C.]]