“He ordered each Egyptian to declare to the nomarch, every year, what were his means of subsistence. He who did not comply with the law, or could not prove that he lived by honest means, was punished with death. Solon, the Athenian, borrowed this law from Egypt, and established it in Athens, where it is still in force, because it is a wise one and no fault can be found with it.” Herodotus says that Egypt was never happier or more flourishing than in the reign of Aahmes, and that there were then in that country twenty thousand well-peopled towns or villages. All this prosperity was to disappear in one day, for Egypt was about to founder like Nineveh and Jerusalem and Sardis and Babylon, without previous decay, in one of those sudden and overwhelming storms which sweep monarchies away. A new empire had just arisen in Asia. Persia had absorbed Media and subdued Chaldea and Asia Minor. Lydia had succumbed so quickly that Aahmes had not been able to succour his ally, Crœsus. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, left Egypt in peace, and she took good care not to stir; but his son Cambyses felt the need of aggrandising his states, and as in default of reasons wars never lack pretexts, here is the one he gave, or which was perhaps invented as an afterthought. It was said that Cyrus had asked Aahmes to send him the best physician for diseases of the eye, to be found in his dominion. This physician wished to avenge himself on the king of Egypt, who had torn him from the arms of his wife and children to send him into Persia. He persuaded Cambyses to demand the daughter of Aahmes, counting on a refusal, which would not fail to be considered as an insult. Aahmes knew well that Cambyses would not make his daughter a queen, but a slave of the harem; he sent a daughter of Uah-ab-Ra. The latter disclosed the ruse to the king of Persia, and demanded of him to avenge her father, whose murderer Aahmes had been. Cambyses flew into a violent rage and resolved to carry war into Egypt. A desert that an army could not cross in less than three days’ march protected Egypt on the side of Asia. Following the advice of Phanes, a Greek officer and deserter from the Egyptian army, Cambyses secured for himself the alliance of the Arab king, who stationed camels laden with skins full of water, all along the route the Persians were to follow. The town of Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt, was besieged by Cambyses. Polyænus relates that he caused dogs, cats, and ibises to be collected, and placed them in front of his army; the Egyptians dared not fly their arrows for fear of hitting the sacred animals, and the town was taken without resistance. Aahmes had just died, after a reign of forty-four years (528). His son, Psamthek III, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, came to meet the enemy. The Greek and Carian mercenaries in the pay of the king of Egypt, learning the treason of Phanes, their former chief, revenged themselves on his children.