This rising was all the more dangerous, as some of the vassal-princes of Egypt thought it a favourable moment for throwing off the yoke of Assyria. The son of the Necho, whom in spite of his conspiracy with Tirhaka Assurbanipal had a second time made prince of Sais, Neboshezban, who was then ruler of the canton of Athribis, and after the death of his father Necho, which occurred in the mean time (Necho died shortly before, or in, the year 664 B.C.),[378] succeeded him as prince of Sais, was at the head of this movement. Assurbanipal tells us that Gyges of Lydia sent aid to Pisamilki, the prince (_Sar_) of Muzur, who had cast off the yoke of his rule.[379] In this Pisamilki we may recognise the Psammetichus of the Greeks, the Psamtik of the Egyptians, the son of Necho of Sais, the same person whom Assurbanipal, when he mentions the restoration of Necho and his son, calls by the Assyrian name of Neboshezban. When the failure of that attempt had made Necho and his son captives of Assyria, the important point was to give pledges to the king of Assyria that the fidelity of his vassals would not again be broken. The Egyptian tradition of the rise of Psammetichus, preserved for us by Herodotus and Diodorus, ought not to have more weight than that Assyrian name against the identity of Pisamilki and Psammetichus. That tradition knows of nothing but contests of Psammetichus with his fellow-princes, not with the Assyrians; like Manetho's list of kings, it is absolutely silent about the Assyrians, because it wishes to conceal the fact that the Assyrians ever had dominion over Egypt. The tradition of Egypt imagines a voluntary retirement of the king of Ethiopia, or his abdication of the government of Egypt, and then represents the Egyptians as setting up 12 princes in the place of one: we have already seen that 20 were set up by Esarhaddon, and retained by Assurbanipal. Manetho's list says nothing either of the Assyrian dominion, or of the twelve; in it the rule of the last Ethiopian is followed by the dynasty of the Saites, two forefathers of Necho, and then by Necho and Psammetichus. The sepulchres of the Apis show, that as a fact, the dates were differently fixed in the seventh century B.C. in Egypt. Even then the kings of Assyria were disregarded; the reign of the Ethiopian Tirhaka is followed immediately by the reign of Psammetichus. The struggles which Psammetichus had to undergo with his fellow-princes, of which Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo tell us, were, as a fact, contests with those among the princes who adhered to Assyria, who would not follow the lead of Psammetichus against Assyria, and submit to his rule over Egypt.