With regard to the course of the war we can only establish the fact, that Psammenitus collected all his forces, _i.e._ the warrior caste, and his Ionian and Carian troops, which were apparently strengthened by Libyan tribes, and Greeks from Cyrene, and awaited the attack of the Persians at the point where at the present day the caravan road from Gaza reaches Egypt, near Pelusium, the old border fortress, surrounded by the sand of the desert and wide expanses of mud. In regard to this battle we only learn from Ctesias that 50,000 Egyptians and 20,000 Persians fell; whether it be that these numbers are taken from the Persian poems, or whether they belong to the official Persian account. A part of the Egyptian army retired to Pelusium; with another band of fugitives Psammenitus reached Memphis. When the Persians had besieged and captured Pelusium, which made a bold resistance, Egypt lay open to them. Cambyses shaped his course to Memphis. There in past days the empire of the Pharaohs had arisen; there stood the temple of Ptah, the most sacred shrine of the land, which Menes himself was said to have founded, which all his successors, including Amasis, had enlarged and adorned. Memphis closed the approach to the upper river valley, which was barred to the Persians so long as the city held out. Hence it appears to have been the determination of Psammenitus to give up the delta to the Persians, to defend Memphis, and shut himself up in its walls. The city is said to have been twenty miles in circuit (I. 85); it lay on the western bank of the Nile, and Cambyses had the difficult task of crossing the river before he could invest the city. But now it was seen how great was the support afforded by the fleet. The Egyptian ships must have been forced to retire; the union of the Persian army with the fleet was accomplished; one of these ships appeared before the walls of Memphis sooner than the army. According to the account of Herodotus it would seem that it was not the city but only the citadel of Memphis, "the white tower" on the southern dam, which defended itself. If this was the case Cambyses had no doubt to thank the fleet for it. Elsewhere the city must have been defended on the side towards the Nile by the river-dams merely, which the garrison despaired of holding against the attack of numerous ships of war. Thus invested and attacked the citadel must at length have opened the gates; and with the citadel Psammenitus fell into the hands of the Persians.[150] After the fall of Memphis Cambyses does not seem to have found resistance anywhere. It is nevertheless possible that Sais, the residence of Psammetichus and his descendants, as well as of Amasis and Psammenitus, the burial-place of the princes and of Amasis, attempted a defence. In any case the conquest of Sais completed the subjugation of the Egyptian land. An inscription of the Egyptians says: "When the great prince, the lord of the world,