Herodotus and Diodorus[465] had both visited Egypt and are among our best authorities. At first sight indeed they do not seem quite in agreement. But the story they tell is essentially the same. The difference is one of emphasis. Herodotus seizes on a single incident and makes much of the description of the Ionians and Carians as men of bronze. The point was worth emphasizing; for from the military point of view the first appearance of the heavy-armed hoplite in Egyptian history marked an epoch[466]. Diodorus contradicts Herodotus only in stating that it was not an accident that led Psammetichus to employ these foreign hoplites[467]. The rest of his narrative only supplements Herodotus, and the silence of Herodotus is no reason for thinking that the later historian was not drawing on good and early sources[468]. Even Herodotus could not incorporate in his history every scrap of knowledge that he possessed, and for Egypt in the seventh century there may well have been contemporary documents which were not consulted by Herodotus but were by Diodorus. Diodorus’ account has in fact been accepted by a considerable number of modern scholars[469]. [Sidenote: Cp. Strabo on the Fort of the Milesians] They point out that it agrees with the statement of Strabo about the Fort of the Milesians[470] that “in the days of Psammetichus the Milesians sailed with 30 ships and put in at the Bolbitine mouth, and disembarking built the foundation just mentioned.” There is one difficulty in this passage of Strabo. Psammetichus is described in it as the contemporary of Cyaxares king of the Medes, who reigned from 624 to 584 B.C., so that the Psammetichus referred to might be Psammetichus II (594–589). But Psammetichus in Strabo appears elsewhere always to mean the first and most important king of that name. Cyaxares too both from his date and his nationality is an odd person for a Greek writer to quote in order to indicate the date of an Egyptian king[471]. Hirschfeld is therefore probably right in rejecting this parenthesis as a learned but unintelligent gloss[472]. The Bolbitine mouth of the Nile is near the great lake and marshes of Bourlos[473]. Psammetichus I, before he overcame his rivals in Lower Egypt, is said by Herodotus[474] to have spent a period of exile in the marshes, and the marshes are shown by the context to have lain near the sea[475]. Thus quite apart from Diodorus, by simply comparing Herodotus and Strabo, a case may be made for thinking that the arrival of the bronze men from Ionia was not the accidental occurrence that Herodotus, after his way, makes it out to have been, but that it had some close connexion with the Milesians’ Fort. [Sidenote: and Assurbanipal on help sent to Psammetichus by Gyges of Lydia.]