Meanwhile Psammetichus successfully achieved the other portion of his task; he re-united the north under his sway, and made peace with the rulers of the south. The descendants of the priest-king, of Piankhi and of Tirhakah henceforth made Napata the centre of their dominion, and abandoned all thought of ruling even in Upper Egypt. The friendship thus formed was cemented by the marriage of Psammetichus with a princess of the southern dynasty. She was daughter of a king named Piankhi and his beautiful wife Ameniritis: a statue of her has been preserved, of which Brugsch says, “Sweet peace seems to hover about her features; the very flowers in her hand suggest her high mission as the reconciler of the long feud.”’ Under the Saite[93] dynasty, established by Psammetichus, Egypt enjoyed peace and prosperity for more than a century. The sun of her former greatness had indeed set, but under Psammetichus and his successors she enjoyed a long and brilliant after-glow of light. This period, which has been called the Egyptian _renaissance_, was distinguished by a revival of art, tasteful and refined in character. Psammetichus never forgot how much he owed to the Greek mercenaries; he gave them land, encouraged them to settle in Egypt, and, in short, showed them so much favour that, Herodotus tells us, the jealousy of the native soldiery was aroused; they deserted the camp in large numbers, and took refuge within the Ethiopian dominions, now become more essentially Egyptian than many parts of Egypt proper. Nor was the king content with showing favour to the mercenaries to whom he owed his crown; he also threw the country open to foreign commerce of every kind. Greek factories were built, and Greek merchants settled in Egypt in large numbers, more especially at Naukratis, which became the emporium of Greek trade. In spite of the favour they showed to foreigners neither Psammetichus nor his successors neglected the national religion and the national superstitions. They cared for the temples, and when an Apis died they buried him with lavish and extraordinary magnificence. The long reign of Psammetichus (666-612) was distinguished by one military enterprise, the taking of Azotus, after a prolonged siege of twenty-nine years. And it was during his reign that the devastating hordes of the Scythians from the far north poured over the Assyrian provinces like a countless swarm of locusts, leaving ruin and desolation behind. They approached the confines of Egypt, but Psammetichus succeeded in buying them off; they may have been sated with plunder and spoil, or may not have cared to undertake the hard and weary journey through the waterless Sinai desert. They disappeared from sight suddenly as they had come into sight, but their terrible onslaught and the havoc they wrought was a fatal blow to Assyria’s declining power. It was at the crisis of her fall that Necho (612-596) ascended the throne of Egypt.