A.C. 454.

We should have passed by this siege as unimportant, had we not been struck by the great disproportion of the parties engaged, and consequently, by the fact of the superiority of a few brave well-disciplined troops over an unmanageable multitude.

Inarus, a prince of Libya, favoured by the Athenians, proclaimed himself king of Egypt, at the time that country was under the subjection of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia. Irritated at the revolt, Artaxerxes sent three hundred thousand men to quell it. He gave the command of this army to Megabyzus. Inarus could not resist such an inundation, and he at once abandoned Egypt and shut himself up, with a few of his countrymen and six thousand Athenians, in Byblos, a city of the isle of Prosopitis. This city, surrounded by the waters of the Nile, was constantly revictualled by the Athenians, and for a year and a half the Persians made useless efforts to gain possession of it. Tired of such protracted labours, the Persians formed the plan of turning, by numerous cuttings, the arm of the Nile in which the Athenian fleet lay. They succeeded; and Inarus, terrified at the probable consequences, surrendered upon composition; but the bold bearing of the Athenians, their admirable discipline, and the order of their battalions, made the host of Persians afraid to attack them. They were offered an honourable capitulation; they accepted it, gave up Byblos, and returned to Greece, proud of having been thought invincible by a multitude of barbarians.