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.