Amasis had a great esteem for the Greeks.  He granted them large privileges; and permitted such of them as were desirous of settling in Egypt to live in the city of Naucratis, so famous for its harbour.  When the rebuilding of the temple of Delphi, which had been burnt, was debated on, and the expense was computed at three hundred talents, Amasis furnished the Delphians with a very considerable sum towards discharging their quota, which was the fourth part of the whole charge.

He made an alliance with the Cyrenians, and married a wife from among them.  He is the only king of Egypt who conquered the island of Cyprus, and made it tributary.  Under his reign Pythagorus came into Egypt, being recommended to that monarch by the famous Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, who had contracted a friendship with Amasis, and will be mentioned hereafter.  Pythagoras, during his stay in Egypt, was initiated in all the mysteries of the country, and instructed by the priests in whatever was most abstruse and important in their religion.  It was here he imbibed his doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls.

In the expedition in which Cyrus conquered so great a part of the world, Egypt doubtless was subdued, like the rest of the provinces, and Xenophon positively declares this in the beginning of his Cyropaedia, or institution of that prince.  Probably, after that the forty years of desolation, which had been foretold by the prophet, were expired, Egypt beginning gradually to recover itself, Amasis shook off the yoke, and recovered his liberty.

Accordingly we find, that one of the first cares of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, after he had ascended the throne, was to carry his arms into Egypt.  On his arrival there, Amasis was just dead, and succeeded by his son Psammetus.

13. Rameses Miamun, according to Archbishop Usher, was the name of this king, who is called Pharaoh in Scripture.  He reigned sixty-six years, and oppressed the Israelites in a most grievous manner. He set over them taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithon and Raamses.  And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.  This king had two sons, Amenophis and Busiris.

14. Amenophis, the eldest, succeeded him.  He was the Pharaoh under whose reign the Israelites departed out of Egypt, and who was drowned in his passage through the Red Sea.  Archbishop Usher says, that Amenophis left two sons, one called Sesothis, or Seaostris, and the other Armais.  The Greeks call him Belus, and his two sons, Egyptus and Danaus.

15. Sesostris was not only one of the most powerful kings of Egypt, but one of the greatest conquerors that antiquity boasts of.  He was at an advanced age sent by his father against the Arabians, in order that, by fighting with them, he might acquire military knowledge.  Here the young prince learned to bear hunger and thirst, and subdued a nation which till then had never been conquered.  The youth educated with him, attended him in all his campaigns.