Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Cailliaud.  Dush is the Kushit of the hieroglyphs, the Kysis of Graeco-Roman times, and is situated on the southern border of the Great Oasis, about the latitude of Assuan.

He was generous in his gifts to the gods, and even towns as obscure as Edfu was then received from him grants of money and lands.  The Egyptians at first were full of gratitude for the favours shown them, but the news of the defeat at Marathon, and the taxes with which the Susian court burdened them in order to make provision for the new war with Greece, aroused a deep-seated discontent, at all events amongst those who, living in the Delta, had had their patriotism or their interests most affected by the downfall of the Saite dynasty.  It would appear that the priests of Buto, whose oracles exercised an indisputable influence alike over Greeks and natives, had energetically incited the people to revolt.  The storm broke in 486, and a certain Khabbisha, who perhaps belonged to the family of Psammetichus, proclaimed himself king both at Sais and Memphis.*

* Herodotus does not give the name of the leader of the rebellion, but says that it took place in the fourth year after Marathon.  A demotic contract in the Turin Museum bears the date of the third month of the second season of the thirty-fifth year of Darius I.:  Khabbisha’s rebellion therefore broke out between June and September, 486.  Stern makes this prince to have been of Libyan origin.  From the form of his name, Revillout has supposed that he was an Arab, and Birch was inclined to think that he was a Persian satrap who made a similar attempt to that of Aryandes.  But nothing is really known of him or of his family previous to his insurrection against Darius.

[Illustration:  221.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OF DARIUS AT HABIT]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Cailliaud.

Darius did not believe the revolt to be of sufficient gravity to delay his plans for any length of time.  He hastily assembled a second army, and was about to commence hostilities on the banks of the Nile simultaneously with those on the Hellespont, when he died in 485, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign.  He was one of the great sovereigns of the ancient world—­the greatest without exception of those who had ruled over Persia.  Cyrus and Cambyses had been formidable warriors, and the kingdoms of the Bast had fallen before their arms, but they were purely military sovereigns, and if their successor had not possessed other abilities than theirs, their empire would have shared the fate of that of the Medes and the Chaldaeans; it would have sunk to its former level as rapidly as it had risen, and the splendour of its opening years would have soon faded from remembrance.  Darius was no less a general by instinct and training than they, as is proved by the campaigns which procured him his crown; but, after having conquered, he knew how to