depose the rest by the aid of Greek mercenaries. His son, Nechos (Pharaoh Necho), is credited by Herodotus with the first attempt to construct the canal to the Red Sea, which was afterwards finished by Darius Hystaspes. The canal, however, was more probably begun by Sesostris (Barneses II.), and there appears to be evidence that it was choked by sand (which is still the difficulty with modern engineers), and reopened many times—by the Ptolemies, for instance, and the Arabs. Necho is mentioned in Scripture as having defeated and slain King Josiah at Megiddo on his way to attack the Assyrians. Herodotus briefly notices the victory, but calls the place Magdolus, after which he says that Necho took the city of Cadytis, supposed to be either Jerusalem or Gaza. In a subsequent expedition, which Herodotus does not mention, he himself was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and lost all his conquests. He was succeeded by his son Psammis, and his grandson Apries (the Pharaoh-Hophra of Jeremiah). The latter had a long and prosperous reign; but failing in an attack on the Greek city of Cyrene, his army revolted from him, and chose Amasis, an officer who had been sent to reason with them, for their king. Apries on this armed his Greek mercenaries, amounting to thirty thousand men, and went to meet the revolted Egyptians. In the battle which ensued he was defeated and taken prisoner by Amasis, who finally gave him up to his former subjects, with whom he was unpopular, and they strangled him. Amasis was a coarse but humorous character, rather proud than otherwise of his low origin. Finding that his subjects despised him for it, he broke up a golden foot-bath, and made of it an image of one of the gods,
