Some Of His Laws On These
Subjects Are Still Extant; And They Display His Knowledge Of, And Attention
To, The Improvement Of His Kingdom.
By some of his immediate successors the
ancient maxims of the Egyptians, which led them to avoid intercourse with
strangers, were gradually done away; but it is to Psammeticus, historians
ascribe the most decisive measures for rooting out this antipathy.
In his
reign the ports of Egypt were first opened to foreign ships generally. He
seems particularly to have encouraged commercial intercourse with the
Greeks; though afterwards, either from some particular cause of jealousy or
dislike to this nation, or from the still operating antipathy of the
Egyptians to foreigners, the Greeks were not permitted to enter any port
except Naucratis, which they had been suffered to build for the residence
of their merchants and convenience of their trade. This city lay on the
Canopic branch of the Nile; and if a vessel entered any other mouth of this
river, the master was obliged to return to the Canopic branch; or, if the
wind did not permit this, to unlade his vessel, and send his merchandize to
Naucratis by the country boats.
From the time of Psammeticus, when the Greeks were allowed to settle in
Egypt, frequent intercourse and correspondence was kept up between them and
their countrymen in Greece; and from this circumstance the Egyptian history
may henceforth be more firmly depended upon. It has already been remarked,
that as the alleged circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians took
place during the reign of Necho, the successor of Psammeticus, the grounds
for its authenticity are much stronger than if it had occurred previously
to the intercourse of the Greeks with Egypt.
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