This was Egypt, which had now continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off the yoke of Darius Nothus.

Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion of his ancestral dominions, applied in B.C.375 to Athens for the services of her great general, Iphicrates.

His request was granted, and in the next year a vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates and Pharnabazus, which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of the river, and might have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of the Athenian have stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian colleague.

But Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to proceed leisurely and according to rule.

The result was that the season for hostilities passed and nothing had been done.