BABYLON AND PERSIA

348 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.used to be.He had occupied the island of Cyprusand made friends with several Greek islands, a strokeof policy which secured him the use of considerablemaritime forces, besides averting the danger of aPersia'n occupation which otherwise would veryprobably have followed the submission of the Greekcities on the sea-coast.Amasis morever was liberalmindedand, breaking through the stubborn preju¬dices of his people, even at the cost of a good deal ofhis popularity, he opened the country to the Greeks,whom he permitted to have a settlement near themouths of the Nile, kept a body of Greek mercenaries,and even went so far as to take a wife from the Greekcolony of Kyrene.He could therefore rely on theassistance and watchfulness of his new friends fromthe other side of the sea.To counteract these moves,Kambyses determined to oppose fleet to fleet, Greeksto Greeks.He ordered the cities of the Phceniciansand of the lonians to arm and man their ships andbe ready to support the land army.The order wasobeyed without a sign of either revolt or treason,which goes far to show that the Persian rule was ajust and lenient one, at least compared to that ofearlier conquerors. The Phoenician and Ionian fleetswere commanded to join together just below MountCarmel and then to proceed downwards along thecoast, keeping pace with the army, which was tomarch along the ordinary military route.Of this aportion, amounting to several days' march, passedthrough a stretch of desert, the terrible wilderness ofthe Sinai peninsula.But Kambyses succeeded ingaining the sheikhs of the roving Bedouin tribes