The origin of Naukratis was evidently entirely Greek; down on the flat surface of Nile mud, which shows the level of the country when the city was founded, the earliest remains are Greek potsherds. The date of its foundation was certainly before Amasis; and the discovery of the fort of Defenneh (Tahpanhes) the next year explained the origin of this city. When Psamtik I, in 665 B.C., had wrested the throne of Egypt from the dodecarchy, or local princes (who had assumed authority on the fall of the Ethiopian rule of Tirhaka), he based his power on ‘the brazen men from the sea,’ the Karian and Ionian mercenaries. But he knew too well the temper of his countrymen to obtrude this strength needlessly; and at the same time he needed special defence from Libya and from Asia. He therefore planted his Greek troops in two great garrisons, one on his Libyan frontier at Naukratis, the other on his Asiatic frontier at Tahpanhes; at each place founding a large square fort and a walled camp around it.
These Greeks brought with them their national worship; and of the temples mentioned by Herodotos, those of Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hera, have been found, and also one to the Dioskouroi, not recorded in history. The temple of the Milesian Apollo appears to have been the oldest: it stood in the centre of the town, outside of the fort, and was first built of mud-brick, plastered over, and later on—about the fifth century—of
25. Necking of Column, Apollo Temple.
white stone, some pieces of which I found. The site had been nearly cleared out by the native diggers; and I only came in time to get fragments of the temple, and to open up the great rubbish trench, where all the temple refuse was thrown. Very precious this rubbish was to me, layer under layer of broken vases, from the innumerable small bowls to the great craters of noble size and design; and most precious of all were the hundreds of dedications inscribed on the pottery, some of them probably the oldest examples of Greek writing known, and altogether far outnumbering all our past material for the
26. Oldest Ionic Dedication, 660? B.C. 2: 5.