. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . re somuch in his favour that he ventured to consider whether itwould not be more advantageous to forestall the foe byattacking him, rather than passively to await an onslaughtbehind his own lines. He had sought the friendship ofAthens,^ and, though it had not been granted in explicit 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des MMailles. ^ The memory of this embassy has been preserved for us by a decree ofthe Athenian assembly, unfortunately much mutilated, which has beenassigned to various dates between 362 and 358 M
. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . re somuch in his favour that he ventured to consider whether itwould not be more advantageous to forestall the foe byattacking him, rather than passively to await an onslaughtbehind his own lines. He had sought the friendship ofAthens,^ and, though it had not been granted in explicit 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des MMailles. ^ The memory of this embassy has been preserved for us by a decree ofthe Athenian assembly, unfortunately much mutilated, which has beenassigned to various dates between 362 and 358 M. Paul Foucart hasshown that the date of the decree must be referred to one of three archon-ships—the archonship of Callimedes, 360-59 ; that of Eucharistus, 359-8;or that of Cephisodotus, 358-7. Without entering into a discussion of theother evidence on the subject, it seems to me probable that the embassy maybe most conveniently assigned to the archonship of Callimedes, towards theend of 360 , at the moment when Chabrias had just arrived in Egypt,. REPLENISHING THE EXCHEQUER 297 terms, the republic had, nevertheless, permitted Chabriasto resume his former post at his side. Chabrias exhortedhim to execute his project, and as he had not sufficientmoney to defray the expenses of a long campaign outsidehis own borders, the Athenian general instructed him howhe might procure the necessary funds. He suggested tohim that, as the Egyptian priests were wealthy, the sumsof money annually assigned to them for the sacrifices andmaintenance of the temples would be better employed inthe service of the state, and counselled him to reduce oreven to suppress most of the sacerdotal colleges. Thepriests secured their own safety by abandoning theirpersonal property, and the king graciously deigned toaccept their gifts, and then declared to them that in future,as long as the struggle against Persia continued, he shouldexact from them nine-tenths of their sacred tax would have
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