Greek trading colony in the western Delta, roughly equidistant between Athribis to the south and Alexandria on the coast. It was initially founded by Milesians (settlers from the city of Miletus, in Ionia) toward the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, in the time of Psammetichus I (664-610). King Amasis of Egypt (570-526) gave the city its automony, which made it a Greek city (the only one) in Egypt, and the monopoly of marine trade in Egypt (Herodotus' Histories, II, 178-179). The city was the site of several temples to Greek gods, but it also had a temple to Egyptian gods Ammon and Thoth (identified by the Greeks with Zeus and Hermes, respectively).