king of Egypt, ascended the throne B. c. 569. From the rank of a common soldier he gradually rose to be one of the principal officers in the court of Apries. Being commissioned by his prince to pacify some insurgents who had rebelled against the royal authority, he attached the disaffected subjects to his own interest, and took up arms against his master. Apries, apprized of his treachery, sent another of his officers to bring the rebel before him; but this messenger returning with an insolent reply from Amasis, was barbarously mutilated by the tyrannical monarch. The nobles who still remained obedient to their prince, shocked by the barbarity with which he treated his ambassador, immediately joined the standard of the usurper. The tyrant, thus deserted by his subjects, took the field with an army of mercenaries, and meeting Amasis in a field near Memphis, was defeated and taken prisoner. The usurper treated the captive prince with great lenity; but so violent was the popular hatred, that he was compelled to deliver him into the hands of his enraged countrymen, who instantly put him to death by strangling.

The plebeian extraction of Amasis deprived him for some time of that respect to which he was entitled as a prince; to remedy which he contrived the following stratagem. He ordered a golden cistern, in which he was accustomed to wash his feet, to be melted and cast in the form of a god, and exposing it for public worship in the most frequented part of the city, the inhabitants crowded to do it homage. Having thus assembled the people, he reminded them of the vile purpose which the present object of their veneration had formerly served, and that in the same manner the obscurity of his former rank should not diminish the respect to which he was now entitled as a king. The stratagem was successful, and his subjects ever afterwards yielded him the respect due to his rank.

In the exercise of his public duties he displayed the utmost assiduity, devoting the morning to business, and the evening to social amusement. He is said to have been the author of that law, afterwards adopted by Solon, by which every individual in the kingdom was compelled to appear before the governor of his province, and state by what means he earned his subsistence. Under his prudent administration Egypt enjoyed the greatest prosperity. He adorned it with numerous and splendid buildings, among which were a portico to the temple of Minerva, at Sais, and the great temple of Isis, at Memphis. He also erected a colossus before the temple of Vulcan, 75 feet in length, resting on its back; and on the basis stood two statues, each 20 feet high, cut out of the same stone. Besides these, he erected several monuments in Greece.

The liberality and respect for science which Amasis displayed, and the encouragement he gave to learned strangers, particularly to the Greeks, to visit his country, manifested an enlightened mind. To induce Grecian strangers to remain in Egypt, he marked out settlements for them on the sea-coast, permitting them to build temples, and to observe all the rites of their religion unmolested. Solon, the celebrated lawgiver, is reported to have visited Amasis. Such was his generosity, that when the temple of the Delphians was burnt, he presented them with 1000 talents to assist them in rebuilding it. To gratify the vanity, or secure the alliance of the Greeks, he married a Grecian lady, named Laodice, the daughter of Battus. The evening of his reign was clouded by the prospect of the invasion of Cambyses, king of Persia, who shortly after subjugated his kingdom. In this emergency Phanes, captain of the Greek auxiliaries in the service of Amasis, being offended at his master, deserted his cause, and went over to the enemy. Polycrates also, tyrant of Samos, who had long been a friend and ally of the Egyptian monarch, now joined the standard of Cambyses. Whether apprehensions of the impending storm tended to impair his health, is not related; but about this time he died, in 525 n. c., after a reign of 44 years.