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the trade of the country by land and sea.

Towards the end

of his reign, while the Persians were fighting the Greeks, Egypt threw off the Persian yoke, and set up Chabbesha as king; Darius never recovered his hold upon Egypt, and died after a reign of about thirty-six years.

B.C.

486

465

Soon after Xerxes I. ascended the throne, he marched to Egypt to reassert the Persian supremacy; he broke through the defences which Chabbesha had set up on the mouths of Persians the Nile and in the marshes, and taking possession of the reconquer Egypt. country compelled the Egyptians to send a contigent of two hundred ships to assist him in his attack upon Greece; the crews of these ships distinguished themselves by their bravery at the battle of Artemisium. After the murder of Xerxes by Artabanus, Artaxerxes I. became king of Egypt, but towards the end of his reign the Egyptians, headed by Inarus, king of Lybia, assisted by a fleet of two or three hundred Athenian ships, again revolted and refused either to pay taxes, or to acknowledge the Persian authority. Artaxerxes sent a force of 300,000 or 400,000 to put down the revolt, and a battle took place near Papremis; the Persians, owing to their overwhelming numbers, were at first victorious, but were subsequently beaten, and those that escaped from the general massacre fled to Memphis for refuge, and were besieged there by the Egyptians. Soon after this Artaxerxes sent more Fall of troops to Egypt, and these having surrounded Memphis, the Memphis. Athenians were compelled first to withdraw, and secondly to burn their ships; Inarus was wounded in an engagement and taken captive to Persia, where he was crucified or impaled. Amyrtaeus, the governor of a town in the Delta and an ally of Inarus, fled to the marshes, and the Persians appointed Pausiris and Thannyras, their sons respectively, rulers over the Delta in their stead. Xerxes II., the next king of Egypt, was murdered by his brother Sogdianus, and towards the end of the reign of Darius II., his successor, the Egyptians once more rebelled, and regained their independence under Amyrtaeus of Saïs about B.C. 405.

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DYNASTY.

Of Amen-rut or Amyrtaeus, the only king of this dynasty, very little is known; his native city was Saïs, but it is not

400

B.C. 399

393

likely that he is identical with the Amyrtaeus who assisted the ill-fated Inarus to rebel against the Persians.

THE TWENTY-NINTH DYNASTY.

Naifäarut I., or Nepherites, the first king of this dynasty, was a native of Mendes, and he associated his son Nectanebus with him in the rule of the kingdom. He supplied the Lacedæmonians with wood for building one hundred triremes and half a million bushels of grain at the time when Agesilaus was fighting against the Persians. He reigned six years, and was succeeded by P-se-mut or Psammuthis, who was in turn succeeded by Haker. Of Haker, or Achoris, the inscriptions say nothing, although his name is found inscribed on buildings and temples at Thebes, and in the quarries of Ma'ṣara and Turah. Towards the end of his Egyptians reign Achoris became an ally of Evagoras, king of Cyprus, but the king of Persia, against whom they began a war, succeeded in destroying their united fleet, and shortly after Achoris died, having reigned twelve or thirteen years. He seems to have been succeeded by Naifãarut II., who was, however, soon deposed on account of his unpopularity with the people.

declare

war against Persians.

379

378

Persian

attack upon Cyprus.

THE THIRTIETH DYNASTY.

To Necht-neb-f, or Nectanebus I., the son of Naifãarut I., the first king of this dynasty, fell the task of continuing the war which Achoris, his predecessor, and Evagoras, king of Cyprus, had begun against Artaxerxes II. The Persian king attacked Cyprus with great determination, but Evagoras met his forces with about one hundred ships and six thousand soldiers, and succeeded in partially stopping the supplies of grain for the enemy, in consequence of which a rebellion broke out among them. He increased his fleet as much as he was able, and with the addition of fifty ships from Egypt, attacked the Persians with all haste; in the great battle which followed, however, his ships were scattered or sunk,

1 Wiedemann thinks that the king of Egypt who assisted the Greeks in this matter is, from chronological grounds, more likely to have been Achoris. (Aeg. Geschichte, p. 698.)

Nec

attack

flood the

and the Persians sailed on to attack Salamis. Evagoras fled. to Egypt to obtain supplies from Nectanebus to carry on the war, but when he returned he found that his capital was besieged, and that his allies had fled. He straightway tendered his submission to the Persians, who finally decided to accept from him a yearly tribute and to consider him a vassal of Persia. The war against Evagoras being at an end, the Persian king next directed his attention to an attack Persian upon Egypt, and placing the Persian troops under the com- upon mand of Pharnabazus, and his Greek troops under that of Egypt. Iphicrates, he advanced against Egypt with nearly a quarter of a million soldiers and three hundred ships of war. tanebus on his part fortified each of the seven mouths of the Nile, giving particular attention to strengthening the defences Egyptians on the Pelusiac mouth, and he flooded the whole country Delta. round. When the Persian generals saw this they determined to make their attack by the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, and after a battle they succeeded in capturing the fort which commanded it, and reduced its defenders to slavery. A dispute next arose between Pharnabazus and Iphicrates as to an immediate attack upon Memphis, and while the former was opposing the march upon this city by the latter, the Egyptians themselves mustered a strong force there, and in the battles which followed the arrival of the allied army of Persians and Greeks were generally successful. Soon after this, owing to the inundation of the Nile, the Persians with- Retreat drew to Syria, and Iphicrates returned to Athens; thus the attack of the Persians, notwithstanding their immense army, came to nought. Nectanebus restored and added to many of the temples of Egypt, and after a reign of eighteen years was succeeded by T'cheḥrà, or Teos (Tachos), who reigned but two years; the Egyptian inscriptions make no mention of this king. From Greek historians we learn that Teos levied a tax on the Egyptians to carry on the war, and that, contrary to the advice of Agesilaus, one of his allies, he advanced to attack Phoenicia. During his absence the Egyptians revolted, and sent messengers to Syria to invite Nectanebus II., the lawful heir to the throne of Egypt, to come and take possession of his country. The allies of Teos forsook him, and

of the

Persians.

B.C.

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360

B.C.

358

Persian attack upon

he fled to the court of Artaxerxes II. and of Ochus the Persian kings, where, after a time spent in riotous living, he died.

Necht-neb-f, or Nectanebus II., was the last native king of Egypt, and having been helped by Agesilaus to overthrow a native of Mendes who aspired to the throne, he assumed the rule of the kingdom without further opposition. After the death of Artaxerxes II., Ochus determined to make an attack upon Egypt and Cyprus and Phoenicia, the kings of which had joined forces with each other and with the Egyptians to make themselves independent. Tennes, the king of Sidon, successfully expelled a number of Persians from Phoenicia, but when he heard that Ochus himself was coming to take vengeance upon him for this proceeding, he sent messengers to him to tender his submission, and to promise him his help in invading Egypt. The Persian king promised to overlook the past, but marched on Sidon, notPhoenicia. withstanding, and surrounded it; Tennes betrayed the city and led Artaxerxes and his army into it, whereupon the Sidonians destroyed their fleet and set fire to their houses with themselves and their wives and families inside them. The treachery of Tennes availed him nothing, for he was put to death by Artaxerxes. Phoenicia, and soon after Cyprus, fell into the hands of the Persian king, who now made ready in earnest to conquer Egypt. In a few small preliminary battles fought on the north-east frontier of Egypt, victory rested with the Persians, and when Nectanebus learned this, and saw that Pelusium was attacked in a systematic manner, he and his troops withdrew to Memphis; the Persians advanced through the Delta, and captured Bubastis, and their march to Memphis was a triumphal progress rather than the march of an enemy upon the capital of Egypt. Fear seized Nectanebus when he heard of the approach of the Persians, and having gathered together all the money that he could conveniently carry, he fled from his troubles, some say to Ethiopia, and some say to Macedon, where according to Pseudo-Callisthenes he became the father of Alexander the Great. Nectanebus, during his reign of seventeen or eighteen years, obtained the reputation of being a devout worshipper of the gods, and a sorcerer. The mines

Persians capture Cyprus.

Persians capture Memphis.

Flight of Nectanebus.

in the valley of Hammâmât were worked during his reign, and he added to and repaired many of the temples at Philæ, Thebes, Edfû, Heliopolis, etc. With the flight of Nectanebus the history of Egypt as an independent country comes to an end.

PERSIAN RULERS OF EGYPT.

R.C.

340

Egypt.

When Artaxerxes III., Ochus, became sole king of Egypt, he emulated the barbarous acts of Cambyses; the principal towns were looted and destroyed, the temples were Ochus overthrown, and their sanctuaries pillaged, the Apis bull was plunders killed and eaten by the king and his friends, and the ram of Mendes was slain. Ochus returned to Babylon with much spoil, and after a reign of twelve years was probably poisoned by Bagoas the Egyptian, who, it is said, thus avenged the slaughter of the Apis bull.

Arses, the youngest son of Ochus, next sat on the throne of Egypt, but in the third year of his reign he and his family were slain by Bagoas.

Arses was succeeded by Darius III., who narrowly escaped poisoning by the hand of Bagoas; the plot was, however, discovered, and Darius freed himself from the traitor by causing him to drink poison, and he died. Darius was defeated Defeat of by Alexander the Great at Issus, and the Greeks marched on Egypt and took possession of it without any difficulty.

Darius at
Issus.

MACEDONIANS.

Eg.

Alexander the Great founded the Alexandria near Rakoti,
Rägețit, Copt. påko†, and endeavoured

dria

332

to make it the central market-place of the known world. He was tolerant of the Egyptian religion, and sacrificed to Amen, Alexanthe god of Libya, who greeted him as his son. After about a founded. year spent in Egypt, Alexander set out on his expedition against Darius king of Persia. Having conquered all the east, and travelled nearly alone into China, he came back to Babylon, where he was poisoned at a banquet; his body was brought in great state to his city Alexandria and was buried there.

B. M.

F

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