Scope: Dynasty XXVI at Sais had collapsed. With its last king, Psamtik III, captive in Persia, it was an easy matter for the Persians to enter Egypt. We will trace the Persian Dynasty by two methods. We will look at what the Greek traveler Herodotus said (he gave three different versions of the reason Persia invaded Egypt) and compare his views with Egyptian records. Although Egypt had by now been invaded and ruled by various foreigners, we will see an unbending will to be free on its part.
Outline
I. Cambyses II (525-522 BC) entered Egypt. Herodotus offered three versions of the invasion.
A. Some Egyptologists believe Herodotus was never in Egypt. He never mentioned the Sphinx, for example (periodically covered with sand), and he wrote that the pyramids of Giza were covered with inscriptions about bread, and onions, and beer.
B. But Herodotus, it seems, really was there. He only reported what he was told, and some of that turned out to be nonsense.
C. As for his versions of the Persian invasion:
1. Cambyses, he wrote in the first version, asked for Amasis’s daughter as mistress but was sent another girl instead in an attempted trick. He became enraged by the ruse and invaded Egypt out of anger.
2. In the second version, it was Cambyses’s father, Cyrus, who was sent the beautiful Egyptian girl, and Cambyses’s mother was subsequently ignored because her father was so enraptured. The ten-year-old Cambyses promised to turn Egypt upside-down when he finally came of age.
3. In a third version, Phanes, a Greek mercenary in Egypt, was dissatisfied with his lot. He defected to Cambyses and offered to show him how to invade Egypt, even across the treacherous Syrian desert. A Bedouin king would have camels with water skins waiting for them in Egypt—a pipeline for the Persian army.
II. Herodotus tells of a great deal more in the Persian invasion.
A. He says Phanes’s sons were killed in front of him before the battle and their blood was drunk by the Greeks of the Egyptian Army. But Egypt was routed.
A. Cambyses sent a herald to work out terms after the battle, but the Egyptians at Memphis tore him to bits and destroyed his ship. Cambyses took Memphis and leveled it in reprisal.
B. Herodotus also tells of how the Egyptian and Persian skeletons were separated after the battle and that the Egyptian skulls were “thicker” than the Persian ones because of their adaptation to the sun. Because this was an eyewitness account, perhaps Herodotuswas shown a cemetery that he was told was a battlefield and was told a fantastic story.
C. Cambyses, testing Psamtik’s will, had his son and other captives paraded with bridles in their mouths, being led to execution. Psamtik didn’t weep for his son, only crying when he saw a captured friend reduced to begging. When asked why he hadn’t cried for his son also, he responded that his suffering was too great for tears.
1. Cambyses was reportedly moved by this and took Psamtek into his palace.
2. But Psamtik plotted against the Persians and was killed.
D. Herodotus tells another fantastic story about Cambyses and Ethiopia. Cambyses sent spies disguised as gift-bearers to the king of Ethiopia, who dismissed the gifts as false. The adventure finally led to a botched invasion of Ethiopia by Cambyses and ended with subsequent cannibalism in the ranks. One in ten was killed to be eaten by the others.
E. Cambyses returned to Memphis and killed the Apis bull because he thought the Egyptians were rejoicing over his lost army.
III. Darius I (521-486 BC), the successor of Cambyses II, took greater interest in Egypt and built temples.
IV. Xerxes (485-465 BC), however, had twenty years of problems.
A. He put down the Egyptian rebellion, but it did not end the unrest.
B. The Egyptians revolted again (465 BC) because the Satrap (governor) Achaemenes (Xerxes’s son) was so brutal.
C. Xerxes was assassinated.
V. The next several kings presided over a decline in Persian influence.
A. Artaxerxes I (465-424 BC) had a long reign, but it was not without its problems. The son of Psamtik III, Inaros of Heliopolis, led a major revolt. The Egyptians were defeated and Inaros was executed (454 BC).
B. Darius II (423-405 BC) was plagued by Egyptian discontent, and the Egyptians finally became independent of Persian rule.
C. Artaxerxes II (405-359 BC), the last Persian to rule, didn’t even write his name in a cartouche. Persian rule of Egypt was over.
Essential Reading:
Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, pp. 363-372.
Supplementary Reading:
Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, pp. 198-200.
Questions to Consider:
1. How much can we trust Herodotus’s account of the Persian invasion Egypt?
2. How do you think the Egyptians viewed the Persians?