some years after the disaster of Marathon, Egypt was induced to rebel. Xerxes, 486-467 B.C., who put down the revolt with severity, and his successor Artaxerxes, 466-425 B.C., like Cambyses, were hateful to the Egyptians. The disorders which marked the accession of Artaxerxes gave Egypt another opportunity to rebel. Their leaders were Inaros the Libyan of Marea and the Egyptian Amyrtaeus. Aided by an Athenian force, Inaros slew the satrap Achaemenes at the battle of Papremis and destroyed his army; but the garrison of Memphis held out, and a fresh host from Persia raised the siege and in turn besieged the Greek and Egyptian forces on the island of Papremis. At last, after two years, having diverted the river from its channel, they captured and burnt the Athenian ships and quickly ended the rebellion. The reigns of Xerxes II. and Darius II. are marked by no recorded incident in Egypt until a successful revolt about 405 B.C. interrupted the Persian domination.
Monuments of the Persian rule in Egypt are exceedingly scanty. The inscriptions of Pefteuauneit, priest of Neith at Sais, and from his position the native authority who was most likely to be consulted by Cambyses and Darius, tells of his relations with these two kings. For the following reigns Egyptian documents hardly exist, but some papyri written in Aramaic have been found at Elephantine and at Memphis. Those from the former locality show that a colony of Jews with a temple dedicated to Yahweh (Jehovah) had established themselves at that garrison and trading post (see Assuan). Herodotus visited Egypt in the reign of Artaxerxes, about 440 B.C. His description of Egypt, partly founded on Hecataeus, who had been there about fifty years earlier, is the chief source of information for the history of the Saite kings and for the manners of the times, but his statements prove to be far from correct when they can be checked by the scanty native evidence. (F. Ll. G.)
Amyrtaeus (Amnertais) of Sais, perhaps a son of Pausiris and
grandson of the earlier Amyrtaeus, revolted from Darius II.
c. 405 B.C., and Egypt regained its independence for
about sixty years. The next king Nefeurēt
(Nepherites I.) was a Mendesian and founded the
Dynasties
XXVIII.-XXXI.
XXIXth Dynasty. After Hakor and Nefeurēt II. the
sovereignty passed to Dynasty XXX., the last native Egyptian
line. Monuments of all these kings are known, and art flourished
particularly under the Mendesian kings Nekhtharheb (Nectanebes
or Nectanebus I.) and Nekhtnebf (Nectanebes II.). The former
came to the throne when a Persian invasion was imminent,
378 B.C. Hakor had already formed a powerful army, largely
composed of Greek mercenaries. This army Nekhtharheb
entrusted to the Athenian Chabrias. The Persians, however,
succeeded in causing his recall and in gaining the services of
his fellow-countryman Iphicrates. The invading army consisted
of 200,000 barbarians under Pharnabazus and 20,000 Greeks
under Iphicrates. After the Egyptians had experienced a
reverse, Iphicrates counselled an immediate advance on Memphis.
His advice was not followed by Pharnabazus; the Egyptian
king collected his forces and won a pitched battle near Mendes.
Pharnabazus retreated and Egypt was free.
Nekhtharheb was succeeded by Tachos or Teos, whose short reign was occupied by a war with Persia, in which the king of Egypt secured the services of a body of Greek mercenaries under the Spartan king Agesilaus and a fleet under the Athenian general Chabrias. He entered Phoenicia with every prospect of success, but having offended Agesilaus he was dethroned in a military revolt which gave the crown to Nekhtnebf or Nectanebes II., the last native king of Egypt. At this moment a revolt broke out. The prince of Mendes almost succeeded in overthrowing the new king. Agesilaus defeated the rival pretender and left Nekhtnebf established on the throne. But the opportunity of a decisive blow against Persia was lost. The new king, Artaxerxes III. Ochus, determined to reduce Egypt. A first expedition was defeated by the Greek mercenaries of Nekhtnebf, but a second, commanded by Ochus himself, subdued Egypt with no further resistance than that of the Greek garrison of Pelusium. Nekhtnebf, instead of endeavouring to relieve them, retreated to Memphis and fled thence to Ethiopia, 340 (?) B.C. Thus miserably fell the monarchy of the Pharaohs, after an unexampled duration of 3000 years, or as some think far longer. More than 2000 years have since passed, and though Egypt has from time to time been independent, not one native prince has sat on the throne of the Pharaohs. “There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt” (Ezek. xxx. 13) was prophesied in the days of Apries as the final state of the land.
Ochus treated his conquest barbarously. From this brief re-establishment of Persian dominion (counted by Manetho as Dynasty XXXI.) no document survives except one papyrus that appears to be dated in the reign of Darius III.
See J. H. Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (New York and London, 1905); A History of the Ancient Egyptians (New York and London, 1908); Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, collected, edited and translated (5 vols., Chicago, 1906–1907); W. M. F. Petrie, A History of Egypt (from the earliest times to the XXXth Dynasty) (3 vols., London, 1899–1905); E. A. W. Budge, A History of Egypt, vols. i-vii. (London, 1902); G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’orient (6th ed., 1904), The Dawn of Civilization, The Struggle of the Nations, The Passing of the Empires (London, 1904, &c.); P. E. Newberry and J. Garstang, A Short History of Ancient Egypt (London, 1904); G. Steindorff, Die Blütezeit des Pharaonenreiches (Dyn. XVIII.) (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1900); H. Winckler, The Tell el Amarna Letters (Berlin, London and New York, 1896).
The Conquest by Alexander.—When, in 332 B.C., after the battle of Issus, Alexander entered Egypt, he was welcomed as a deliverer. The Persian governor had not forces enough to oppose him, and he nowhere experienced even the show of resistance. He visited Memphis, founded Alexandria, and went on pilgrimage to the oracle of Ammon (Oasis of Siwa). The god declared him to be his son, renewing thus an old Egyptian convention or belief; Olympias was supposed to have been in converse with Ammon, even as the mothers of Hatshepsut and Amenophis III. are represented in the inscriptions of the Theban temples to have received the divine essence. At this stage of his career the treasure and tribute of Egypt were of great importance to the Macedonian conqueror. He conciliated the inhabitants by the respect which he showed for their religion; he organized the government of the natives under two officers, who must have been already known to them (of these Petisis, an Egyptian, soon resigned his share into the charge of his colleague Doloaspis, who bears a Persian name.) But Alexander designed his Greek foundation of Alexandria to be the capital, and entrusted the taxation of Egypt and the control of its army and navy to Greeks. Early in 331 B.C. he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia. A granite gateway to the temple of Khnūm at Elephantine bears his name in hieroglyphic, and demotic documents are found dated in his reign.
The Ptolemaic Period.—On the division of Alexander’s dominions in 323 B.C., Egypt fell to Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty (see Ptolemies). Under these rulers the rich kingdom was heavily taxed to supply the sinews of war and to support every kind of lavish expenditure. Officials, and the higher ones were nearly all Greeks, were legion, but the whole system was so judiciously worked that there was little discontent amongst the patient peasantry. During the reign of Philadelphus the land gained from the bed of the lake of Moeris was assigned to veteran soldiers; the great armies of the Ptolemies were rewarded or supported by grants of farm lands, and men of Macedonian, Greek and Hellenistic extraction were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was probably least affected by the new influences, though the first Ptolemy established the Greek colony of Ptolemais to be its capital. Intermarriages, however, gradually had their effect; after the revolt of the natives in the reign of Ptolemy V., we find the Greek and Egyptian elements closely intermingled. Ptolemy I. had established the cult of the Memphite Serapis in a Graeco-Egyptian form, affording a common ground for native and Hellenistic worshippers. The greater number of the temples to the native deities in Upper Egypt and in Nubia (to 50 m. south
