Egyptian Independence from Persia
Egypt revolted from Persia around 404 BC and stayed independent for sixty years. It had been a satrapy since Cambyses conquered it in 525 BC, and had rebelled repeatedly — under Darius I, and again after Marathon, and again with Athenian help in the 460s, when a large Athenian fleet was destroyed in the Delta. The opportunity in 404 was dynastic. Darius II died, and his sons Artaxerxes II and Cyrus the Younger went to war for the throne. With the empire's attention and its armies committed to a civil war that ended at Cunaxa in 401 BC, the western provinces were unpoliced. Amyrtaeus of Sais raised the Delta and drove the Persians out, and is the sole king of the Twenty-Eighth Dynasty. The independence that followed was real but permanently insecure, and Egyptian kings spent it hiring Greek mercenaries and generals — Chabrias and Iphicrates of Athens, and the aged Agesilaus of Sparta — and funding revolts elsewhere in the Persian empire to keep it occupied. Nectanebo I repelled a large Persian invasion in 373 BC when the Nile flood and a quarrel between the Persian commanders did most of the work. Egypt joined the Great Satraps' Revolt in the 360s and its own king was overthrown by his nephew while campaigning in Syria. Artaxerxes III reconquered it in 343 BC after two failed attempts, and the reprisals were severe. Persian rule lasted eleven more years. Alexander was welcomed as a liberator in 332 BC. The Ptolemies ruled for the following three centuries, and no native Egyptian governed Egypt again until 1952.
- Year: 404 BCE
- Category: Political
