For the few succeeding dynasties the balance of power swung between the native rulers and their Persian conquerors, Xerxes or Khshaiarsha, whose wife was named Amestris, reconquered Egypt in the second year of his reign, and increased its burdens. He also seems to have made love to the wife of his brother Masistes and to her daughter, the wife of his son Darius, and because Xerxes gave this daughter-in-law Artaynte, for whom he had an unlawful affection, a beautiful mantle, woven by his wife Amestris, the queen had the mother of her rival most cruelly mutilated. Xerxes was himself subsequently murdered, apparently a not undeserved fate.
Under Artaxerxes his son, who succeeded, B. C. 465, the Egyptians again threw off the hated yoke, but after various vicissitudes were reconquered. This prince was said to be largely under the influence of his mother Amestris and his sister Amytir, both women of ill-regulated lives. His only legal wife was Damaspia, but he had many children by his concubines. Several native rulers who reigned briefly and were murdered in succession, came next. Then we have Darius II, previously called Ochus, and subsequently Nothus, said to be one of the seventeen illegitimate sons of Artaxerxes I, who married Paraysatis, daughter of Xerxes I. Darius II reigned nineteen years and was followed by Artaxerxes II, said to be the last Persian king who left any memorial of himself in Egypt. He styled himself “Beloved of Amen-Ra,” and “Beautiful god, lord of the two lands.”
During this period the Egyptians associated themselves with the Athenians and Amyrtaeus, a descendant of the Saite kings, ruled for a period of six years. He is sometimes considered identical with a certain Amen-rut and a portion of the coffin of his daughter, Ar-Bast-utchat-nifu, is in the Berlin museum, but that the two are the same king is questioned by others. Amyrtaeus was deemed of sufficient importance, however, to be counted as the Twenty-eighth Dynasty, but we find no mention of his queen.
Nepherites is given as the only king of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty, from Mendes, and reigned some years, but again we learn nothing of the queen. Akhoris or Haker was first king of the Thirtieth Dynasty, he repaired various temples, and his name is found in several places. Several unimportant kings followed, one authority says that the revolt of the Medes permitted the authority of the Egyptian king Hakis, Akhorus or Achorus, of whom we have made mention, and of whom some memorials are found here and there, and a sphinx in Paris bears his name. The kings who succeeded are regarded as of little moment, Nectanebus I is frequently considered the next king and he succeeded in keeping the authority in his hands, some say ten, some eighteen years. He seems to have been capable both as a soldier and a ruler, and somewhat revived the pomp which had been so characteristic of the earlier kings. He built some temples and shrines and repaired many of the important ones, and his name appears in various places. An obelisk cut by this king (whose name occurs at Philae), but which was not inscribed, was afterwards floated down the Nile by Ptolemy Philadelphus and erected in honor of his sister in the Arsinoite home. The fine stone lions once at the Fontane di Termine at Rome, but now placed in the Egyptian Museum in the Vatican, are said to be the last piece of Egyptian sculpture executed under native princes. He seems to have been one of the few kings who defeated the Persians. Nectanebus II, who was both a builder and a warrior, was the only other king of importance of this dynasty.
Ochus, Artaxerxes III, of the Thirty-first Dynasty, out-heroded Herod and led to the final collapse of the Persian power in Egypt. He emulated and even surpassed Cambyses, causing the sacred bull not only to be killed, but cooked and eaten at a feast. Darius Codomanus was the last Persian king, and when Alexander came as conqueror of these hated rulers the Egyptians made him welcome. He at once began a conciliatory policy, sacrificed to Apis, built a temple to Isis, and caused himself to be adopted by and proclaimed son of Zeus-Amon. He remained some time, founded the city of Alexandria, placed rulers over Egypt and departed from Memphis B. C. 331. Living he never again saw the land, but his corpse was brought back from Babylon and deposited in a sarcophagus in Alexandria.
The favorite stone of the Persian gem engravers was chalcedony, a semi-transparent, white quartz, the blue variety of which is the sapphire and on this one sometimes finds engraved the head of a Persian king.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.
ROXANE.
The Persian yoke had become so intolerable to the Egyptians that they were prepared to accept any other conqueror with positive enthusiasm, and the Macedonian Alexander and his followers were welcomed rather as friends than as enemies and hated masters.