Amenophis IV., son of Amenophis III. and Taia, was perhaps the most remarkable character in the long line of the Pharaohs. He was a religious fanatic, who had probably been high priest of the sun-god at Heliopolis, and had come to Amenophis IV. view the sun as the visible source of life, creation, growth and activity, whose power was demonstrated in foreign lands almost as clearly as in Egypt. Thrusting aside all the multitudinous deities of Egypt and all the mythology even of Heliopolis, he devoted himself to the cult of the visible sun-disk, applying to it as its chief name the hitherto rare word Aton, meaning “sun”; the traditional divine name Harakht (Horus of the horizon), given to the hawk-headed sun-god of Heliopolis, was however allowed to subsist and a temple was built at Karnak to this god. The worship of the other gods was officially recognized until his fifth year, but then a sweeping reform was initiated by which apparently the new cult alone was permitted. Of the old deities Ammon represented by far the wealthiest and most powerful interests, and against this long favoured deity the Pharaoh hurled himself with fury. He changed his own name from Amenhotp, “Ammon is satisfied,” to Akhenaton, “pious to Aton,” erased the name and figure of Ammon from the monuments, even where it occurred as part of his own father’s name, abandoned Thebes, the magnificent city of Ammon, and built a new capital at El Amarna in the plain of Hermopolis, on a virgin site upon the edge of the desert. This with a large area around he dedicated to Aton in the sixth year, while splendid temples, palaces, houses and tombs for his god, for himself and for his courtiers were rising around him; apparently also this “son of Aton” swore an oath never to pass beyond the boundaries of Aton’s special domain. There are signs also that the polytheistic word “gods” was obliterated on many of the monuments, but other divine names, though almost entirely excluded from Akhenaton’s work, were left untouched where they already existed. In all local temples the worship of Aton was instituted. The confiscated revenues of Ammon and the tribute from Syria and Cush provided ample means for adorning Ekhaton (Akhetaton), “the horizon of Aton,” the new capital, and for richly rewarding those who adopted the Aton teaching fervently. But meanwhile the political needs of the empire were neglected; the dangers which threatened it at the end of the reign of Amenophis III. were never properly met; the dynasts in Syria were at war amongst themselves, intriguing with the great Hittite advance and with the Khabiri invaders. Those who relied on Pharaoh and remained loyal as their fathers had done sent letter after letter appealing for aid against their foes. But though a general was despatched with some troops, he seems to have done more harm than good in misjudging the quarrels. At length the tone of the letters becomes one of despair, in which flight to Egypt appears the only resource left for the adherents of the Egyptian cause. Before the end of the reign Egyptian rule in Syria had probably ceased altogether. Akhenaton died in or about the seventeenth year of his reign, c. 1350 b.c. He had a family of daughters, who appeared constantly with him in all ceremonies, but no son. Two sons-in-law followed him with brief reigns; but the second, Tutenkhaton, soon changed his name to Tutenkhamûn, and, without abandoning Ekhaton entirely, began to restore to Karnak its ancient splendour, with new monuments dedicated to Ammon. Akhenaton’s reform had not reached deep amongst the masses of the population; they probably retained all their old religious customs and superstitions, while the priesthoods throughout the country must have been fiercely opposed to the heretic’s work, even if silenced during his lifetime by force and bribes. One more adherent of his named Ay, a priest, ruled for a short time, but now Aton was only one of many gods. At length a general named Harmahib, who had served under Akhenaton, came to the throne as a whole-hearted supporter of the old religion; soon Aton and his royal following suffered the fate that they had imposed upon Ammon; their monuments were destroyed and their names and figures erased, while those of Ammon were restored. From the time of Rameses II. onwards the years of the reigns of the heretics were counted to Harmahib, and Akhenaton was described as “that criminal of Akhetaton.” Harmahib had to bring order as a practical man into the long-neglected administration of the country and to suppress the extortions of the official classes by severe measures. His laws to this end were engraved on a great stela in the temple of Karnak, of which sufficient remains to bear witness to his high aims, while the prosperity of the succeeding reigns shows how well he realized the necessities of the state. He probably began also to re-establish the prestige of Egypt by military expeditions in the surrounding countries.
Harmahib appears to have legitimated his rule by marriage to a royal princess, but it is probable that Rameses I., who succeeded as founder of the XIXth Dynasty, was not closely related to him. Rameses in his brief reign of XIXth Dynasty. two years planned and began the great colonnaded hall of Karnak, proving that he was a man of great ideas, though probably too old to carry them out; this task he left to his son Seti I., who reigned one year with his father and on the latter’s death was ready at once to subdue the Bedouin Shasu, who had invaded Palestine and withheld all tribute. This task was quickly accomplished and Seti pushed onward to the Lebanon. Here cedars were felled for him by the Syrian princes, and the Phoenicians paid homage before he returned home in triumph. The Libyans had also to be dealt with, and afterwards Seti advanced again through Palestine, ravaged the land of the Amorites and came into conflict with the Hittites. The latter, however, were now firmly established in the Orontes valley, and a treaty with Mutallu, the king of Kheta, reigning far away in Cappadocia, probably ended the wars of Seti. In his ninth year he turned his attention to the gold mines in the eastern desert of Nubia and improved the road thither. Meanwhile the great work at Karnak projected by his father was going forward, and throughout Egypt the injuries done to the monuments by Akhenaton were thoroughly repaired; the erased inscriptions and figures were restored, not without many blunders. Seti’s temple at Abydos and his galleried tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings stand out as the most splendid examples of their kind in design and in Rameses II. decoration. Rameses II. succeeded at an early age and reigned sixty-seven years, during which he finished much that was begun by Seti and filled all Egypt and Nubia with his own monuments, some of them beautiful, but most, necessarily entrusted to inferior workmen, of coarse execution. The excavation of the rock temple of Abu Simbel and the completion of the great hall of Karnak were his greatest achievements in architecture. His wars began in his second year, their field comprising the Nubians, the Libyans, the Syrians and the Hittites. In his fifth year, near Kadesh on the Orontes, his army was caught unprepared and divided by a strong force of chariots of the Hittites and their allies, and Rameses himself was placed in the most imminent danger; but through his personal courage the enemy was kept at bay till reinforcements came up and turned the disaster into a victory. The incidents of this episode were a favourite subject in the sculptures of his temples, where their representation was accompanied by a poetical version of the affair and other explanatory inscriptions. Kadesh, however, was not captured, and after further contests, in his twenty-first year Rameses and the Hittite king Khattusil (Kheta-sar) made peace, with a defensive alliance against foreign aggression and internal revolt (see [Hittites]). Thanks to Winckler’s discoveries, the cuneiform text of this treaty from Boghaz Keui can now be compared with the hieroglyphic text at Karnak. In the thirty-fourth year, c. 1250 b.c., Khattusil with his friend or subject the king of Kode came from his distant capital to see the wonders of Egypt in person, bringing one of his daughters to be wife of the splendid Pharaoh. Rameses II. paid much attention to the Delta, which had been neglected until the days of Seti I., and resided there constantly; the temple of Tanis must have been greatly enlarged and adorned by him; a colossus of the king placed here was over 90 ft. in height, exceeding in scale even the greatest of the Theban colossi which he had erected in his mortuary temple of the Ramesseum. Towards the end of the long reign the vigilance and energy of the old king diminished. The military spirit awakened in the struggle with the Hyksos had again departed from the Egyptian nation; mercenaries from the Sudan, from Libya and from the northern nations supplied the armies, while foreigners settled in the rich lands of the Delta and harried the coasts. It was a time too when the movements of the nations that so frequently occurred in the ancient world were about to be particularly active. Mineptah, c. 1225 b.c., succeeding his father Rameses II., had to fight many battles for the preservation of his kingdom and empire. Apparently most of the fighting was finished by the fifth year of his reign; in his mortuary temple at Thebes he set up a stela of that date recording a great victory over the Libyan immigrants and invaders, which rendered the much harried land of Egypt safe. The last lines picture this condition with the crushing of the surrounding tribes. Libya was wasted, the Hittites pacified, Canaan, Ashkelon (Ascalon), Gezer, Yenoam sacked and plundered: “Israel is desolated, his seed is not, Khor (Palestine) has become a widow (without protector) for Egypt.” The Libyans are accompanied by allies whose names, Sherden, Shekelesh, Ekwesh, Lukku, Teresh, suggest identifications with Sardinians, Sicels, Achaeans, Lycians and Tyrseni or Etruscans. The Sherden had been in the armies of Rameses II., and are distinguished by their remarkable helmets and apparently body armour of metal. The Lukku are certainly the same as the Lycians. Probably they were all sea-rovers from the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, who were willing to leave their ships and join the Libyans in raids on the rich lands of Egypt. Mineptah was one of the most unconscionable usurpers of the monuments of his predecessors, including those of his own father, who, it must be admitted, had set him the example. The coarse cutting of his cartouches contrasts with the splendid finish of the Middle Kingdom work which they disfigure. It may be questioned whether it was due to a wave of enthusiasm amongst the priests and people, leading them to rededicate the monuments in the name of their deliverer, or a somewhat insane desire of the king to perpetuate his own memory in a singularly unfortunate manner. Mineptah, the thirteenth son in the huge family of Rameses, must have been old when he ascended the throne; after his first years of reign his energies gave way, and he was followed by a quick succession of inglorious rulers, Seti II., the queen Tuosri, Amenmesse, Siptah; the names of the last two were erased from their monuments.
A great papyrus written after the death of Rameses III. and recording his gifts to the temples briefly reviews the conditions of these troublous times. “The land of Egypt was in the hands of chiefs and rulers of towns, great and XXth Dynasty. small slaying each other; afterwards a certain Syrian made himself chief; he made the whole land tributary before him; he united his companions and plundered their property (i.e. of the other chiefs). They made the gods like men, and no offerings were presented in the temples. But when the gods inclined themselves to peace ... they established their son Setenkhot (Setnekht) to be ruler of every land.” Of the Syrian occupation we know nothing further. Setenkhot, c. 1200 b.c., had a very short reign and was not counted as legitimate, but he established a lasting dynasty (probably by conciliating the priesthood). He was father of Rameses III., who revived the glories of the empire. The dangers that menaced Egypt now were similar to those which Mineptah had to meet at his accession. Again the Libyans and the “peoples of the sea” were acting in concert. The latter now comprised Peleset (the Cretans, ancestors of the Philistines), Thekel, Shekelesh, Denyen (Danaoi?) and Weshesh; they had invaded Syria from Asia Minor, reaching the Euphrates, destroying the Hittite cities and progressing southwards, while their ships gathered plunder from the coasts of the Delta. This fleet joined the Libyan invaders, but was overthrown with heavy loss by the Egyptians, in whose ranks there actually served many Sherden and Kehaka, Sardinian and Libyan mercenaries. Egypt itself was thus clear of enemies; but the chariots and warriors of the Philistines and their associates were advancing through Syria, their families and goods following in ox-carts, and their ships accompanying them along the shore. Rameses led out his army and fleet against them and struck them so decisive a blow that the migrating swarm submitted to his rule and paid him tribute. In his eleventh year another Libyan invasion had to be met, and his suzerainty in Palestine forcibly asserted. His vigour was equal to all these emergencies and the later years of his reign were spent in peace. Rameses III., however, was not a great ruler. He was possessed by the spirit of decadence, imitative rather than originating. It is evident that Rameses II. was the model to which he endeavoured to conform, and he did not attempt to preserve himself from the weakening influences of priestcraft. To the temples he not only restored the property which had been given to them by former kings, but he also added greatly to their wealth; the Theban Ammon naturally received by far the greatest share, more than those of all the other gods together. The land held in the name of different deities is estimated at about 15% of the whole of Egypt; various temples of Ammon owned two-thirds of this, Re of Heliopolis and Ptah of Memphis being the next in wealth. His palace was at Medinet Habu on the west bank of Thebes in the south quarter; and here he built a great temple to Ammon, adorned with scenes from his victories and richly provided with divine offerings. Although Egypt probably was prosperous on the whole, there was undoubtedly great distress amongst certain portions of the population. We read in a papyrus of a strike of starving labourers in the Theban necropolis who would not work until corn was given to them, and apparently the government storehouse was empty at the time, perhaps in consequence of a bad Nile. Shortly before the death of the old king a plot in the harem to assassinate him, and apparently to place one of his sons on the throne, was discovered and its investigation ordered, leading after his death to the condemnation of many high-placed men and women. Nine kings of the name of Rameses now followed each other ingloriously in the space of about eighty years to the end of the XXth Dynasty, the power of the high priests of Ammon ever growing at their expense. At this time the Theban necropolis was being more systematically robbed than ever before. Under Rameses IX. an investigation took place which showed that one of the royal tombs before the western cliffs had been completely ransacked and the mummies burnt. Three years later the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings was attacked and the sepulchres of Seti I. and Rameses II. were robbed.
The authority of the last king of the XXth Dynasty, Rameses XII., was shadowy. Hrihor, the high priest in his reign, gradually gathered into his own hands all real power, and succeeded him at Thebes, c. 1100 b.c., The Deltaic Dynasties; Libyan period. while a prince at Tanis named Smendes (Esbentêti) founded a separate dynasty in the Delta (Dynasty XXI.). From this period dates a remarkable papyrus containing the report of an envoy named Unamûn, sent to Syria by Hrihor to obtain cedar timber from Byblus. He took with him an image of Ammon to bestow life and health on the prince of Byblus, but apparently no other provision for the journey or for the negotiations beyond a letter of recommendation to Smendes and a little gold and silver. Smendes had trading ships in the Phoenician ports, but even his influence was not greater than that of other commercial or pirate centres, while Hrihor was of no account except in so far as he might pay well for the cedar wood he required. Unamûn was robbed on the voyage, the prince of Byblus rebuffed him, and when at last the latter agreed to provide the timber it was only in exchange for substantial gifts hastily sent for from Egypt (including rolls of papyrus) and the promise of more to follow. The prince, however, seems to have acknowledged to some extent the divinity of Ammon and the debt owed by Phoenicia to Egyptian culture, and pitied the many misfortunes of Unamûn. The narrative shows the feebleness of Egypt abroad. The Tanite line of kings generally had the over-lordship of the high priests of Thebes; the descendants of Hrihor, however, sometimes by marriage with princesses of the other line, could assume cartouches and royal titles, and in some cases perhaps ruled the whole of Egypt. Ethiopia may have been ruled with the Thebais, but the records of the time are very scanty. Syria was wholly lost to Egypt. The mummies from the despoiled tombs of the kings were the object of much anxious care to the kings of this dynasty; after being removed from one tomb to another, they were finally deposited in a shaft near the temple of Deir el Bahri, where they remained for nearly three thousand years, until the demand for antiquities at last brought the plunderer once more to their hiding-place; eventually they were all secured for the Cairo museum, where they may now be seen.
Libyan soldiers had long been employed in the army, and their military chiefs settled in the large towns and acquired wealth and power, while the native rulers grew weaker and weaker. The Tanite dynasty may have risen from a Libyan stock, though there is nothing to prove it; the XXIInd Dynasty are clearly from their names of foreign extraction, and their genealogy indicates distinctly a Libyan military origin in a family of rulers of Heracleopolis Magna, in Middle Egypt. Sheshonk (Shishak) I., the founder of the dynasty, c. 950 b.c., seems to have fixed his residence at Bubastis in the Delta, and his son married the daughter of the last king of the Tanite dynasty. Heracleopolis seems henceforth for several centuries to have been capital of Middle Egypt, which was considered as a more or less distinct province. Sheshonk secured Thebes, making one of his sons high priest of Ammon, and whereas Solomon appears to have dealt with a king of Egypt on something like an equal footing, Sheshonk re-established Egyptian rule in Palestine and Nubia, and his expedition in the fifth year of Rehoboam subdued Israel as well as Judah, to judge by the list of city names which he inscribed on the wall of the temple of Karnak. Osorkon I. inherited a prosperous kingdom from his father, but no further progress was made. It required a strong hand to curb the Libyan chieftains, and divisions soon began to show themselves in the kingdom. The XXIInd Dynasty lasted through many generations; but there were rival kings, and M. Legrain thinks that he has proof that the XXIIIrd Dynasty was contemporaneous with the end of the XXIInd. The kings of the XXIIIrd Dynasty had little hold upon the subject princes, who spent the resources of the country in feuds amongst themselves. A native kingdom had meanwhile been established in Ethiopia. Our first knowledge of it is at this moment, when the Ethiopian king Pankhi already held the Thebais. The energetic prince of Sais, Tefnakht, followed by most of the princes of the Delta, subdued most of Middle Egypt, and by uniting these forces threatened the Ethiopian border. Heracleopolis Magna, however, with its petty king Pefteuaubasti, held out against Tefnakht, and Pankhi coming to its aid not only drove Tefnakht out of Middle Egypt, but also captured Memphis and received the submission of the princes and chiefs; in all these included four “kings” and fourteen other chiefs. According to Diodorus the Ethiopian state was theocratic, ruled through the king by the priests of Ammon. The account is probably exaggerated; but even in Pankhi’s record the piety of the king, especially towards Ammon, is very marked.
The XXIVth Dynasty consisted of a single Saite king named Bocchoris (Bekerrinf), son of Tefnachthus, apparently the above Tefnakht. Another Ethiopian invader, Shabako (Sabacon), is said to have burnt Bocchoris alive. The Ethiopian Dynasty. Ethiopian rule of the XXVth Dynasty was now firmly established, and the resources of the two countries together might have been employed in conquest in Syria and Phoenicia; but at this very time the Assyrian empire, risen to the highest pitch of military greatness, began to menace Egypt. The Ethiopian could do no more than encourage or support the Syrians in their fight for freedom against Sargon and Sennacherib. Shabako was followed by Shebitku and Shebitku by Tirhaka (Tahrak, Taracos). Tirhaka was energetic in opposing the Assyrian advance, but in 670 b.c. Esarhaddon defeated his army on the border of Egypt, captured Memphis with the royal harem and took great spoil. The Egyptian resistance to the Assyrians was probably only half-hearted; in the north especially there must have been a strong party against the Ethiopian rule. Tirhaka laboured to propitiate the north country, and probably rendered the Ethiopian rule acceptable throughout Egypt. Notwithstanding, the Assyrian king entrusted the government and collection of tribute to the native chiefs; twenty princes in all are enumerated in the records, including one Assyrian to hold the key of Egypt at Pelusium. Scarcely had Esarhaddon withdrawn before Tirhaka returned from his refuge in the south and the Assyrian garrisons were massacred. Esarhaddon promptly prepared a second expedition, but died on the way to Egypt in 668 b.c.; his son Assur-bani-pal sent it forward, routed Tirhaka and reinstated the governors. At the head of these was Necho (Niku), king of Sais and Memphis, father of Psammetichus, the founder of the XXVIth Dynasty. We next hear that correspondence with Tirhaka was intercepted, and that Necho, together with Pekrûr of Psapt (at the entrance to the Wadi Tumilat) and the Assyrian governor of Pelusium, was taken to Nineveh in chains to answer the charge of treason. Whatever may have occurred, it was deemed politic to send Necho back loaded with honours and surrounded by a retinue of Assyrian officials. Upper Egypt, however, was loyal to Tirhaka, and even at Memphis the burial of an Apis bull was dated by the priests as in his reign. Immediately afterwards he died. His nephew Tandamane, received by the Upper country with acclamations, besieged and captured Memphis, Necho being probably slain in the encounter. But in 661 (?) Assur-bani-pal drove the Ethiopian out of Lower Egypt, pursued him up the Nile and sacked Thebes. This was the last and most tremendous visitation of the Assyrian scourge.
Psammetichus (Psammêtk), 664-610 b.c., the son of Necho, succeeded his father as a vassal of Assyria in his possessions of Memphis and Sais, allied himself with Gyges, king of Lydia, and aided by Ionian and Carian mercenaries, XXVIth Dynasty. extended and consolidated his power.[21] By the ninth year of his reign he was in full possession of Thebes. Assur-bani-pal’s energies throughout this crisis were entirely occupied with revolts nearer home, in Babylon, Elam and Arabia. The Assyrian arms again triumphed everywhere, but at the cost of complete exhaustion. Under the firm and wise rule of Psammetichus, Egypt recovered its prosperity after the terrible losses inflicted by internal wars and the decade of Assyrian invasions. The revenue went up by leaps and bounds. Psammetichus guarded the frontiers of Egypt with three strong garrisons, placing the Ionian and Carian mercenaries especially at the Pelusiac Daphnae in the N.E., from which quarter the most formidable enemy was likely to appear. The Assyrians did not move against him, but a great Scythian horde, destroying all before it in its southward advance, is said by Herodotus to have been turned back by presents and entreaties. Diplomacy backed up by vigorous preparations may have deterred the Scythians from the dangerous enterprise of crossing the desert to Egypt. Before his death Psammetichus had advanced into southern Palestine and captured Azotus.
When Psammetichus began to reign the situation of Egypt was very different from what it had been under the Empire. The development of trade in the Mediterranean and contact with new peoples and new civilizations in peace and war had given birth to new ideas among the Egyptians and at the same time to a loss of confidence in their own powers. The Theban supremacy was gone and the Delta was now the wealthy and progressive part of Egypt; piety increased amongst the masses, unenterprising and unwarlike, but proud of their illustrious antiquity. Thebes and Ammon and the traditions of the Empire savoured too much now of the Ethiopian; the priests of the Memphite and Deltaic dynasty thereupon turned deliberately for their models to the times of the ancient supremacy of Memphis, and the sculptures and texts on tomb and temple had to conform as closely as possible to those of the Old Kingdom. In other than religious matters, however, the Egyptians were inventing and perhaps borrowing. To enumerate a few examples of this which are already definitely known: we find that the forms of legal and business documents became more precise; the mechanical arts of casting in bronze on a core and of moulding figures and pottery were brought to the highest pitch of excellence; and portraiture in the round on its highest plane was better than ever before and admirably lifelike, revealing careful study of the external anatomy of the individual.
Psammetichus died in the fifty-fourth year of his reign and was succeeded by his son Necho, 610-594 b.c. Taking advantage of the helpless state of the Assyrians, whose capital was assailed by the Medes and the Babylonians, the new Pharaoh prepared an expedition to recover the ancient possessions of the Empire in Syria. Josiah alone, faithful to the king of Assyria, opposed him with his feeble force at Megiddo and was easily overcome and slain. Necho went forward to the Euphrates, put the land to tribute, and, in the case of Judah at any rate, filled the throne with his own nominee (see [Jehoiakim]). The fall of Nineveh and the division of the spoil gave to Nabopolasser, king of Babylon, the inheritance of the Assyrians in the west, and he at once despatched his son Nebuchadrezzar to fight Necho. The Babylonian and Egyptian forces met at Carchemish (605), and the rout of the latter was so complete that Necho relinquished Syria and might have lost Egypt as well had not the death of Nabopolasser recalled the victor to Babylon. Herodotus relates that in Necho’s reign a Phoenician ship despatched from Egypt actually circumnavigated Africa, and the attempt was made to complete a canal through the Wadi Tumilat, which connected the Mediterranean and Red Seas by way of the Lower Egyptian Nile. (See [Suez].) The next king, Psammetichus II., 594-589 b.c., according to one account made an expedition to Syria or Phoenicia, and apparently sent a mercenary force into Ethiopia as far as Abu Simbel. Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), 589-570 b.c., fomented rebellion against the Babylonian suzerainty in Judah, but accomplished little there. Herodotus, however, describes his reign as exceedingly prosperous. The mercenary troops at Elephantine mutinied and attempted to desert to Ethiopia, but were brought back and punished. Later, however, a disastrous expedition sent to aid the Libyans against the Greek colony of Cyrene roused the suspicion and anger of the native soldiery at favours shown to the mercenaries, who of course had taken no part in it. Amasis (Aḥmosi) II. was chosen king by the former (570-525 b.c.), and his swarm of adherents overcame the Greek troops in Apries’ pay (see [Amasis]). None the less Amasis employed Greeks in numbers, and cultivated the friendship of their tyrants. His rule was confined to Egypt (and perhaps Cyprus), but Egypt itself was very prosperous. At the beginning of his long reign of forty-four years he was threatened by Nebuchadrezzar; later he joined the league against Cyrus and saw with alarm the fall of his old enemy. A few months after his death, 525 b.c., the invading host of the Persians led by Cambyses reached Egypt and dethroned his son Psammetichus III.
Cambyses at first conciliated the Egyptians and respected their religion; but, perhaps after the failure of his expedition into Ethiopia, he entirely changed his policy, and his memory was generally execrated. He left Egypt so The Persian period, XXVIIth Dynasty. completely crushed that the subsequent usurpation of the Persian throne was marked by no revolt in that quarter. Darius, 521-486 b.c., proved himself a beneficent ruler, and in a visit to Egypt displayed his consideration for the religion of the country. In the Great Oasis he built a temple to Ammon. The annual tribute imposed on the satrapy of Egypt and Cyrene was heavy, but it was probably raised with ease. The canal from the Nile to the Red Sea was completed or repaired, and commerce flourished. Documents dated in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth years of Darius are not uncommon, but apparently at the very end of his reign, 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.