Trouble in the west : the Persian Empire and Egypt, 525-332 BCE

338 Pages·2011·2.413 MB·English

by  Ruzicka, Stephen

Trouble in the West
OXFORD STUDIES IN EARLY EMPIRES
Series Editors
Nicola Di Cosmo, Mark Edward Lewis, and Walter Scheidel
Th e Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power fr om Assyria to Byzantium
Edited by Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel
Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires
Edited by Walter Scheidel
Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire , 525–332 bce
Stephen Ruzicka
Trouble in the West
Egypt and the Persian Empire,
525–332
BCE
S tephen R uzicka
1
3

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ruzicka, Stephen, 1946–
Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525–332 bce / Stephen Ruzicka.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-976662-8 (alk. paper)
1. Iran—History—To 640. 2. Egypt—History—To 332 b.c .
3. Egypt—History, Military—To 332 bce
4. Achaemenid dynasty, 559–330 bce I. Title.
DS281.R89 2011
935'.05—dc22 2011007113
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my wife, Camilla Anne Cornelius
For her enduring love and her loving endurance
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Author’s Note xi
List of Illustrations xiii
Maps xiv
Introduction: Stories and Sources xix
1. Persia and Egypt: Th e Historical Context 3
2. Persian Success: Conquest and Kingship, 525–518 14
3. Managing Egypt, 518–415 26
4. Losing Egypt, 415–400 35
5. Securing the Eastern Mediterranean, 400–395 41
6. Into the Aegean, 394–392 49
7. To Egypt: Preparations and Campaign, 391–387 66
8. Th e Egyptian War and the King’s Peace, 387–386 77
9. Egypt Strikes Back: Th e Cypriot War and the Struggle
for the Eastern Mediterranean, 386–379 83
10. Preparing the Second Campaign: Engaging Greeks, 380–373 99
11. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates’ Egyptian Campaign, 373 114
12. Court Politics and the Collapse of the Th ird Campaign, 372–365 122
13. Egyptian Strategy Shift s: Th e Genesis of Tachos’ Great
Off ensive, 364–361 134
14. Tachos: Campaign and Collapse, 360–359 145
15. P ersian Counteratt ack, 359? 151
16. Artaxerxes III: King and Commander, 358–350 154
17. Loss and Recovery of the Middle Territory, 350–345 164
18. Persian Success, 344–342 177
19. From Artaxerxes III to Alexander III, 342–332 199
20. E ast, West, and Far West aft er the Persians: Th e Long View 210
Appendix A. Kings of Egypt and Persia 219
Appendix B. Timeline/Chronological Chart 221
List of Abbreviations 223
Endnotes 227
Bibliography 285
Index 307
[ viii ] Contents
PREFACE
Th is book had its beginning when as a fl edgling ancient historian I was trying to
make sense of the “minor” terms of the King’s Peace of 387/6 bce , the Persian
king’s claims to Cyprus and Clazomenae, and concluded that Persia’s Egyptian
problems, particularly the failure of the fi rst fourth-century Persian att empt to
reconquer Egypt, best explained Persian policies in the west. I found, however,
that while many scholars made reference to Persia’s fourth-century Egyptian
War and suggested that it infl uenced Persian policies elsewhere, there was actu-
ally no extended treatment of Persian-Egyptian confl ict beyond a chapter in
Friedrich Karl Kienitz’s Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4.
Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende (Berlin, 1953), and nothing at all that employed a
Persian perspective.
Trouble in the West: Th e Persian Empire and Egypt, 525–332 bce att empts to fi ll
this void by reconstructing the story of the Persian-Egyptian confl ict from the sixth
to the fourth century and by exploring the ways in which this confl ict aff ected
Persian dealings with various other peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolian,
and Aegean worlds. Beyond contributing to a fuller understanding of Persian
imperial history, reconstruction of the Persian-Egyptian confl ict allows us to see
Persian imperial history in a broader context as one phase of a much longer history
of “trouble in the west”—the problem of Egypt—that successive Near Eastern
empires faced and tried to deal with.
It would not have been possible even to att empt such a study without the trans-
formative contributions to Achaemenid history, Late Egyptian history, and eastern
Mediterranean history that have appeared in recent years. Over the last several
decades scholars have been trying to look at the Persian Empire in its own terms
rather than through the lens of Persian-Greek relations, emphasizing where pos-
sible Persian and other non-Greek sources such as the Persepolis Tablets and the
Fortifi cation Tablets, looking at all the areas embraced by the Persian Empire, and
analyzing Persian practices and ideology in a Near Eastern context. Simply put, we