Egypt under Persian Rule

The Persians ruled Egypt from 525 BC, successfully fighting off the Libyans. After the Greek victory at Marathon in 490 BC, the Egyptians revolted (in 484 and again in 460 BC) with the help of the Athenians, but unsuccessfully.

In 404 BC Egypt succeeded in becoming independent, thanks to Persian weakness, and established Dynasties 28, 29 and 30. Dynasty 28 was very short (only one Pharaoh!). In Dynasty 29, the Egyptians made an alliance with Sparta where Sparta would help Egypt against the Persians in exchange for a lot of wheat, but unfortunately the Persians captured the Egyptian wheat ships on their way to Sparta, so that didn't work out very well. (The Egyptians were dealing with the Spartans now instead of the Athenians because Athens was weaker after the Peloponnesian War).

Nectanebo (from Boston Museum of Fine Arts)

The Pharaohs of Dynasty 30 tried to re-establish Egypt as an independent country. They fought off Persian invasions. One time, the Persians had to go home because the Nile flooded when they were trying to invade. Like the other Pharaohs, they made alliances with Sparta and Athens and other Greek cities to try to keep off the Persians. Some of them even tried to put the New Kingdom back together by invading Syria.

Alexander along with Egyptian gods,
in the Egyptian style

But in the end they couldn't keep fighting the Persians off. The Persians reconquered Egypt after sixty-three years, in 341 BC. But they didn't keep it very long. By 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt as part of his takeover of the Persian Empire.

To find out more about Egypt under Persian rule, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

Eyewitness: Ancient Egypt, by George Hart. For kids.

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, by Ian Shaw (2002).

History of Ancient Egypt: An Introduction, by Erik Hornung (1999). A college textbook. On the conservative side - not much on new developments.

Old Kingdom (2686-2160 BC)
First Intermediate Period (2160-2040 BC)
Middle Kingdom (2040-1633 BC)
Second Intermediate Period (1786-1558 BC)
New Kingdom (1558-1085 BC)
Third Intermediate Period (1085-525 BC)
Persian rule (525-332 BC)
Greek rule (332-30 BC) (also called the Hellenistic)
Roman rule (30 BC-700 AD)
Islamic rule (700 AD to present)