nd 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.

Monuments of the Persian rule in Egypt are exceedingly scanty. The
inscriptions of Pefteuauneit, priest of Neith at Sais, and from his
position the native authority who was most likely to be consulted by
Cambyses and Darius, tells of his relations with these two kings. For
the following reigns Egyptian documents hardly exist, but some papyri
written in Aramaic have been found at Elephantine and at Memphis. Those
from the former locality show that a colony of Jews with a temple
dedicated to Yahweh (Jehovah) had established themselves at that
garrison and trading post (see ASSUAN). Herodotus visited Egypt in the
reign of Artaxerxes, about 440 B.C. His description of Egypt, partly
founded on Hecataeus, who had been there about fifty years earlier, is
the chief source of information for the history of the Saite kings and
for the manners of the times, but his statements prove to be far from
correct when they can be checked by the scanty native evidence.
(F. Ll. G.)

Dynasties XXVIII.-XXXI.

Amyrtaeus (Amnertais) of Sais, perhaps a son of Pausiris and grandson of
the earlier Amyrtaeus, revolted from Darius II. c. 405 B.C., and Egypt
regained its independence for about sixty years. The next king Nefeuret
(Nepherites I.) was a Mendesian and founded the XXIXth Dynasty. After
Hakor and Nefeuret II. the sovere