Cyrus the Younger
Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II of Persia and Parysatis, was a Persian prince and general, Satrap of Lydia and Ionia from 408 to 401 BC. His birth date is unknown, but he died in 401 BC after a failed battle to oust his elder brother, Artaxerxes II, from the Persian throne; the history of Cyrus and of the retreat of his Greek mercenaries is told by Xenophon in his Anabasis. Another account from Sophaenetus of Stymphalus, was used by Ephorus. Further information is contained in the excerpts from Artaxerxes II's physician, Ctesias, by Photius; these are the only early sources of information on Cyrus the Younger. According to Xenophon, Cyrus the Younger was born after the accession of his father in 424 BC, he had an elder brother and two younger brothers named Ostanes and Oxathres. About Cyrus' childhood, Plutarch wrote, "Cyrus, from his earliest youth, showed something of a headstrong and vehement character. Xenophon spoke more of Cyrus' excellence as a child: In this courtly training Cyrus earned a double reputation.
Nor less in matters of war, in the use of the bow and the javelin, was he held by men in general to be at once the aptest of learners and the most eager practiser. As soon as his age permitted, the same pre-eminence showed itself in his fondness for the chase, not without a certain appetite for perilous adventure in facing the wild beasts themselves. Once a bear made a furious rush at him, without wincing he grappled with her, was pulled from his horse, receiving wounds the scars of which were visible through life. In 408 BC, after the victories of Alcibiades leading to an Athenian resurgence, Darius II decided to continue the war against Athens and give strong support to the Spartans, he sent Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as satrap of Lydia and Phrygia Major with Cappadocia, commander of the Persian troops, "which gather into the field of Castolos", i.e. of the army of the district of Asia Minor. There, Cyrus met the Spartan general Lysander. In him, Cyrus found a man, willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince.
Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his father Darius, he gave Lysander the revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. Around that time, Darius called his son to his deathbed. Plutarch wrote that Cyrus's mother, favored him and wanted him on the throne, "And therefore, his father Darius now lying ill, he, being sent for from the sea to the court, set out thence with full hopes that by her means he was to be declared the successor to the kingdom. For Parysatis had the specious plea in his behalf, which Xerxes on the advice of Demaratus had of old made use of, that she had borne him Arsicas when he was a subject, but Cyrus when a king. Notwithstanding, she prevailed not with Darius, but the eldest son Arsicas was proclaimed king, his name being changed into Artaxerxes. According to Plutarch, "his resentment for made him more eagerly desirous of the kingdom than before."In 405 BC, Lysander won the battle of Aegospotami, Sparta became more influential in the Greek world.
Cyrus managed to gather a large army by beginning a quarrel with Tissaphernes, satrap of Caria, about the Ionian towns. In the spring of 401 BC, Cyrus united all his forces into an army now including Xenophon's "Ten Thousand", advanced from Sardis without announcing the object of his expedition. By dexterous management and large promises, he overcame the misgivings of the Greek troops over the length and danger of the war. Cyrus the Younger had obtained the support of the Spartans after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", in reference to the support he had given the Spartan in the Peloponnesian War against Athens a few years earlier; the king had only been gathered an army in haste. In October 401 BC, the battle of Cunaxa ensued. Cyrus had 10,400 Greek hoplites, 2,500 peltasts, an Asiatic army of 10,000 under the command of Ariaeus. Cyrus saw.
Babylon
Babylon was a key kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia from the 18th to 6th centuries BC. The city was built on the Euphrates river and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods. Babylon was a small Akkadian town dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. The town became part of a small independent city-state with the rise of the First Babylonian dynasty in the 19th century BC. After the Amorite king Hammurabi created a short-lived empire in the 18th century BC, he built Babylon up into a major city and declared himself its king, southern Mesopotamia became known as Babylonia and Babylon eclipsed Nippur as its holy city; the empire waned under Hammurabi's son Samsu-iluna and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the short lived Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although a number of scholars believe these were in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.
After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world c. 1770 – c. 1670 BC, again c. 612 – c. 320 BC. It was the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the maximum extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares; the remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The main sources of information about Babylon—excavation of the site itself, references in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, references in the Bible, descriptions in classical writing, second-hand descriptions —present an incomplete and sometimes contradictory picture of the ancient city at its peak in the sixth century BC; the English Babylon comes from a transliteration of the Akkadian Bābilim. Archibald Sayce, writing in the 1870s, considered Bab-ilu or Bab-ili to be the translation of an earlier Sumerian name Ca-dimirra, meaning "gate of god", based on the characters KAN4 DIĜIR.
RAKI or based on other characters. According to Professor Dietz-Otto Edzard, the city was called Babilla, but by the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur, through a process of etymological speculation, had become Bāb-ili meaning "gate of god" or "god's gate"; the "gate of god" translation is viewed as a folk etymology to explain an unknown original non-Semitic placename. Linguist I. J. Gelb suggested in 1955 that Babil/Babilla is the basis of the city name, of unknown meaning and origin, as there were other similarly-named places in Sumer, there are no other examples of Sumerian place-names being replaced with Akkadian translations, he deduced that it transformed into Akkadian Bāb-ili, that the Sumerian Ka-dig̃irra was a translation of that, rather than vice versa. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Book of Genesis to mean "confusion", from the verb bilbél; the modern English verb, to babble, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection.
Ancient records in some situations use "Babylon" as a name for other cities, including cities like Borsippa within Babylon's sphere of influence, Nineveh for a short period after the Assyrian sack of Babylon. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris; the site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. The river bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the former western part of the city are now inundated; some portions of the city wall to the west of the river remain. Only a small portion of the ancient city has been excavated. Known remains include: Kasr – called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali – the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south.
It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera – a reddish-colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here. Babil – a mound about 22 meters high at the northern end of the site, its bricks have been subject to looting since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar. Archaeologists have recovered few artifacts predating the Neo-Babylonian period; the water table in the region has risen over the centuries, artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Additionally, the Neo-Babylonians conducted significant rebuilding projects in the city, which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Babylon was pillaged numerous times after revolting against foreign rule, most notably by t
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20, he spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, by the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until age 16. After Philip's assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia. In 334 BC, he began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela.
He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River, he endeavored to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and invaded India in 326 BC, winning an important victory over the Pauravas at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs. Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism, he founded some twenty cities. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s.
Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics, he is ranked among the most influential people in history. Alexander was born on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which corresponds to 20 July 356 BC, although the exact date is disputed, in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedon, he was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, his fourth wife, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time because she gave birth to Alexander. Several legends surround Alexander's childhood. According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunder bolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away.
Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice; that same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down; this led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander.
Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception. In his early years, Alexander was raised by a nurse, sister of Alexander's future general Cleitus the Black. In his childhood, Alexander was tutored by the strict Leonidas, a relative of his mother, by Lysimachus of Acarnania. Alexander was raised in the manner of noble Macedonian youths, learning to read, play the lyre, ride and hunt; when Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted, Philip ordered it away. Alexander however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he managed. Plutarch stated that Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", an
Ancient Greek
The Ancient Greek language includes the forms of Greek used in Ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BCE to the 6th century CE. It is roughly divided into the Archaic period, Classical period, Hellenistic period, it is succeeded by medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it resembled Attic Greek and in its latest form it approaches Medieval Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians and philosophers, it has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects; the main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic and Doric, many of them with several subdivisions.
Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", in poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects; the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period, they differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not than 1120 BCE, at the time of the Dorian invasion—and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BCE.
The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians; the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-west Greek is the strongest marked and earliest division, with non-west in subsets of Ionic-Attic and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Non-west is called East Greek. Arcadocypriot descended more from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.
Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, Northern Peloponnesus Doric; the Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek. All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, these colonies developed local characteristics under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects; the dialects outside the Ionic group are known from inscriptions, notable exceptions being: fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian, the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and other lyric poets in Doric.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed based on Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about the 6th century CE, the Koine had metamorphosized into Medieval Greek. Ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language at least related to Greek, but its exact relationship is unclear because of insufficient data: a dialect of Greek; the Macedonian dialect (or l
Artaxerxes I of Persia
Artaxerxes I was the sixth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, from 465-424 BC. He was the third son of Xerxes I, he may have been the "Artasyrus" mentioned by Herodotus as being a satrap of the royal satrapy of Bactria. In Greek sources he is surnamed "long-handed" because his right hand was longer than his left. Artaxerxes was born in the reign of his grandfather Darius I, to the emperor's son and heir, Xerxes I. In 465 BC, Xerxes I was murdered by Artabanus, the commander of the royal bodyguard and the most powerful official in the Persian court, with the help of a eunuch, Aspamitres. Greek historians give contradicting accounts of events. According to Ctesias, Artabanus accused the Crown Prince Darius, Xerxes's eldest son, of the murder and persuaded Artaxerxes, to avenge the patricide by killing Darius, but according to Aristotle, Artabanus killed Darius first and killed Xerxes. After Artaxerxes discovered the murder, he killed his sons. Artaxerxes had to face a revolt in Egypt in 460–454 BC led by Inaros II, the son of a Libyan prince named Psamtik descended from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt.
In 460 BC, Inaros II revolted against the Persians with the help of his Athenian allies, defeated the Persian army commanded by satrap Akheimenes. The Persians retreated to Memphis, the Athenians were defeated in 454 BC, by the Persian army led by Megabyzus, after a two-year siege. Inaros carried away to Susa. After the Achaemenid Empire had been defeated at the Battle of the Eurymedon, military action between Greece and Persia was at a standstill; when Artaxerxes I took power, he introduced a new Persian strategy of weakening the Athenians by funding their enemies in Greece. This indirectly caused the Athenians to move the treasury of the Delian League from the island of Delos to the Athenian acropolis; this funding practice prompted renewed fighting in 450 BC, where the Greeks attacked at the Battle of Cyprus. After Cimon's failure to attain much in this expedition, the Peace of Callias was agreed among Athens and Persia in 449 BC. Artaxerxes I offered asylum to Themistocles, his father Xerxes's greatest enemy for his victory at the Battle of Salamis, after Themistocles was ostracized from Athens.
Artaxerxes I gave him Magnesia and Lampsacus to maintain him in bread and wine. In addition, Artaxerxes I gave him Skepsis to provide him with clothes, he gave him Percote with bedding for his house. Themistocles would go on to learn and adopt Persian customs, Persian language, traditions. Artaxerxes is described in the Bible as having commissioned Ezra, a kohen and scribe, by means of a letter of decree, to take charge of the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the Jewish nation. Ezra thereby left Babylon in the first month of the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign, at the head of a company of Jews that included priests and Levites, they arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month of the seventh year according to the Hebrew calendar. The rebuilding of the Jewish community in Jerusalem had begun under Cyrus the Great, who had permitted Jews held captive in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild Solomon's Temple. A number of Jews returned to Jerusalem in 538 BC, the foundation of this "Second Temple" was laid in 536 BC, in the second year of their return.
After a period of strife, the temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius, 516 BC. In Artaxerxes' twentieth year, the king's cup-bearer was a friend of the king as in that year Artaxerxes inquired after Nehemiah's sadness. Nehemiah related to him the plight of the Jewish people and that the city of Jerusalem was undefended; the king sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem with letters of safe passage to the governors in Trans-Euphrates, to Asaph, keeper of the royal forests, to make beams for the citadel by the Temple and to rebuild the city walls. Roger Williams, a 17th-century Christian minister and founder of Rhode Island, interpreted several passages in the Old and New Testament to support limiting government interference in religious matters. Williams published The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, arguing for a separation of church and state based on biblical reasoning. Williams believed that Israel was a unique covenant kingdom and not an appropriate model for New Testament Christians who believed that the Old Testament covenant had been fulfilled.
Therefore, the more informative Old Testament examples of civil government were "good" non-covenant kings such as Artaxerxes, who tolerated the Jews and did not insist that they follow his state religion. According to a paper published in 2011, the discrepancy in Artaxerxes’ limb lengths may have arisen as a result of the inherited disease neurofibromatosis. By queen Damaspia Xerxes IIBy Alogyne of Babylon SogdianusBy Cosmartidene of Babylon Darius II ArsitesBy Andia of Babylon Bogapaeus Parysatis, wife of Darius II OchusBy another unknown wife An unnamed daughter, wife of Hieramenes, mother of Autoboesaces and MitraeusBy various wives Eleven other children Artoxares Ezra–Nehemiah List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources Encyclopedia Iranica ARTAXERXES Encyclopedia Iranica ARTAXERXES I a son of Xerxes I and Amestris
Artaxerxes III
Artaxerxes III Ochus of Persia was the eleventh emperor of the Achaemenid Empire, as well as the first Pharaoh of the 31st dynasty of Egypt. He was succeeded by his son, Arses of Persia, his reign coincided with the reign of Philip II in Nectanebo II in Egypt. In his Historia Scholastica Petrus Comestor identified Artaxerxes III as the successor of Ahasuerus in the book of Esther. Before ascending the throne Artaxerxes was a commander of his father's army. Artaxerxes came to power after one of his brothers was executed, another committed suicide, the last murdered and his father, Artaxerxes II died. Soon after becoming king, Artaxerxes murdered all of the royal family to secure his place as king, he started two major campaigns against Egypt. The first campaign failed, was followed up by rebellions throughout the western part of his empire. In 343 BC, Artaxerxes defeated Nectanebo II, the Pharaoh of Egypt, driving him from Egypt, stopping a revolt in Phoenicia on the way. In Artaxerxes' years, Philip II of Macedon's power was increasing in Greece, where he tried to convince the Greeks to revolt against the Achaemenid Empire.
His activities were opposed by Artaxerxes, with his support, the city of Perinthus resisted a Macedonian siege. There is evidence for a renewed building policy at Persepolis in his life, where Artaxerxes erected a new palace and built his own tomb, began long-term projects such as the Unfinished Gate. Artaxerxes III was the throne name adopted by Ochus when he succeeded his father in 358 BC, he is referred to as Ochus, but in modern Iran he is known as Ardeshir III. In Babylonian inscriptions he is called "Umasu, called Artakshatsu"; the same form of the name occurs in the Syrian version of the Canon of Kings by Elias of Nusaybin. Before ascending the throne Artaxerxes had been a commander of his father's army. In 359 BC, just before ascending the throne, he attacked Egypt as a reaction to Egypt's failed attacks on coastal regions of Phoenicia. In 358 BC his father, Artaxerxes II, died, it was said to be because of a broken heart caused by his children's behaviour, since his other sons, Darius and Tiribazus had been eliminated by plots, Artaxerxes III succeeded him as king.
His first order was the execution of over 80 of his nearest relations to secure his place as king. In 355 BC, Artaxerxes forced Athens to conclude a peace which required the city's forces to leave Anatolia and to acknowledge the independence of its rebellious allies. Artaxerxes started a campaign against the rebellious Cadusii, but he managed to appease both of the Cadusian kings. One individual who emerged from this campaign was Darius Codomannus, who occupied the Persian throne as Darius III. Artaxerxes ordered the disbanding of all the satrapal armies of Asia Minor, as he felt that they could no longer guarantee peace in the west and was concerned that these armies equipped the western satraps with the means to revolt; the order was however ignored by Artabazus II, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who asked for the help of Athens in a rebellion against the king. Athens sent assistance. Artabazos was at first supported by Chares, an Athenian general, his mercenaries, whom he rewarded generously.
The gold coinage of Artabazos is thought to have been issued to reward the troops of Chares. The Satrap of Mysia, Orontes I supported Artabazus. Artabazos was supported by the Thebans, who sent him 5,000 men under Pammenes. With the assistance of these and other allies, Artabazos defeated the King in two great battles in 354 BC. However, in 353 BC, they were disbanded. Orontes was pardoned by the king, while Artabazus fled with his family to the safety of the court of Philip II of Macedon, where he remained from 352 to 342. In around 351 BC, Artaxerxes embarked on a campaign to recover Egypt, which had revolted under his father, Artaxerxes II. At the same time a rebellion had broken out in Asia Minor, being supported by Thebes, threatened to become serious. Levying a vast army, Artaxerxes marched into Egypt, engaged Nectanebo II. After a year of fighting the Egyptian Pharaoh, Nectanebo inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians with the support of mercenaries led by the Greek generals: the Athenian Diophantus and the Spartan Lamius.
Artaxerxes was compelled to postpone his plans to reconquer Egypt. Soon after this Egyptian defeat, Phoenicia and Cyprus declared their independence from Persian rule. In 343 BC, Artaxerxes committed responsibility for the suppression of the Cyprian rebels to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed 8000 Greek mercenaries and forty triremes, commanded by Phocion the Athenian, Evagoras, son of the elder Evagoras, the Cypriot monarch. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus. Artaxerxes initiated a counter-offensive against Sidon by commanding the satrap of Syria Belesys and Mazaeus, the satrap of Cilicia, to invade the city and to keep the Phoenicians in check. Both satraps suffered crushing defeats at the hands of Tennes, the Sidonese king, aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries sent to him by Nectanebo II and commanded by Mentor of Rhodes; as a result, the Persian forces were driven out of Phoenicia. After this, Artaxerxes led an army of 330,000 men against Sidon. Artaxerxes' army comprised 300,000 foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 300 triremes, 500 tra
Artaxerxes II of Persia
Artaxerxes II Mnemon was the Xšâyathiya Xšâyathiyânâm of Persia from 404 BC until his death in 358 BC. He was a son of Darius Parysatis. Greek authors gave him the epithet "Mnemon". Darius II died in 404 BC, just before the final victory of the Egyptian general, over the Persians in Egypt, his successor was his eldest son Arsames, crowned as Artaxerxes II in Pasargadae. Before his coronation, Artaxerxes was facing threats to his rule from his younger brother, Cyrus the Younger. Four years earlier, Cyrus was appointed by his father as the supreme governor of the provinces of Asia Minor. There, he managed to pacify local rebellions and become a popular ruler among both the Iranians and Greeks. Towards the end of 405 BC, Cyrus became aware of his father's illness. By gathering support from the local Greeks and by hiring Greek mercenaries commanded by Clearchus, Cyrus started marching down towards Babylonia declaring his intention to crush the rebellious armies in Syria. By the time of Darius II's death, Cyrus had been successful in defeating the Syrians and Cilicians and was commanding a large army made up of his initial supporters plus those who had joined him in Phrygia and beyond.
Upon hearing of his father's death, Cyrus the Younger declared his claim to the throne, based on the argument that he was born to Darius and Parysatis after Darius had ascended to the throne, while Artaxerxes was born prior to Darius II gaining the throne. Artaxerxes defended his position against his brother Cyrus the Younger who, with the aid of a large army of Greek mercenaries called the "Ten Thousand", attempted to usurp the throne. Though Cyrus' mixed army fought to a tactical victory at the Battle of Cunaxa in Babylon, Cyrus himself was killed in the exchange by Mithridates, rendering his victory irrelevant. Artaxerxes became involved in a war with Persia's erstwhile allies during the Peloponnesian war, the Spartans, under Agesilaus II, invaded Asia Minor in 396-395 BC. In order to redirect the Spartans' attention to Greek affairs, Artaxerxes subsidized their enemies through his envoy Timocrates of Rhodes: in particular the Athenians and Corinthians received massives subsidies. Tens of thousands of Darics, the main currency in Achaemenid coinage, were used to bribe the Greek states to start a war against Sparta.
These subsidies helped to engage the Spartans in. According to Plutarch, Agesilaus said upon leaving Asia Minor "I have been driven out by 10,000 Persian archers", a reference to "Archers" the Greek nickname for the Darics from their obverse design, because that much money had been paid to politicians in Athens and Thebes in order to start a war against Sparta. In 386 BC, Artaxerxes II betrayed his allies and came to an arrangement with Sparta, in the Treaty of Antalcidas he forced his erstwhile allies to come to terms; this treaty restored control of the Greek cities of Ionia and Aeolis on the Anatolian coast to the Persians, while giving Sparta dominance on the Greek mainland. In 385 BC he campaigned against the Cadusians. Although successful against the Greeks, Artaxerxes had more trouble with the Egyptians, who had revolted against him at the beginning of his reign. An attempt to reconquer Egypt in 373 BC under the command of Pharnabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, was unsuccessful, but in his waning years the Persians did manage to defeat a joint Egyptian–Spartan effort to conquer Phoenicia.
In 377 BC, Pharnabazus was reassigned by Artaxerxes II to help command a military expedition into rebellious Egypt, having proven his ability against the Spartans. After 4 years of preparations in the Levant, Pharnabazus gathered an expeditionary force had 200,000 Persian troops, 300 triremes, 200 galleys, 12,000 Greeks under Iphicrates; the Achaemenid Empire had been applying pressure on Athens to recall the Greek general Chabrias, in the service of the Egyptians, but in vain. The Egyptian ruler Nectanebo I was thus supported by his mercenaries; the Achaemenid force landed in Egypt with the Athenian general Iphicrates near Mendes in 373 BC. The expedition force was too slow. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates appeared before Pelusium, but retired without attacking it, Nectanebo I, king of Egypt, having added to its former defences by laying the neighboring lands under water, blocking up the navigable channels of the Nile by embankments. Fortifications on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile ordered by Nectanebo forced the enemy fleet to seek another way to sail up the Nile.
The fleet managed to find its way up the less-defended Mendesian branch. At this point, the mutual distrust that had arisen between Iphicrates and Pharnabazus prevented the enemy from reaching Memphis; the annual Nile flood and the Egyptian defenders' resolve to defend their territory turned what had appeared as certain defeat for Nectanebo I and his troops into a complete victory. After several weeks the Persians, their Greek mercenaries under Iphicrates, had to reembark; the expedition against Egypt had failed. It was the end of the career of Pharnabazus, now over 70 years old. Pharnabazes was replaced by Datames to lead a second expedition to Egypt, but he failed and started the "Satraps' Revolt" against the Grea
