The Man in the Middle

How an ingenious royal official transformed Persian conquerors into proper Egyptian pharaohs

- DANIEL WEISS

THE RULERS OF EGYPT's 26th Dynasty contended with the prospect of foreign invasion from the start. The initial threat came from the Assyrians to the northeast, but the dynasty's founder, Psamtik I, made a strategic alliance with them. While playing the part of the loyal vassal, the pharaoh expanded from his power center in the Nile Delta to control all of Egypt, fortifying his armed forces with Greek mercenaries. Next on the horizon were the Babylonians, local rivals T 25th (Nubian) D to the Assyrians, whom the Egyp- REIGN DAT tians helped keep at bay by sending reinforcements. From the south, the Nubians, who had ruled Egypt as the 25th Dynasty, attempted to reclaim control, but were rebuffed. During the rule of the pharaoh Amasis, the Babylonians continued to pose a problem, though a manageable one.

Meanwhile, an empire the likes of which had never been seen before was amassing power and expanding from its core in present-day Iran. By 530 B.C., the Persian Achaemenid Empire controlled territory from the Aegean Sea to the Hindu Kush mountains. Amasis hired more Greek mercenaries and built up his naval forces, but when he died in 526 B.C. and was succeeded by his untried son, Psamtik III, the Persian king Cambyses struck quickly and added Egypt to the empire's holdings.