Chapter 6: Cambyses in Egypt: 525-522 B.C.

Cambyses' Expedition

Two Versions of History

In the traditional history the arrival of Cambyses in Egypt took the form of a military conquest that included a pitched battle against Psamtik III at Pelusium, a seige of Memphis, the brutal murder of Psamtik's children, and the desecration of Amasis' body in Sais. There followed three separate military ventures against Carthage, Ethiopia and the Ammonians of the western desert. Herodotus portrays Cambyses as a madman, who brutally savaged Egypt en route to the conquest of North Africa.[1]

In the revised history Cambyses arrived as head of state intent on establishing a physical presence in his Egyptian province, a country in the first stages of recovery from a brutal destruction by the Babylonians four decades earlier. He did not come to conquer; Egypt was already his.[2] As king of the Persian Empire, which had provided a reprieve from the ravages of Nebuchadrezzar's invasion, Cambyses was welcomed as a liberator. He was neither vicious nor bent on conquest.

Which of these two views of history is correct?

If we can explain the grossly distorted portrayal of Cambyses preserved in the Cambyses' narrative of the pseudo-Herodotus we will have gone a long way toward vindicating the Persian king and authenticating the revised history. The explanation is circuitous. We begin with Ktesias.

According to Ktesias

Herodotus is not the only 5th century B.C. historian to mention the expedition of Cambyses to Egypt. Ktesias, born into a family of physicians in Knidus in Caria, was taken prisoner by the Persians about 417 B.C. and took advantage of his privileged position in the Persian court to write a history of Persia from its beginnings to 398 B.C., the date of his return to Knidus and Sparta. The original historical work, the Persika, has unfortunately not been preserved intact.

The Persika was composed in twenty-three books, the first six devoted to a "history" of the Assyrian and Median empires down to the fall of Astyages; the remaining seventeen dedicated to a history of the Persian empire. While the original is lost, epitomes of the first six chapters are preserved in book two of Diodorus Siculus, and excerpts of the last seventeen chapters in the Bibliotheca of Photius.[3] In addition to these two major reproductions, numerous (other) fragments are preserved by various ancient authors. In spite of the quantity of preserved material the present text suffers from the criticism that not a single sentence written by Ktesias has been preserved verbatim.

Photius, who preserves the largest segment of the existing work, was the patriarch of Constantinople in the late 9th century A.D. In his capacity as churchman he played a significant role in the final schism between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches. He was also one of the greatest of the Byzantine scholars, and in that capacity preserved for subsequent generations his epitome of Ktesias. It is a highly condensed version of the original, consisting essentially of a collection of notes made by him from whatever texts were then accessible.

Book twelve of the Persika is of special relevance for this revision, containing as it does Ktesias' account of the expedition of Cambyses to Egypt. Only two existing fragments purporting to be from book twelve mention the Cambyses expedition. One, by far the more detailed, is preserved by Photius; the other is part of a quotation contained in the work of Athenaeus from the second century A.D.

The Photius version describes an expedition against Egypt conducted by Bagapates, an influential eunuch held in some esteem by Cyrus, father of Cambyses. Shortly after the accession of Cambyses, for reasons not given, Bagapates invaded Egypt. It is not stated in the narrative that Cambyses ordered the invasion. In fact, the description of Cambyses' burial of his father Cyrus seems to be interrupted by the insertion of this vignette. The Egyptian king against whom Bagapates engaged this expedition was named Amyrtaeus, and the military expedition succeeded largely through the treachery of another eunuch named Combaphis, a minister in the Egyptian court of Amyrtaeus. According to Ktesias, Combaphis turned traitor in hopes of improving his political situation. Leaving Egypt he collaborated with Bagapates in the ensuing invasion. The invasion was successful. As a result six thousand Egyptians were taken captive and exiled to Susa, Amyrtaeus among them. All of Egypt was annexed to Persia. The battle itself is not described, only the fact that there fell therein 50,000 Egyptians and 7000 Persians.[4] It was an horrific time.

We have no idea when or how the Bagapates/Combaphis invasion came to be associated with Cambyses, but it is misplaced. It took place at the end, not at the beginning of the first Persian occupation. Scholars, attempting to adapt this story to fit the description of Herodotus, typically emend the name Amyrtaeus to Psamtik, and treat the incident as a distorted version of the 525 B.C. arrival of Cambyses in the days of Psamtik III. That is a mistake. The narrative is not distorted; it is reasonably if not totally factual. But it has been displaced. Amyrtaeus is well known as the sole occupant of Manetho's 28th dynasty. His brief reign followed immediately the death of Amasis in 404 B.C.

We cannot place the blame for the mistaken association of Combaphis and Cambyses on Ktesias, who lived through and whose history includes the entirety of the reign of Amyrtaeus (404-399 B.C.). It is unthinkable that he is grossly in error regarding an incident of this magnitude that occurred in his lifetime. The error must postdate his death in the first decade of the 4th century B.C. We will discuss the matter further below and again in chapter 11.

Removing the Combaphis/Amyrtaeus story to its proper historical context leaves the Photius version of Ktesias with no reference to the actions of Cambyses vis-à-vis Egypt. That leaves only the fragment from the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus (fr.30 = Ath.xiii. 560) from which to determine the Ktesian version of the Cambyses expedition. We are disappointed. According to Athenaeus, Ktesias did contain some reference to the expedition, but he preserves none of it. Instead he reproduces a story from Herodotus to provide an explanation of why the expedition was undertaken, an explanation which involved Amasis and Apries. The Athenaeus fragment begins:

Even the expedition of Cambyses against Egypt, as Ctesias says, occurred on account of a woman. For Cambyses, hearing that Egyptian women ... [5]

Athenaeus goes on to describe how Cambyses, upon learning favourable things about Egyptian women, sent to the Egyptian king Amasis, asking for one of his daughters in marriage. Instead, Amasis sent Cambyses one of his concubines named Neitetis, a daughter of Apries whom he had earlier deposed and killed. Ultimately Cambyses "learned the whole story from her, and when she entreated him to avenge the murder of Apries he consented to make war on the Egyptians."

This fanciful story is clearly a synopsis of a similar version preserved in the Cambyses narrative of Herodotus (Her. 3.1) It is not entirely clear from the syntax of the Greek original, whether Athenaeus is attributing to Ktesias the entire story, or merely the statement that the expedition took place "on account of a woman." In the latter case Athenaeus is himself supplying the Neitetis story, borrowed from Herodotus, in order to explain Ktesias' comment. We do not have to decide. It is extremely unlikely that Ktesias included any comment on the matter.

We recall that Athenaeus wrote in the second century A.D., fully six centuries after Ktesias. By this time the Cambyses' legend was full blown. Athenaeus himself, in the same verse of the Deipnosophists, reproduces a different version of the Neitetis story, which he credits to Dinon in his Persian History and Lyceas of Naucratis in the third book of his Egyptian History. This second version is also from Herodotus. (Her. 3.2) What distinguishes the Ktesias quote from the references to Dinon and Lyceas is the absence of any mention of a literary source. We should have expected Athenaeus to mention the Persika as the source of Ktesias remarks, as he mentions the Persian History and Egyptian History of Dinon and Lyceas. This may indicate that his remarks vis-à-vis Ktesias are based on hearsay, rather than on personal observations from a printed version of the Persika.

We have other reasons for doubting that Ktesias recorded either the Neitetis etiology or the remark which introduced the etiology that the expedition took place “on account of a woman”. Ktesias’ contempt for the fanciful stories of Herodotus is well documented. It is questionable that he would have reproduced for public consumption one of those same stories, especially one discredited by Herodotus himself. Furthermore, since we have already argued that the Bagapates story belongs elsewhere, and that Ktesias preserves no details of the actual Cambyses expedition, only the mere statement of its occurrence, we wonder why he would have reproduced a lengthy and unreliable version of its cause?

In John Gilmore's classic treatment of The Fragments of the Persika of Ktesias, the fragment from Athenaeus is included in its entirety as an adjunct to the Bagapates/Combaphis story, leaving the impression that Ktesias, following Herodotus, associated Cambyses with Amasis. That is misleading. When the Bagapates story is removed to its proper historical context at the end of the 5th century, and the fragmentary hearsay of Athenaeus is properly questioned, what is left in Ktesias is a simple statement that Cambyses led an expedition to Egypt.[6] The expedition (strateia) was no doubt a military enterprise. Cambyses intended to extend his empire beyond Egypt. But Ktesias says nothing about what happened in Egypt, perhaps because the Egyptian expedition was as inconsequential as that conducted by Cyrus almost two decades earlier. There was no great battle to describe, no death and destruction to document. The confusion among Greek historians must postdate the time of Ktesias.

If we accept as fact that Cambyses arrived in Egypt several decades into the reign of Psamtik I and that the event was relatively benign, there remains the problem of explaining the later tradition of his atrocities and of the mass destruction of life and property falsely attributed to him. The problem is not difficult, but it needs to be addressed. There are two contributing factors, both cases of mistaken identity. The first is the confusion of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses; the second the mistaken identification of Combaphis and Cambyses.

Confusion of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses

We have not only to explain how later tradition, developed fully by the time of the pseudo-Herodotus, viewed Cambyses with such vehement disdain, and credited to him the atrocities recorded in book three of the Histories; we have also to explain why history has failed to clearly record the actual destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. The problems are but two faces of a single coin, and have a common solution. History has telescoped the invasions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses, and has wrongly credited Cambyses with the destruction wrought by Nebuchadrezzar. The confusion may or may not have been accidental.

When Cambyses arrived in Egypt he was unopposed. There is no contemporary record indicating that he destroyed a single building or temple anywhere in Egypt. The sole possible exception, the statue inscription of Udjahorresne, typically interpreted as supporting Herodotus, actually argues to the contrary. As Olmstead says:

That the tales of savagery do not reflect contemporary opinion is proved by the account of Udjahorresne, admiral of the royal fleet under Amasis and Psamtik and priest of the goddess Neith at Sais. Writing under Darius, he was under no compulsion to speak kindly of his master.[7]

This sole surviving monument documenting the arrival of Cambyses is sufficiently important to warrant separate treatment in the next chapter. We mention here only one curiosity omitted in the later discussion. The famous Vatican statue of Udjahorresne was not the only record of Cambyses' activities left by this notable. In a tour of Egypt in 1828-29 Rosellini recovered another statue of Udjahorresne and recorded its inscription. The statue was subsequently lost but the legible portion of its brief introduction recorded in Rosellini's notes, and translated by Posener, refers to Cambyses as the "protector of all foreign countries, ... lord of the lands, Cambyses the great, the one who (re)builds cities (celui qui eleve les villes)".[8] Posener is puzzled by the reference, and can only remark that this is "a curious epithet for a king whom tradition represents as a destroyer."[9] Apart from Udjahorresne, and a misinterpreted papyrus inscription from Elephantine discussed below, there is absolutely nothing to substantiate the supposed atrocities of Cambyses, regardless of which king was his Egyptian contemporary.

The confusion or confounding of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses is perhaps nowhere so clearly portrayed as in the 7th century A.D. history of John, Bishop of Nikiu.

The Chronicle of John, Coptic Bishop of Nikiu

John of Nikiu was born about the time of the Mohammedan invasion of Egypt (7th century A.D.) and ultimately became the Coptic bishop of Nikiu and 'rector' of the bishops of Upper Egypt." He wrote in both Greek and Coptic a version of Egyptian history up to and including the Muslim conquest of the country, large portions of which are lost.[10] The ultimate source of his knowledge is unknown, though he names Epiphanius, a 4th century bishop of Cyprus, who had earlier written "a complete history of the prophets after the overthrow of Jerusalem and the disappearance of the kingdom of Judah". (Chronicle 50.7) He was without doubt also informed by Arabic sources, and, as his religious office might indicate, by biblical literature, including apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works. He begins his fifty-first chapter by describing the victory of Cyrus over Croesus (mistakenly dating the event after the fall of Babylon) and the return of the Jewish exiles "to their own country" (51:16) There follows a description of the appointment of Cambyses as successor to Cyrus:

And when Cyrus returned into Persia, he settled all the affairs of his government and appointed his son Cambyses to be king over Persia and Babylon. And he was a bad man, and he rejected the wisdom of his father and the worship of the Lord God. And Apries moreover was king of Egypt and dwelt in the city of Thebes and in Memphis and in two other cities, Muhil and Sufiru. And in those days, in consequence of the intrigues of the neighboring peoples Cambyses sent to Jerusalem and gave orders (to his officers) to restrain them (the Jews) from rebuilding the sanctuary of God. (51:17-19)

From the outset Cambyses is identified as a villain and Apries as his Egyptian opponent. The mention of Apries is a surprise, but apparently the sources used by John of Nikiu preserve a memory of an association of these two names.

As the narrative continues the brutality of Cambyses is contrasted with the benevolence of his father, and the initial phase of his expedition to Egypt is described:

And afterwards he made an expedition to Egypt with a great (and) innumerable army of horse and foot from Media. And the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine got ready to oppose him (but in vain) and he destroyed not a few but many cities of the Jews, for he was supreme over all the world. And in the pride of (his) heart he (Cambyses) changed his name and named himself Nebuchadnezzar. And his disposition resembled that of a barbarian, and in the evil counsel of his desire he hated mankind. And his father Cyrus had been great and honored before the living God and had commanded that they should build the temple of God in Jerusalem with (all) vigilance and zeal, what time he had sent Joshua the high priest, the son of Jozadak and Zerubbabel, that is Ezra, and all the captivity of Judah that they might return to the land of the Hebrews and Palestine. But Cambyses, that is, Nebuchadnezzar the second, and Belshazzar burnt the holy city Jerusalem and the sanctuary according to the prophecies of the holy prophets Jeremiah and Daniel. And after they had burnt the city Cambyses came to Gaza and got together troops and all the materials for war, and he went down into Egypt to war against it. And in the war he gained the victory and he captured the Egyptian cites Farma and Sanhur and San and Basta. And he captured Apries, the Pharaoh, alive in the city of Thebes and he slew him with his own hand. (51:20-25)

It does not matter that the Chronicle is mistaken in its description of some aspects of post-exilic Jewish history. Nor is it important that we identify the Egyptian cities of Farma, Sanhur, San and Basta. (John of Nikiu is clearly influenced by Arabic sources and frequently uses Arabic epithets for place names and king names.) What is significant is the apparent merging of the character and historical roles of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon in 586 B.C. and Cambyses, king of Persia in 525 B.C. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Cambyses not only adopts Nebuchadrezzar's name, but also assumes Nebuchadrezzar's place in history. He is no longer a contemporary of the Jewish returnees who are about to rebuild the Jerusalem temple; he is a contemporary of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the last days of the Judaean kingdom and of Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldaean king who destroyed their temple and "burnt the holy city Jerusalem and the sanctuary." From this point in the narrative the activities of Cambyses parallel those of the first Nebuchadrezzar.

Before supplying further details of the invasion, the Chronicle explains the reason for Cambyses' anger. Apparently at an earlier time, "when there was war between the Persians and Egyptians" a warrior named Fusid "had gone and fought in Syria and Assyria and he had taken four sons of Cambyses prisoner as well as his wives... and he bound them and burnt their houses and took all that they had captive and brought them to the city of Memphis and he imprisoned them in the palace of the king." (51:26-27) There followed, apparently in retaliation, the expedition of Cambyses, referred to by the Chronicle as the second war, in which Memphis (mistakenly called Thebes in the Chronicle) was attacked and Fusid was fatally wounded. The bulk of the defenders somehow escaped and fled to Sais.

And for this reason they fled for refuge into the city Sais, because it was a strong city and its fortifications stronger than those of the others. And Cambyses attacked this city a second time and carried it by storm and destroyed it. And he captured all the other cities of Lower Egypt towards the north to the seacoast and plundered them of all their possessions and destroyed their cities and neighborhoods and burnt their houses with fire and left neither man nor beast living. And he cut down their trees and destroyed their plantations and made the land of Egypt a desert. (51:30-32)

The merging of the activities of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses is transparent in this description of a military action undertaken by Fusid. This otherwise unknown "warrior" appears to be a general in command of an Egyptian army fighting against Cambyses/Nebuchadrezzar in the highlands of Assyria. But there is no place in either the traditional or the revised histories for a war between Persia and Egypt in the trans-Euphrates region in the years immediately preceding the expedition of Cambyses, whether in the reign of Cambyses or of Cyrus earlier. Such an event did take place, however, prior to the invasion of Nebuchadrezzar as described in the revised history. We argued earlier in chapter four that Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt for reasons similar to those described in the Chronicle, namely, in retaliation for Taharka's intrusion into Babylonian domains in Syria and Assyria during Nebuchadrezzar's mania. The army was Taharka's. A general commanding Taharka’s army may well have been named Fusid. The possibility exists that members of the family of Nebuchadrezzar were taken captive by Taharka's army while that army was stationed in Nineveh. The obvious similarities between the language of the Chronicle and the language of Ezekiel in describing the results of the responsive invasion by Nebuchadrezzar serve further to confirm the claim that Nebuchadrezzar, not Cambyses, is the focus of attention. It was the invasion of Nebuchadrezzar which, according to Ezekiel, left "neither man nor beast alive" and "the land of Egypt a desert."

The previous quote must have been a summary statement since John continues to describe Cambyses/Nebuchadnezzar warring against individual cities. There are multiple local kings resisting his advance, and individual battles against each are described. In every case Cambyses/Nebuchadrezzar is victorious and in every case the devastation of the losing city is complete.

And returning in the direction of Rif he warred against the city of Memphis, and he conquered the king who was in it. And the city of Busir also, which lies below Memphis, he destroyed and annihilated and took its possessions as a booty, and burnt it with fire and made it a desert. (51:32-33)

The narrative proceeds to document the murder of Cambyses' captive children and attention is focused on the exploits of Elkad, one of the sons of Muzab, a local king who took an active role in slaying the children and was subsequently killed by Cambyses.

And when (Elkad) was informed of the death of his father he fled into Nubia. And Cambyses also destroyed the city of On and upper Egypt as far as the city Eshmun. And the inhabitants of this city on learning (of his approach) were seized with fear and fled into the city of Eshmunin. And they sent to Nubia to Elkad the son of Muzab, asking him to come unto them that they might make him king in the room of his father. For he had formerly made war against the cities of Assyria. And thereupon Elkad gathered a large army of Ethiop[ians and Nubians and warred against the army of Cambyses ... (51:40-42)

Elkad lost the battle. Eshmunin fell.

"And when they had completed the destruction of the city Eshmunin they march into upper Egypt, and laid waste the city of Assuan.... and they destroyed Phile as they had done to the other cities. And they turned back to the cities and provinces which still remained, and they ravaged them and burned them with fire till all the land of Egypt became a desert and there was no longer found in it a moving creature, neither a man nor even a bird of the air. (51:44,45)

Somehow Elkad live through the carnage and along with others brought gifts to Cambyses, "that they might receive from him mercy" (51:46) Cambyses took many of the survivors captive, "and led them away to Media and Babylon." (51:47) Elkad was released and continued to rule, presumably in Nubia since Egypt was left in shambles. The Cambyses/Nebuchadrezzar story ends with the exile of the remnant of the Egyptian population:

And the number of the Egyptians whom Cambyses led away with him were 50,000 besides women and children. And they lived in captivity in Persia forty years, and Egypt became a desert. And after devastating Egypt, Cambyses died in the city of Damascus. (51:49-50)

There can be absolutely no mistaking the correspondence between this final segment of Chronicle narrative and Nebuchadrezzar's invasion as outlined in the revised history. Multiple kings ruled Egypt. One of these kings - Taharka according to our revision, Elkad according to John of Nikiu - had outraged Nebuchadrezzar in the course of military action in Syria and Assyria, was driven from Lower Egypt by the invasion, fought and lost a battle with Nebuchadrezzar in Upper Egypt, and ultimately ruled in Nubia while Egypt was left a virtual desert. In both instances there was a massive exile of the remaining population and in both cases the exile lasted forty years.

Two clear conclusions can be drawn from the Chronicle of John. The most obvious is that at some time in antiquity the expeditions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses were merged or telescoped by historians into a single event, their distinctions blurred, and that therefore those historical records should be read with extreme caution. The uncritical reading of book three of Herodotus should cease and desist. There is absolutely no confirmation of its details forthcoming from the monuments.

The second inference relates to the identity of the Egyptian pharaoh contemporary with Cambyses - Psamtik III according to Herodotus, Apries according to John of Nikiu. There is clearly a need to question the traditional identification. The Chronicle appears to be blending together two separate and reliable traditions, one in which the historical Cambyses arrived in Egypt in the days of Apries (not Amasis/Psamtik III), and a version of the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar preserved, most likely, by Muslim historians. We note the prominence of Apries in the beginning of the narrative, where Cambyses is accurately positioned in a post-exilic context. In the Nebuchadrezzar story that dominates the balance of the narrative, Elkad (Taharka?) is the prominent king and Apries plays no part. The premature death of Apries is assumed by John of Nikiu or by his sources in order to explain his absence in the conflated narrative.

We are not surprised that tradition preserves a memory of Apries as a contemporary of Cambyses. Apries, as was noted in chapter one, is the Greek version of Egyptian Wahibre. There are two Saite kings bearing that name. One is Ha’a’ibre Wahibre, the predecessor of Amasis. The other is Psamtik I (Wahibre Psamtik). There is nothing in the narrative that compels us to identify the named Apries as the fourth Saite king. Instead, following the revised history, we argue that the Bishop of Nikiu preserves a tradition of Cambyses arrival in Egypt in the days of Psamtik I, as must be the case if our revised history is correct.

However, there remains one problem. The argument above might convince the reader that the expeditions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses have been superimposed in antiquity, thereby transforming the relatively benign expedition of Cambyses into a holocaust and erasing the memory of Nebuchadrezzar's invasion. But there remains to be explained the connection between that expedition and the time of Amasis and Psamtik III. For that we must assume some further confusion.

Confusion of Combaphis and Cambyses

We have previously noted that the Photius version of the Persika of Ktesias describes an expedition against Egypt conducted by Bagapates, presumably on behalf of Cambyses, and that Egypt was at the time ruled by Amyrtaeus. The expedition succeeded largely through the treachery of a eunuch named Combaphis, a minister in the Egyptian court of Amyrtaeus, who turned traitor in hopes of improving his political situation. The successful invasion by the Bagapates/Combaphis alliance resulted in six thousand Egyptians being taken captive and exiled to Susa, Amyrtaeus among them. In the battle 50,000 Egyptians and 7000 Persians died. We further suggested that this incident is misplaced in the Photius version; it belongs instead at the end of the 5th century. Sometime in the 4th or 3rd century B.C. the Bagapates/Combaphis invasion and the Cambyses expedition were merged into one.

The confusion of the Bagapates/Combaphis and Cambyses invasions, at least in subsequent generations when the Cambyses legend acquired its vicious attributes, is understandable. While differences outnumber similarities, both incidents involved invasions of Egypt by Persians armies; both were invasive and destructive; and both involved men with similar sounding names, Combaphis and Cambyses. The suggestion that the two invasions were confused in antiquity does not originate with this author. The proposal was first made in the middle of the last century by Jacques Schwartz, who argued, as do we, that the confusion was caused by the similarity between the names of Combaphis and Cambyses.[11] Schwartz attributed the distortion of history to Ktesias himself. He argued that Ktesias, writing around 390 B.C., utilized a literary source that described the insurrection in Egypt accompanying the beginnings of the 28th dynasty, and mistakenly attributed aspects of that story to Cambyses. We argue instead that the Bagapates/Combaphis story was a later insertion into work of Ktesias, as subsequent generations confused the two invasions. In the final analysis it matters little whether the fault lies with Ktesias or with later editors.

Assuming that the Bagapates story belongs at the end of the 5th century, precisely where we have located the reign of Amasis in the revised history, we have a plausible explanation of the erroneous tradition preserved in the Cambyses narrative of Herodotus. The Combaphis invasion occurred immediately following the death of Amasis in 404 B.C., i.e. during the reign of Amyrtaeus. That same Amyrtaeus is the likely referent of comments by Diodorus Siculus, who refers to him as "Psammetichus, the king of the Egyptians, who was a descendant of the famous Psammetichus." (Diod. 14.35.4). Apparently Psamtik was another name of Amyrtaeus. This invasion of Egypt by a namesake of Cambyses, dated precisely at the end of the reign of Amasis and the beginning of the reign of a king Psamtik, was subsequently and mistakenly identified with the Cambyses' expedition, and a legend was born. The atrocities of Nebuchadrezzar had already been or were subsequently transferred to this legendary Cambyses, further distorting history. The pseudo-Herodotus was beneficiary to the conflated invasion story. The argument will be advanced further in chapter 11.

Elephantine Papyri: Petition to Bagoas

That Cambyses does not deserve his reputation for violence to life and property within Egypt is admitted by an increasing number of scholars. But that is not to say that they are in agreement with what has just been argued. The current generation of scholars believe that the atrocities credited to Cambyses never happened, but they continue to deny an antecedent invasion by Nebuchadrezzar that might account for the damage. Therefore they simply minimize the actual damage done to Egypt at the time of Cambyses. We believe, on the contrary, that Egypt was indeed the victim of atrocities, but that those atrocities are not attributable to Cambyses. They were inflicted on Egypt by Babylon forty years earlier.

A quote from Gardiner is a case in point. Referring to a papyrus that appears to attribute to Cambyses the destruction of all but one of the temples of Egypt, he remarks:

It is true that a Jewish document of 407 B.C. speaks of 'the destruction of all temples of the Egyptian gods' in the time of Cambyses, but by then the king's evil reputation had had plenty of time to spread, and the damage done in that direction may have been confined to the withdrawal of the large official grants of materials that had previously been the custom.[12]

We want to set the record straight. This papyrus inscription is describing the mass destruction of the temples of Egypt. The only question is- who caused the damage. The language of the text is straightforward. Destruction of temples, and "the withdrawal of large official grants of materials" from temples, are not the same thing. This papyrus deserves a second look.

The so-called "Petition to Bagoas" is part of the Sayce-Cowley collection of Aramaic papyri found in the ruins of the fortress at Elephantine, the southernmost garrison of the Babylonians and Persians in their respective occupation periods. It is a letter written in 407 B.C. to Bagoas, the Persian governor of Judea, appealing for assistance in rebuilding the Jewish temple in Elephantine, recently damaged by an anti-Semitic segment of the Elephantine community. In the course of this appeal, the Jewish inhabitants of Elephantine speak of the antiquity of the damaged temple:

Now our forefathers built this temple in the fortress of Elephantine back in the days of the kingdom of Egypt, and when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it built. They knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but no one did any damage to this temple.[13]

It is generally conceded that the letter acknowledges the existence of the Jewish temple in Elephantine in the days preceding the Persian conquest, when the native Pharaohs still ruled the country. Precisely when it was built is a matter of conjecture, but the construction is generally dated before the fall of Jerusalem or in the period immediately following, perhaps by the Jewish refugees who entered Egypt with Jeremiah. It would certainly have existed on the island at the time of Nebuchadrezzar's invasion. Therefore, according to the revised history, this temple would be one of the few temples in Egypt to be spared destruction by Nebuchadrezzar, perhaps because of its island location. The first sentence in the quoted paragraph is therefore consistent with the revised history. But if Ezekiel and Jeremiah are reliable, and we have correctly interpreted the activity of Mentuemhet, Petesi I, and Petosiris, the other temples in the country were not so fortunate. When Cambyses arrived he must have found the majority of Egyptian temples in ruins or only recently refurbished. It is therefore tempting to see the second statement in the quoted passage as a description, not of any destructive action on the part of Cambyses, but of the state of affairs greeting the Persian king on his arrival in Egypt. If it can be so interpreted, it constitutes a further argument for an extensive destruction of Egyptian temples in the years preceding Persian rule in Egypt, and thus for the destruction wrought by the army of Nebuchadrezzar.

We admit that most interpreters of the letter to Bagoas understand the antecedent of "they" in the last sentence to be Cambyses' army. Scholars in support of the claim that Cambyses ruthlessly destroyed the temples of Egypt constantly cite this letter. But is that what the letter actually says? Is the interpretation accurate? Several arguments support an alternative translation.

1. The authors of the letter, Jedoniah and his fellow Jews, are writing to a Persian governor in order to solicit his favor and assistance in rebuilding their temple. It seems unlikely that they would risk offending him by accusing Cambyses, the purported Persian founder of the 27th dynasty, of the mass destruction of Egyptian temples. On the contrary, it might be advantageous for the petitioners to remind Bagoas that, of all the temples in Egypt, the Khnum temple alone dated back to the days when the Persians assumed control of Egypt from the Babylonians.

2. In the usual view of the quote, the phrase "he found it built' would be completely redundant. Cambyses would have found all of the temples of Egypt "built" when he arrived. The phrase is apparently intended to identify the existence of the Elephantine temple as a unique fact to be explained by the following statement. It is because someone had knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but had not done any damage to that temple, that Cambyses found it built, i.e., "not destroyed" or "still standing", when he arrived.

3. If Cambyses were the subject of the last sentence it would have been more natural to continue by saying, "He knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but he did not do any damage to this temple." To understand the subject "they" as a reference to Cambyses' army requires an awkward and curious shift to a plural personal pronoun, which has no definite antecedent.

4. It is claimed that the second clause in the last sentence states: "but no one did any damage to this temple". Literally the text says "but a man did not cause damage to this temple in anything", or, if we allow "man" to have the force of "someone", a distinct grammatical possibility, then the clause states: "but someone did not cause damage to this temple in anything." In either case this is a curiously oblique way to refer to Cambyses' supposed sparing of the Elephantine temple.

What is the most appropriate phrasing of the second sentence? The translation "they knocked down" needs to be changed. In Aramaic the third person plural of the verb frequently expresses an impersonal subject and thus substitutes for a passive construction.[14] Thus "they knocked down" becomes "they were knocked down" or "they were destroyed". The resulting meaning depends entirely on the nuance given to the perfect tenses. The following approximates the sense of the passage:

And when Cambyses entered Egypt he found this temple built (i.e. still standing); and while the temples of the gods of Egypt were all pulled down, no damage had been done to this temple by anyone.

Properly translated the petition to Bagoas cannot be construed as an argument for Cambyses brutal treatment of the Egyptian temples. When he arrived in Egypt the damage was a fait accompli.

At minimum the Elephantine papyrus, as reinterpreted above, is consistent with the thesis of an earlier devastation by Nebuchadrezzar. Unfortunately the papyrus postdates the Cambyses expedition by a full century and is therefore open to the criticism, leveled by Gardiner, that it represents a later stage in a developing Cambyses legend. This weakens its evidentiary value. What is needed to confirm the accuracy of the revised history is inscriptional evidence showing that the arrival of Cambyses took place in the reign of Psamtik I, several decades into the Saite dynasty. In view of the brevity of Cambyses’ sojourn in Egypt we should consider ourselves fortunate if such evidence should materialize. But fortune smiles. Three monuments combine to provide the necessary argument - a stela; a statue, and a tomb. The statue and tomb of Udjahorresne are the subject of the following chapter. An examination of the stela belongs here.

Cambyses' Apis Bull

Serapeum Stelae

In the 6th year of Cambyses (524 B.C.)[15] an Apis bull died in Memphis. The Apis cult of the Memphite priests was centered in a complex of buildings and subterranean tombs in the Sakkarah plain near Memphis, the so-called Serapeum. The Apis bull was believed to embody the spirit of the god Osiris and its death precipitated a sequence of events that merit our attention.

On the understanding that at the time of death of the Apis bull the god Osiris was reborn in another bull within Egypt, the death of one Apis led immediately to a widespread search for the god’s new domicile, thus for a replacement bull. Meanwhile the deceased Apis was prepared for burial in a selected Serapeum tomb, complete with sarcophagus, a mummification and ritual process taking the traditional 70 days to complete. The entombment was widely publicized, and was celebrated with pomp and ceremony, much as was any royal funeral in Egypt. Usually within a year of the funeral the replacement Apis had been discovered and preparations completed for its coronation, after which the new Apis led a pampered life, the object of worship by devotees of the cult, till its death some fifteen to twenty-five years later. The cycle was then repeated. This sequence is believed to have proceeded without interruption from at least the 18th through the 30th dynasties, or for at least thirteen centuries.

At least during the Saite period an official stela was inscribed and placed in the bull’s tomb, containing all or most of five significant pieces of chronological information, namely, 1) the date of the bull’s birth, 2) the date of its coronation, 3) the date of its death, and 4) the date of its funeral, all in relation to the years of a reigning pharaoh. Additionally the stela often contained a declaration of the length of the bull’s life, from birth to death, stated in years, months, and days.

In addition to these “official” stelae, the tombs often functioned as repositories for other stelae, placed at the time of the bull’s funeral by devotee’s of the god, usually dated at the time of entombment, and containing a wide variety of information deemed relevant by the donator.

When Auguste Mariette excavated the Serapeum tombs in 1851, he recovered from these tombs over 800 such stelae, which were hurriedly excavated, transported by ship to France, and deposited in the Louvre, unfortunately suffering considerable damage en route due to improper crating and rough handling.

We have already utilized information from several of these stelae in preceding chapters, with appropriate acknowledgment. We are here concerned only with those that record the death of the Apis in Cambyses 6th year. If we are to believe the current history, there is only one such stela.

Stela Louvre #354

This stela is badly damaged and crudely - apparently hurriedly - inscribed. Posener provides the most complete description, including photograph (figure 23 below), transcription (figure 24), and translation. According to Posener, at least the introductory lines of the text can be established with a degree of certainty by comparison with the official Apis stelae of bulls that died in the reigns of Amasis (Louvre #190), Apries (Louvre #193), and Necho (Louvre #192). Enough remains of the inscription to confirm that the Apis stela of Cambyses used similar phraseology to what was used by the priests in these “earlier” instances

.

Figure 23: Apis Stela of Cambyses Year 6[16] B.C.

Posener translates:

[The year] 6, third month of the season Shemu, day 10 (?), under the Majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (Ms.]tjw(?)-R’, given life eternally, the god was conducted in [peace toward the beautiful West and was caused to rest in the necropolis in] its [place] which is the place which His Majesty had made for him, [after he had performed for him] all [the ceremonies] in the funerary chamber.
They made for him clothing of mnh-t garments, they had brought to him all his amulettes and all his ornaments of gold and precious materials ... temple of Ptah, which is in the interior of (?) Hemag ... order ... to ward (?) H-t-k’-Pth (Memphis) saying “Lead (?) ... He did everything just as His Majesty had asked ... in the year 27 ... the year (?) ... [Camby]se, given life [17]

According to Posener, the two dates visible in the inscription - “[year] 6, the 3rd month of Shemu, day 10", and “the year 27" - refer respectively to the date of the funeral and the date of birth of the bull. This opinion is based partly on the readable portion of the surrounding text, and partly on a comparison of this stelae inscription with the “earlier” Apis stelae. We believe he is wrong on both counts. An explanation follows.

Figure 24: Posener’s Transcription and Translation of the Dateline

on the Cambyses Apis Bull Stela (recording the 3rd month of Shemu)

The Egyptian calendar in this Late Period of Egyptian history consisted of a 365-day year, made up of twelve 30-day months plus 5 intercalary days at the year’s end. The 12 months are further divided into three “seasons” of 4 months each, entitled Akhat (Inundation), Peret (Winter) and Shemu (Spring). Thus the 3rd month of Shemu refers to the eleventh month of the year. But we question Posener's reading of the month. The number of the month in each season is depicted in the hieroglyphic text using a horizontal crescent moon under which are placed from one to four vertical strokes. The strokes are typically evenly and symmetrically placed to fill the available space. In the photograph of the stela provided by Posener (not in his transcription) we see three strokes clearly visible but positioned as if a fourth stroke were originally present to create the desired symmetry.[18] Posener ignored the anomaly and read what he could see: "3rd month of Shemu". We read instead: “fourth month of Shemu”, the likely original.

Figure 25: Magnification of the Dateline on the Cambyses Apis Bull Stela

(showing the 4th month of Shemu)

The text deteriorates where the “day” of the month was recorded. Only a guess is possible, hence the question mark in Posener's translation. He suggests “day 10". Other scholars named in a footnote read “day 3" and “day 30".[19] In fact, as we shall soon see, the reading should be “day 21". We obtain the reading from elsewhere. We can see in Figure 26 the approximate position where the “day” would be recorded. The location is very badly damaged. Interpreters are only guessing.

Figure 26: Posener’s Transcription Compared to the Stela Photograph

The question remains whether this 21st day of the twelfth month of year 6 of Cambyses refers to a death or a funeral. Based on comparisons with the other “official” stelae, especially Louvre #192, Posener confidently selects the second option, and fills in the lacunae using the phrasing from the other stelae. We cannot argue against the inclusion of much of the augmented text. Enough remains to suggest the comparison has some validity. But the fact remains that we do not know what minor variations existed in the original. Different stelae place the four essential dates in different relative positions and employ slightly different phrasing. The stela of year six of Cambyses, by all accounts, was created in haste and was arguably not the production of the official cultic priests. According to Posener, the central portion of the inscription contains some sort of directive issued by Cambyses relating to the movement of the bull (and/or its sarcophagus). Since the intent of the stela appears to be the publication of this directive, distinguishing this stela from the others, we question the extent to which comparisons can be accurately made with “official” stelae from other time periods. And the fact of this comparison raises another question.

When Posener compared Louvre #354 with the Apis stelae of bulls who died in the reigns of Amasis, Apries, and Necho, he naturally assumed that the phrasing on these stelae were a stock in trade of the priests contemporary with Cambyses. But in the revised history these other stelae did not exist; the bulls whose lives they describe had not been born; Necho, Apries and Amasis belonged to the future, not the past - a consideration that bears also on the second date mentioned in the Cambyses stela.

The “year 27" mentioned in Louvre #354 can only refer to the date of the bull’s birth or of its coronation. Posener opts for the former. In the traditional history, this must be the 27th year of Amasis, the predecessor of Cambyses. But the bull mentioned in the official stela from Amasis reign (Louvre #192) died in that king’s 23rd year. Its replacement must have been born that same 23rd year or early the next. It cannot be the same bull that died in the 6th year of Cambyses.

To solve the problem scholars conjecture the existence of an interim bull, born in the 23rd year of Amasis, which died prematurely only 3 years later. Its replacement, born in Amasis 27th year must be the bull described in the Cambyses' Apis stela. But there is absolutely no warrant for this assumption. The typical Apis lived as long as 25 years, and its average life span was over 15 years. A premature death is possible, but highly unusual. And where, we ask, are the stelae commemorating the life of this hypothetical bull? Not a single inscription attests its existence. We would be extremely surprised if one were found, since we believe that Amasis ruled a century later.

In the revised history Psamtik I was governor/king of Egypt under the aegis of the Persian government in the 6th year of Cambyses. In the eyes of the Memphite priests Psamtik I, not Cambyses, would be the reigning Pharaoh. They would have dated their inscriptions relative to his reign, not that of Cambyses. The 6th year of Cambyses was 524 B.C. This would be the 20th year of Psamtik I, whose reign began in 543 B.C.[20] We should not be surprised, therefore, to find a stela referring to an Apis deceased in the 20th year of Psamtik I. In fact there exist 168 such stelae![21]

There was but a single stela dated to the 6th year of Cambyses, and that one crudely made. Viewed in the context of the revised history that is surprising. The renewal of national life in Egypt after 40 years of upheaval ought to have precipitated an outpouring of sentiment and multiple expressions of gratitude on the part of clergy and laity alike. For this the votive stela was a most appropriate means of expression. Of the 800 plus stelae in the Louvre collection, removed from the Serapeum by Mariette, one out of every five celebrates the life of the Apis bull that died in Psamtik’s 20th year. That is an incredible statistic, and one that requires some explanation. What was so special about the 20th year of Psamtik I in the national life of Egypt in the traditional history? The question awaits an answer. Scholars do not even raise the question.[22]

Among the 168 stelae dated to Psamtik’s 20th year is the “official” stela erected by the cultic priests, #190 in the Louvre collection. The translation provided by Breasted supplies the answers to many questions raised in our preceding discussion:

Year 20, fourth month of the third season (twelfth month), day 21; under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Wahibre (W’ h-yb-R’); Son of Re, of his body, Psamtik (Psamtik) I; went forth the majesty of Apis, the Living Son, to heaven. This god was conducted in peace to the Beautiful West in the year 21, second month of the first season (second month), (on) the twenty-fifth day. Now, he was born in the year 26 of King Taharka; he was received into Memphis in the fourth month of the second season (eighth month), (on) the ninth day; which makes 21 years, 2 months [7 days]. BAR IV 960-62

We summarize below the information from this inscription, adding the data from the Cambyses' Apis stela:

Table 12: Summary of Vital Statistics for the Apis Bull from Year 20 of Psamtik I

(Lifespan: 21 years; 2 months; 7 days)

	Year	Month	Day
Birth	26th Taharka	10th	14th
Coronation	*27th Taharka	8th	9th
Death: