The lengthy 44 year reign of Amasis is well documented. Many of his public officials left detailed inscriptions recording their activity, for the most part related to tax collecting and building. It was indeed a prosperous era and that prosperity was in large measure due to extensive foreign trade. Greek influence is particularly noticeable and Naucratis, the Greek cultural and trade center on the Canopic branch of the Nile was particularly prominent. It is unfortunate that not a single document in those many decades provides a synchronism with the outside world. Were we not informed otherwise by Egyptologists and historians, we might be tempted to believe that Amasis ruled in the latter half of the 5th century, when the Mediterranean was opened to Greek and Phoenician commerce by the peace of Callias.
According to Herodotus, one of the first official acts of Amasis was to set up a census bureau, undoubtedly with a view to taxation. This is not an unexpected move, since we argue that the primary focus of Amasis' tenure in office was the collection of tribute for his Persian overlords. To facilitate the collection of taxes nomarchs, or local princes, were assigned limited authority. Among their ranks must be placed Pausiris and Thannyras, sons of Amyrtaeus and Inaros. The country prospered.
It is said that in the reign of Amasis Egypt attained to its greatest prosperity, in respect of what the river did for the land and the land for its people; and that the whole sum of inhabited cities in the country was twenty thousand. It was Amasis also who made the law that every Egyptian should yearly declare his means of livelihood to the ruler of his province, and, failing so to do, or to prove that he had a just way of life, be punished with death. Her. II.177The greater part of Egypt's prosperity did not derive, however, from taxation of income, but rather from duties applied to commercial imports. It was Amasis second official act to issue a directive insisting that all Mediterranean commerce with Egypt be channelled through the port at Naucratis, where goods were taxed at the exhorbitant rate of 10%.
Amasis became a lover of the Greeks, and besides other services which he did to some of them he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis to dwell in, and to those who voyaged to the country without desire to settle there he gave lands where they might set altars and make holy places for their gods. ... Naucratis was in old time the only trading port in Egypt. Whosoever came to any other mouth of the Nile must swear that he had not come of his own will, and having so sworn must then take his ship and sail to the Canobic mouth; or, if he could not sail against contrary winds, he must carry his cargo in barges round the Delta till he came to Naucratis. In such honour was Naucratis held. Her. II.178-79Scholars debate the reasons for Amasis' admiration for the Greeks and the prominence given to the port at Naucratis, but we know the answer. For the previous decade Egypt had looked to the Athenians based in Naucratis as their last hope for national independence. Those hopes soon faded but the veneration of the site and the admiration of the Greeks remained for centuries.
It is precisely in Amasis' reign that Naucratis assumed a prominent position in the monuments and the national literature, so much so that it is believed by many scholars that the city was actually founded by the Saite king. If so it is interesting to note that there exists no certain reference to the existence of Naucratis in the early part of the 1st Persian domination. Did the site flourish during the reign of Amasis (570-526 B.C. in the traditional history) then fade from prominence for almost a century, only to emerge from its dormancy late in the 4th century?
In the revised history Amasis ruled Egypt from 449-405 B.C. In his 1st year as an official (or puppet king), installed in office by the ruling Persians, he resisted the advances of Apries/Amyrtaeus to retake the throne. Several years into his reign he joined cause with Apries in a skirmish with the Persians. During the battle Apries died and was buried with honor. Immediately after this conflict Amasis, restored to favor but very much controlled by his Persian overlords, moved to restrict the Greek presence in Egypt to the vicinity of Naucratis. Naucratis, once the home of the Athenian fleet under Inaros, then the base of operations under Amyrtaeus/Apries, was transformed from a military threat to a source of considerable wealth for Persia's Egyptian province.
If the revised history is correct, then Naucratis was not founded by Amasis as a means of controlling foreign commerce, but by Inaros as a base of operations for the Athenian fleet he had summoned to his aid during the initial phase of the Egyptian rebellion. It is probable that the Athenians first had to wrest control of the site from the ruling Persians. In fact, that is precisely the tradition passed down for centuries to the geographer Strabo. In his lengthy description of the various tributaries of the Nile River Delta he states:
Their mouths indeed afford entrance to boats, but are adapted, not to large boats, but to tenders only, because the mouths are shallow and marshy. It is chiefly, however, the Canobic mouth that they used as an emporium, since the harbours at Alexandria were kept closed, as I have said before. After the Bolbitine mouth one comes to a low and sandy promontory which projects rather far into the sea; it is called Agnu-Ceras. And then to the Watch-tower of Perseus and the Wall of the Milesians; for in the time of Psammitichus ... the Milesians, with thirty ships, put in at the Bolbitine mouth, and then, disembarking, fortified with a wall the above-mentioned settlement; but in time they sailed up into the Saitic Nome, defeated the city Inaros in a naval fight, and founded Naucratis, not far above Schedia. After the Wall of the Milesians, as one proceeds towards the Sebennytic mouth, one comes to ... Strabo XVII.33It is clear from this tradition that at some unspecified time after the Milesians founded their enclave on the Bolbitine branch of the Nile, migrant Greeks also founded Naucratis. The fact that force was required suggests that a naval force was involved. We need not trust every detail of this tradition - Strabo is four hundred years removed from the event he describes - but there is no reason to disregard its essential accuracy. Naucratis was established only after a military confrontation. And the founding of the city occurred in the time of Inaros. Needless to say Egyptologists dispute the fact, since Inaros postdates the time of Amasis by over a century. Alan Lloyd is typical of the prevailing interpretation of Strabo:
Further details are found in Strabo who tells us that in the reign of Psammetichus I Milesians came to Egypt with 30 ships and founded a settlement called "the Milesian Wall" on the Bolbitinic Mouth of the Nile. After an unspecified interval ... they moved up-stream, defeated someone call Inarus in a sea-battle - doubtless a Dodecarch - and then founded the city of Naucratis - the city which was for 300 years to be the centre of Greek trade and civilization in Egypt. The tradition of a battle with the local population before Naucratis could be founded is also found in Aristagoras of Miletus (FrgH 608, F. 8) who informs us that the Naucratites had to fight all Egyptian cities on their way upstream except Gynaecospolis which lay opposite Naucratis on the west bank of the Nile. Few would wish to accept this account in its entirety but it would surely be rash to deny that Aristagoras is preserving a tradition that the Greeks who founded Naucratis had had to fight. Indeed the statements of Strabo and Aristagoras fit very neatly together. Inarus is a name which, though thoroughly Egyptian, is associated with Libya whilst Gynaecospolis lies to the west of the westernmost branch of the Nile in an area whose Libyan affinities are strongly emphasized by Herodotus (II, 18) and whose northern part is actually described in Ptolemy as the Libyan Nome. We have, therefore, considerable justification in accepting that the arrival of the Milesians at Naucratis involved them somehow or other, in putting down trouble along the western frontier of the Delta. What was the date? [19]Lloyd is almost entirely correct. We question only two aspects of his discussion. There is no need to defend Strabo's statement that the Greeks who conquered Naucratis came from Miletus, an association not preserved in Aristagoras. And we wonder why Lloyd misrepresents Strabo regarding the city's connection with Inaros. The Greek text does not say that the Milesians fought with Inaros. It states only that the defeated city was known as "the city of Inaros", and that its founding involved military conflict. As to the date when the port city was founded we observe that Lloyd ignores the obvious connection with the 5th century Inaros, and seeks to establish a possible foundation date antedating the time of Amasis in the sixth century. He restricts to a footnote, with minimal comment, the fact that at least one scholar (Richter) "thinks that he (the Inaros mentioned by Strabo) must be the famouos Inaros of the Athenian Expedition!" [20]
Were it not for the errant dating of the Saite dynasty there would have been no question but that the Inarus of Strabo and the Inaros who led the Egyptian rebellion are one and the same person. The name is otherwise unknown in Egypt. Strabo is clearly referring to a man of sufficient notariety that his identity requires no further explanation. And we have already argued that the city of Naucratis was founded in Inaros' time and in a climate of conflict between the Egyptian rebel and the ruling Persians. It is not surprising that the site on which the city was built was obtained through military action.
If Strabo is correct, and Naucratis acquired its prominence (and very likely it's name), only in the mid 5th century B.C.; and if our revision is correct and Amasis' involvement with the city followed immediately the Inaros rebellion; then all chronological problems connected with the site disappear entirely. Strabo can be accepted at face value. The fact that the name is unknown in the preceding decades of the 1st Persian domination is precisely what is expected. The honor accorded the Greek seaport by subsequent generations of Egyptians is perfectly understandable. The fact that Greek vessels were denied access elsewhere into the Persian province, where they posed a military threat, and were restricted to that single remote location, also follows naturally. It is unfortunate that Amasis was removed from his rightful place in history as the successor of Inaros and Amyrtaeus, causing unnecessary confusion. But that historical error need not be maintained.