The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5: Persia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5: Persia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of
Egypt. Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000
Greeks--6000 furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under
Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of
Tennes from Egypt; 3000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided
his numerous armament into three bodies, and placed at the head of
each two generals--one Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were
Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man
of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and
adopted the traditional costume of that hero--a club and a lion’s skin.
The Persians were Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the
eunuchs. Nectanebo was only able to oppose to this vast array an army
less than one third of the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the
100,000 troops at his disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and
its various branches with a numerous navy the character of the country,
intersected by numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns,
was in his favor; and he might have been expected to make a prolonged,
if not even a successful, resistance. But he was deficient in generals,
and over-confident in his own powers of command: the Greek captains
out-manoeuvred him; and no sooner did he find one line of his defences
forced than his ill-founded confidence was exchanged for an alarm
as little reasonable. He hastily fell back upon Memphis, leaving the
fortified towns to the defence of their garrisons. These consisted of
mixed troops, partly Greek and partly Egyptian; between whom jealousies
and suspicions were easily sown by the Persian leaders, who by these
means rapidly reduced the secondary cities of Lower Egypt, and were
advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair quitted the country
and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted to Ochus, who
demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples, and after
amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital with an
immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried through
a most difficult and important enterprise.
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