Twenty-eighth Dynasty
The forty years ending with the death of Darius II in 404 BC are a complete
blank so far as Egypt is concerned. It is only amid the stirring events
attending the accession of Artaxerxes II that she re-enters upon the
Middle Eastern stage. Manetho ends at this point his Dyn. XXVII of Persian
rulers. He makes his TWENTY-EIGHTH DYNASTY consist of a single king
Amyrtaeus of Sais, presumably a kinsman of the Amyrtaeus who carried
on the struggle of Inaros after the latter's capture by his enemies.
The Greek historians makes only one doubtful allusion to the new Pharaoh,
Diodorus (xiv. 35), who is here responsible, mistakenly calling him
'Psammetichus, a descendant of the (famous) Psammetichus. The episode
in question tells how after the battle of Cynaxa (401 BC), where the
insurgent prince Cyrus was defeated and killed, his friend the Memphite
admiral Tamos, whom he had appointed governor of Ionia, fled to Egypt
to escape the vengeance of Artaxerxes II's satrap Tissaphernes, taking
all his ships with him; but Amyrtaeus, if it was he whom Diodorus referred
to as Psammetichus, put Tamos to death.
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- According to a later Egyptian tradition
Amyrtaeus in some way offended against the dictates of Law, with the
consequence that his son was not suffered to succeed him. The conviction
that earthly prosperity and righteous conduct are inexorably bound up
together finds expression in the curious and cryptic papyrus passing
the inexact name 'The Demotic Chronicle'. That is the papyrus from which
we learned about Cambyses' withdrawal of grants to the Egyptian temples
and about Darius's command that the laws of the country should be in
recorded in writing. It is however, the composition on the recto with
which we have hear to deal.
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- This is a strange farrago of calendrical
data, festivals, and geographical references which would have no value
or meaning for us without the interpretations or prophecies accompanying
each item. These are of great historic interest in as much as they include
two absolutely correct sequences of the kings 'who came after Medes'
(i.e. after the Persians) from Amyrtaeus down to Teos, the second king
of Manetho's Dyn XXX. The oracular text thus claiming to find a relation
of cause and effect between virtuous conduct and successful life on
earth is believed to have been a priestly product of the second century
BC Manetho allots to Amyrtaeus a reign of six years, which is probably
correct since the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine include a promise
of the repayment of a debt dating from his fifth year. Apart from a
letter from the same source quoting his name in close proximity to that
of Nepherites, his immediate successor, there exists no further reference
to him, and he has left no monuments. We are in the dark alike as to
how he came by his throne and as to how he lost it .
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