459-440BC in the Near East

Achaemenid golden cup from the 5th century BC

This blog will try and look at the Near East for the years 459-440BC, which during this period was mainly included in the Persian Empire. I will occasionally mention the affairs of Carthage as well. From the Persian period onwards, the historical sources become quite scant and we are quite heavily reliant on the writings of the Greeks, particularly Herodotus. This period sees the ending of Herodotus’ history and the sources become even sparser.

Other important sources will be Thucydides, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus. Occasional snippets of information may come from the Hebrew biblical writings, or sacred traditions, but these will generally only concern affairs in Judea or those pertaining specifically to Jewish history. The story of Esther is an exception of sorts but even this event would not have been of major concern to other peoples of the empire. It is not that there is nothing to say for this period, but the history is now mainly written by the Greeks. So if most of what I have to say concerns the Greeks, we should remember it is because they are writing the history, not because nothing else was happening in the Persian Empire. For any events that deal with the Greeks, I will only write of them briefly as they are dealt with in greater detail in previous blogs, which will be listed at the end.

Palace in on platform in Persepolis

In the year 459 Persia ruled most of the world known to the people of the Near East. From Ionia to India, from the edges of Scythia to the borders of Egypt, the Persian Empire held sway, under the monarchy of Artaxerxes I. In the previous year the Athenians had joined the Egyptian rebels under Inaros II and Amyrtaeus and had won a major victory against the Persians. A large Greek force comprised of the Athenians and their allies were besieging the defeated Persians in a section of the city of Memphis. The siege was to drag on for years.

Around the year 459 BC, Archeptolis, son of Themistocles, was granted the right to rule the province of Magnesia after his father’s death. The Persian Empire would be quite a welcoming place for Greek exiles and many Greeks made the fame and fortune serving the Persian king. Archeptolis would go on to mint coins in his own name. Some of these had what may well be his portrait upon them. This practice, inherited from his father, eventually became influential and other satraps would begin to mint their own coins in the years to come.

Probably in this year, Ezra the priest set out from Babylon to return to Jerusalem. Some Jews had previously returned to Jerusalem under the reign of Cyrus, however the majority of the Jews in Babylon had stayed in Babylonia, where they had settled and achieved some measure of prosperity. Gathering together gifts from this community and a number of those who wished to return. They gathered at the Ahava Canal in Babylonia before making the journey.

Gustave Dore drawing of Artaxerxes sending
Ezra to Jerusalem

This second, smaller group of exiles seem to have carried letters from Artaxerxes, King of Persia, and it is likely that Ezra was sent out to act as governor of the small sub-province Yehud Medinata, which was the area centred on Jerusalem. It is nowhere stated in the book of Ezra, but it is possible that the Persians were concerned about the danger of the revolt in Egypt and wanted to ensure the loyalty of the surrounding regions. Dispatching Ezra with gifts and royal blessing might have been a means to this end, but this is speculation.

On the twelfth day of the first month we set out from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way. So we arrived in Jerusalem, where we rested three days.
Ezra 8:31-32, probably written no earlier than 420BC

There is some uncertainty around the date of Ezra’s expedition. The book of Ezra gives the date of the arrival in Jerusalem as the 7th year of Artaxerxes, but does not specify which Artaxerxes. It was most likely Artaxerxes I, but there were three Persian named Artaxerxes and it is theoretically possible that it was one of the others. However, it is most probable that the journey of Ezra happened at this time.

A slightly papyrus from
Elephantine, documenting
a property transfer

Also around this time the Elephantine Papyri begin. These are a number of papyrus documents from a Jewish community in Upper Egypt. They seem to have been a semi-polytheistic community, probably descended from Jewish refugees who fled to Egypt before or shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar over a century previously.

The Jews at Elephantine had a small temple to YHWH at Elephantine, similar to the small temples of the late divided kingdom era of Israelite history. The papyri record the administration of their lives; the selling of houses, the manumission from slavery, marriage and other matters. There are some letters sent to the Jewish community in Judah, but they also had contact with the Samaritan community centred around their temple on Mount Gerizim, which seems to have had some tension with the returned exiles in Jerusalem.

On the 21st of Chislev, that is the 1st of Mesore, year 6 of King Artaxerxes, Mahseiah son of Yedoniah, a Jew of Elephantine, of the detachment of Haumadata, said to Jezaniah son of Uriah of the said detachment as follows: There is the site of a house belonging to me, west of the house belonging to you, which I have given to your wife, my daughter Mibtahiah, and in respect of which I have written her a deed.
Elephantine Papyri, written between circa 459-402BC

In the year 458 it seems that Ezra arrived in Jerusalem. Here he handed over the gifts that he had brought with him from Babylonia to the keepers of the Temple. He also sent letters to the local governors of the larger provinces (the sub-province of Yehud seems to have been under the overall jurisdiction of the governors of the Trans-Euphrates province).

After this Ezra called the leaders of the people together and told them that they had been unfaithful and guilty of intermarriage with the people surrounding them. This would seem fairly trivial in our eyes, but the returned exiles believed firmly that the old Kingdom of Judah had been destroyed for its failure to worship YHWH alone. Thus to marry people who were not committed to this ideal risked corrupting their beliefs and for judgement to once again come upon them.

On the basis of these beliefs, the exiles decided to wait for a certain time and then to divorce their wives who were not of the same faith. This move probably strengthened the cohesion of the community surrounding Jerusalem, but also probably antagonised their neighbours. After this reform Ezra seems to have been the governor of Yehud for some time.

Persepolis Fortification Archive cuneiform
tablets

Around the year 457 the Persepolis Fortification Archives come to an end. These are a large collection of cuneiform texts from Persepolis, mostly written in Elamite but with a large number of Aramaic records and some scattered records in other languages. They provide an insight into the administration of the Persian Empire, but they are perhaps underused because their primary language (Elamite) is not as well understood as some other languages of the ancient Near East.

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the year 456. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In the year 455 the long siege of Memphis in Egypt had been broken. The Athenians and rebel Egyptians under Inaros II and Amyrtaeus, had been besieging the Persians and loyalist Egyptians in a fortified area of Memphis known as White Castle. The siege had dragged on for years, and the Athenians had probably been unable to fully capture the Nile waterway and stop the resupply of the Persian garrison. While the siege had dragged on, the Persians had been mustering a counterattack.

The Persian general Megabyzus had been put in charge of the campaign by Artaxerxes I. He had spent time retraining his army and preparing it for the campaign. He attacked the Egyptians and Greeks and raised the siege of Memphis. The Egyptians were defeated and possibly their armies were broken at this point. The Athenians retreated in good order to the island of Prosopitis in the Nile where their ships were moored. However they were unable or unwilling to abandon the campaign and reach the sea. Megabyzus then began to besiege the island and began drainage works to drain that section of the Nile itself.

Statue of the goddess Neith from the
city of Sais, one of the centres of
the rebellion

In the year 454 in Egypt, the Athenian forces had been under siege on an island in the Nile. They had been defeated by the Persians in the previous year and their Egyptian allies were scattered. However, secure on their island, the Athenians were able to fend off the attacking Persians. However, the Persian commander Megabyzus had ordered the Nile to be diverted away from that area. Once the river drained away, the Persians could march over and attack the Greek forces by land. Also, the two hundred ships of the Athenians were now useless. Some Athenians tried to escape and some made it out, eventually marching along the coast and making it to Cyrene. Most did not. The Persians inflicted a terrible defeat on the Athenians, capturing or destroying the entire expeditionary navy and killing or capturing nearly all of the rowers and marines.

To further compound the disaster, the relief force that the Athenians had sent approached Egypt, unaware of the disaster. They had 50 ships with them; a sizeable force but not a huge one. They Persian navy caught the Athenian reinforcements and utterly defeated them. The Athenians and their Greek allies had grown used to easily defeating the Persians and their overconfidence made them pay a terrible price. The defeat of the Egyptian expedition was nearly as serious as the defeat of the Persians at the Eurymedon River. The Athenians and their allies lost 250 ships and perhaps 50,000 men.

The Egyptians were similarly impacted. Their rebellion against Persia was nearly ended by the defeat. The Libyan chieftain, Inaros II, who had been the main leader of the revolt, was captured by the Persians, having fled to a place called Byblos (presumably a place near Memphis rather than the more famous Byblos in Phoenicia). He was afterwards crucified or impaled on the orders of Artaxerxes I, possibly the urging of his mother Amestris. Another leader of the rebellion, Amyrtaeus of Sais, who was an Egyptian, seems to have had more success and carried out a low-level guerrilla war against the triumphant Persians. Amyrtaeus and his remaining troops escaped the Persian retaliations by hiding in the marshes of the Nile Delta.

Cartouche of Artaxerxes I from Egypt

Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the extent of the marsh;
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the years 453, 452 and 451. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In the year 450 Cimon had raised a great fleet of 200 triremes to send against the Persians. He attacked Cyprus with his main force, but split off a fleet of 60 triremes to sail southwards to Egypt to support the faltering revolt of Amyrtaeus. The Athenians and their allies laid siege to Kition, but were unable to take the city, as siege warfare was not well developed in those days. The Persians were mustering a response to Cimon's attack and were preparing their own navy and land army, under the command of Megabyzus, who had defeated the Athenians in Egypt.

While the siege of Kition dragged on, Cimon died, either of a wound or sickness, or just old age, as he cannot have been a young man. A large Persian army and navy arrived on Cyprus and the Greeks abandoned the siege of Kition, retreating towards Salamis. This was not the more famous Salamis where Persia had been defeated under Xerxes, but a city named Salamis-in-Cyprus.

The Athenians were not informed of Cimon's death and were told that he was still in command and drawing up the plans of battle. The Athenian general Anaxicrates was actually in command however. The Athenians defeated the Persians on land and sea at Salamis-in-Cyprus, giving Cimon the honour of being one of the few generals to win a posthumous victory. However, the victory was a hollow one, as the Athenians had not enough men or ships to exploit their victory. Taking the body of Cimon, the expeditionary force returned to Athens, joined by the ships that had been sent to Egypt, which had also achieved very little.

Also around this time, a large fire devoured much of the Persian city of Susa. The city was of course rebuilt, as it was an important centre of Persian administration, but many records must have been lost at this time.

Excavated houses and ziggurat at Ur

Another city that suffered in and around this time was the ancient city of Ur. This was one of the oldest centres of Mesopotamian civilisation. But by now the coastlines had changed so much and the land had become so ravaged with salt damage from over-irrigation that it could no longer sustain a population. Ur was abandoned and its tombs, houses and ziggurat were left to be covered with the dust of ages until it was rediscovered and excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Excavations are still ongoing there in the nearby site of Abu Tbeirah and I have included their recent archaeological report in the secondary literature section of the blog.

In the year 449 it was said that there was a peace treaty signed between the Athenians and the Persians, often called the Peace of Callias, named after one of the Athenian negotiators. The terms of the peace were said to be that the Athenians would cease to support the enemies of Persia, particularly in Egypt and Cyprus. In return the Persians would acknowledge the liberation of the Ionian cities and would not allow them to be interfered with. The Persian navy would also be bound not to sail into the Aegean Sea.

Relief decoration from Susa,
currently in Louvre

There is some academic debate as to whether or not this treaty actually existed and, if it did exist, exactly what its terms were. However, it does seem to be the case that the Persians and Athenians ceased fighting for some time, and that the Athenians ceased their support for Amyrtaeus’ continuing small-scale revolt in Egypt.

It is possible that Inaros II and some captured Greeks had been executed in or around this time, but this detail comes from Ctesias, who is generally quite an unreliable source. It would be unusual to execute the Athenian prisoners at the same time as signing a treaty with them, but as I have mentioned, any detail from Ctesias should probably be treated with some level of suspicion.

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the years 448, 447 and 446. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In the year 445 it seems that the prominent Persian noble Megabyzus, who had crushed the Egyptian rebellion and been prominent in both the murder of Xerxes and the accession of Artaxerxes I, rebelled against the king. His base appears to have been Syria and he is said by Ctesias to have defeated two armies sent against him by the king. However, the Queen Mother Amestris and Megabyzus’ wife Amytis appealed to Artaxerxes and Megabyzus was pardoned and the revolt ended.

Sogdian tribute bearers relief in Persepolis

Ctesias relates that Megabyzus later violated court protocol while on a hunting expedition and was sentenced to death. He was once more pardoned but was banished, before returning in disguise dressed as a leper and being pardoned fully once more. If this sounds like a fairy tale it is because it probably is. Ctesias is a most untrustworthy source.

In or around this year, Nehemiah seems to have made his journey to Jerusalem. The same chronological issues surrounding the date of Ezra also surround the dating of Nehemiah. It seems likely that the two were contemporaries, thus if Artaxerxes I is the king that they both serve, then Nehemiah’s journey must be dated to around this year. If not, then the journey of Nehemiah should probably be dated to around 384.

Nehemiah was the cupbearer of Artaxerxes and after requesting permission to return to his ancestral homeland, he was sent back as governor to Yehud, possibly replacing Ezra. He was sent with a contingent of Persian soldiers for protection, possibly because the revolt of Megabyzus was ongoing at the time. However, the dating of this revolt is very speculative, so it is possible that the soldiers were simply provided because the roads were dangerous. Nehemiah seems to have only travelled with a small party, rather than the group of returnees who had travelled with Ezra over a decade earlier.

Gustave Dore drawing of Nehemiah inspecting
the broken walls of Jerusalem by night

In the year 444 Nehemiah surveyed the broken down wall of Jerusalem, which had never been restored when the exiles returned, due to opposition from their neighbours; who feared Jerusalem becoming a prominent city in the region again. Nehemiah organised the people into groups, each responsible for a particular area of the wall and the work began swiftly.

By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall.
Nehemiah 2:13-15, probably written no earlier than 420BC

There was opposition from the neighbouring areas and Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arab seem to have led the opposition to the wall. Sanballat was based at Samaria and seems to have been the local governor of that area. It was not uncommon for satraps and governors to actively quarrel with each other and the central government in Persia tended not to care as long as neither side rebelled against the king.

The builders in Jerusalem feared attack while rebuilding the walls and thus worked while armed, while others who were not working were stationed as additional guards. Once these precautions were put in place, Sanballat and Tobiah attempted to lure Nehemiah outside the city so that he could be attacked, but Nehemiah refused to meet them. Sanballat and/or his descendants, also named Sanballat, are known from the Elephantine Papyri.

Babylonian tribute bearers relief in Persepolis

While the building was ongoing the common people accused certain wealthy individuals of charging interest (presumably excessive interest) on loans. The people were going into debt, unable to meet the interest repayments and then being sold into slavery to pay the debt. This outcry reached Nehemiah and the practice seems to have been stopped by his intervention. His government also tried to purchase freedom for those Jews who had already been sold into slavery. While Nehemiah’s reforms may have provided some relief, it does seem that the province of Yehud was quite impoverished throughout the Persian period, probably as a result of Persian tax policies.

The wall surrounding the city of Jerusalem was completed that year, after only 52 days in the building. The city was now surrounded by a wall, but up until that point the people had been living in the nearby villages. Nehemiah made it so that one in every ten people from the villages would now live in Jerusalem instead, to help build up the population and make it a proper urban centre once more.

After the completion of the wall, Nehemiah and Ezra supervised a gathering of the people. Ezra read aloud from the Hebrew sacred writings, some of which would have been familiar to the people and some of which may have been forgotten. After this festival of reading, which went on for some days, the people swore to renew the covenant of the law contained in these writings.

Gustave Dore drawing of Ezra reading the
book of the Law in Jerusalem

Ezra ascended from Babylonia and re-established the forgotten laws.
Sukkah 20a, written perhaps circa AD230

It is sometimes hypothesised that Ezra wrote the majority of what is now referred to as the Old Testament. This is unlikely, as there are historical details contained in these books that would be unlikely to be remembered in the Persian era. It is I think certain that at least some portions of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Old Testament are much older than the time of Ezra. But it also seems to be the case that much of these writings were not compiled into a single text. It is possible that the arrangement of the material may have taken place at this time, whether this was done by Ezra or by others.

The wall was then dedicated by the priests and Levites. The people of Jerusalem were also sworn once more to not mingle with the people of the neighbouring lands. The tensions between Sanballat and Nehemiah must have been quite high. Certain sections of the book of Nehemiah may be the personal memoirs of Nehemiah and there are a number of times when Nehemiah calls upon God to witness the persecution he has undergone from the neighbouring governors.

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the years 443, 442 and 441. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

Gateway in Persepolis

In the year 440BC in Cyrene in North Africa, the people had finally had enough of the tyrannical rule of their king Arcesilaus IV. He had exiled many of the nobles and had kept himself in power by hiring mercenaries. He and his son fled the city to go to what is now the Benghazi region in Libya. Here he was caught and killed and his corpse desecrated. His son was beheaded and his head cast into the sea. The land of Cyrene was subsequently made into a republic, while remaining under Persian rule.

In the Aegean Sea, the island of Samos revolted from the Athenian Empire with the aid of the nearby Persian governor Pissuthnes. The Athenian garrison on the island was captured and sent inland to Sardis. Meanwhile the Persians seem to have mustered a fleet to perhaps try and challenge the Athenians once more along the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. Or perhaps they did not, but it does seem that the Athenians thought that a fleet was dispatched against them.

It seems that the Persian general Megabyzus died around this time. He would have been quite old at this point, having been present during Xerxes’ invasion. He had had an eventful life and was survived by his wife Amytis. One of his sons, Zopyrus II, is said by Ctesias to have defected from Persia and to have joined Athens. He eventually died fighting on the side of the Athenians while in Caria. It is interesting that both Greeks and Persians would occasionally defect quite happily from one camp to the other.

Mosque at the site of Al-'Uzair near Basra in Iraq, where
Ezra is said to be buried

Ezra, also known as Ezra the Scribe, or Ezra the Priest, probably died around this time as well. There is no later tradition of his dying in Jerusalem and he may have died elsewhere. There are traditions of his being buried near Tedef, in present-day Syria, and in Al-‘Uzair near Basra in present-day Iraq.

He is remembered as one of the restorers of Judaism, one who gave new spirit to the returned exiles. There are a lot of books named after him. There is the book known as Ezra, which is a Hebrew and Aramaic text and is accepted by all sects of Judaism and Christianity. This is sometimes called Ezra 1 (or alternatively Esdras 1, Esdras is just another word for Ezra). There is the book of Nehemiah, which was treated as part of the same scroll for many centuries. This is sometimes called Esdras 2. There is a Greek text that is sometimes referred to as Esdras 1 or 3. This text is nearly identical to the standard book of Ezra, but contains an additional, probably later, episode about Zerubbabel answering a riddle of Darius.

Bowl bearing the name of Artaxerxes I

Finally, there is a text called Esdras 2 or 4, which is a combination of three different texts, some of them written up to six hundred years after Ezra. I have included a link to an explanation page of all the books called Ezra/Esdras to hopefully shed some light on the matter. Suffice it to say that Ezra was influential enough that many books bear his name, whether he had anything to do with them or not.

Thus the period draws to a close. Artaxerxes I had reigned throughout the entire period, which saw the Egyptian rebellion and the Athenians defeated, further setbacks on Cyprus for the Persians, before the establishment of a fragile peace. The remarkable career of Megabyzus came to an end, after triumph and rebellion. Probably the most influential happenings, from the context of later history, were the events happening in the small and insignificant sub-province of Yehud. Here the return of Ezra and Nehemiah, the rebuilding of the wall and the reading of the Torah, galvanise the small community and help preserve the unique identity which survives and has had such influence to this very day.

Bull column from Persepolis

Primary Sources
Elephantine Papyri, written between circa 459-402BC
Book of Esther, written possibly as early as 420BC
Ezra, probably written no earlier than 420BC
Nehemiah, probably written no earlier than 420BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
Ctesias, Persica, written circa 398BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Apocrypha 1 Esdras (2 Esdras in Slavonic, 3 Esdras in Appendix to Vulgate), written circa 170BC
2 Esdras (3 Esdras in Slavonic, 4 Esdras in Appendix to Vulgate: Composite work comprising 5 Ezra [chs 1-2], 4 Ezra [3-14], 6 Ezra [chs 15-16]). All three works were composed by circa AD250, but may only have been combined as late as AD800
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, written circa AD93
Plutarch, Themistocles, written circa AD100
Sukkah, written perhaps circa AD230

Secondary Sources:
Persepolis Fortification Archives:
Abu Tbeirah Excavations Volume I
Clarification page on books called Ezra/Esdras

Related Blog Posts:
479-460BC in the Near East
459-450BC in Greece
449-440BC in Greece
459-440BC in Rome
439-420BC in the Near East