I The chronology of Herodotus

There are several ancient sources that refer (or may refer) to an Egyptian rebellion in the 480 s BC. According to Aristotle (Rh. 2.20), for example, Xerxes invaded Greece only after he had captured Egypt, which suggests that Egypt had rebelled in or before Xerxes’s early reign. Something similar is suggested by a royal inscription from Xerxes’s reign, which claims that one of the Empire’s satrapies was in rebellion when he became king – after which Xerxes subdued the unrest (see XPh, the so-called “Daiva Inscription”).^[6] The primary source on which all studies of Egypt’s second revolt are founded, however, is Herodotus’sHistories.

Herodotus mentions the Egyptian revolt at the beginning of Book 7 of his work. The mention follows a long narrative about Darius’s failed invasion of Greece (which culminated in a Persian defeat at the battle of Marathon), and it directly precedes the story of Xerxes’s campaign against Athens. What Herodotus says about the Egyptian revolt in-between those two events is actually not that much: the only things we are told isthat Egypt revolted, and when it did – not why, how, or who specifically. It is only because the other texts that mention the rebellion are even less forthcoming, that Herodotus’s brief remarks remain the go-to source. The following is his (abbreviated) version of events:

§ 7.1. After Darius had sent an army against Greece, his Persian forces were defeated at the battle of Marathon. The king was furious when he heard the news. Messages were sent around the empire to raise a brand-new army; and for three years, Asia was in turmoil due to Darius’s military demands. In the fourth of those years, Egypt rebelled.

§ 7.2–4. At roughly the same time, while Darius was planning an attack on both Egypt and Greece, Darius’s sons started to quarrel over the issue of royal succession. Artobazanesand Xerxes thought they had the right to succeed their father on the throne. Darius chose Xerxes, however, as his heir apparent; and in the year following this, Darius died.

§ 7.5–7. Xerxes – the new king – was reluctant to make war on Greece. Several different parties eventually persuaded him to do it anyway. But Xerxes first sent an expedition against Egypt, in the year after Darius’s death. Xerxes crushed the rebellion and reduced the Egyptians to a state of even worse slavery than they had experienced under his father. He installed his brother Achaemenes as satrap of the Two Lands.

§ 7.20. After Egypt’s defeat, Xerxes spent four whole years preparing and equipping his army for the planned invasion of Greece. He and his men set out in the course of the fifth year. And the army which marched to Europe, Herodotus says, was larger than the world had ever seen before.

The rest of Herodotus’s narrative leads up to Xerxes’s infamous crossing of the Hellespont, the deadly battle at Thermopylae, the occupation of Athens by the Persian army, and so forth. These events, which cover only two years in all (480–479), take up a third of Herodotus’sHistories (Books 7–9). They are the legendary high-point of the hostilities between Greeks and barbarians which he promised to narrate at the start of his book (1.1).

The Julian dates. It is a fortunate coincidence that Herodotus mentions the Egyptian revolt in a larger historical narrative – one which is filled with chronological indicators. Classicists have long used these indicators (in combination with information from other sources) to determine the Julian dates of the events discussed. The battle of Marathon, for example, is connected by Herodotus to the phases of the moon and to a Spartan festival in such a way that it can be dated to ca. September of 490. Xerxes’s invasion of Greece, on the other hand, can be dated to the spring and summer of 480.^[7] The affairs which Herodotus mentions in-between can be dated in relation to those two events. This creates the following picture.

Herodotus says that the battle of Marathon (September 490) was followed by three years of military preparations, and that the Egyptian revolt started in the fourth year. This year – and, with it, the Egyptian revolt – must therefore have begun in 487. Darius died in the year after that, Herodotus says, which must have been a year that began in 486. Xerxes sent an army to Egypt in the second or next year after that, which must have been a year that began in 485.^[8] And Egypt’s defeat was followed by four years of military preparations, with Xerxes’s campaign against Greece happening in the fifth year – which must have been a year that began in 481 or 480 (depending on whether the preparations started directly after Egypt’s defeat, or only in the year after that).^[9] No matter when that fifth year began and ended, though, the campaign resulted in the occupation of Athens during the summer of 480.

Based on this chronology, we can conclude that the dates of the Egyptian revolt are ca. 487–485 (at least, if we believe theHistories). We could leave the discussion of Herodotus’s chronology at that. It is better to go a step further, however, and ask in which exact months – rather than years – Herodotus placed the Egyptian revolt. Such precision will help us later on, when we try to assess whether several dated Egyptian sources fell before, within or after – and therefore contradict or comply with – Herodotus’s chronology for the event.

Herodotus’s “year.” To know in which months Herodotus placed the Egyptian rebellion, we need to know what a “year” was for the historian. This is less simple than one might initially assume. First of all, when we speak of years, we generally refer to year periods (i. e. random periods of about twelve months) or to years within a specific calendar system (e. g. a year which runs from 1 January to 31 December). We can say, for example, that an issue occurred in November 2016 and that it was solved the next (calendar) year (i. e. at some point after 1 January 2017), or that it was solved one one year (period) later (i. e. in November 2017). The same is true of Herodotus. But the problem is the following: we do not know which calendar system Herodotus used, nor when he referred to calendar years or to year periods in his narrative. The only thing modern scholars can do is read theHistories closely and come up with an interpretation of Herodotus’s “year” which would fit his chronology best (as well as the chronological information we have from other sources).

Close reading of theHistories has resulted in roughly four different interpretations of Herodotus’s “year:” most Classicists think that Herodotus’s “year” was a campaign year, which ran from spring to spring;^[10] some think that it was a Persian regnal year, which began in March or April;^[11] some think that it was an Athenian archon year, which began in ca. June;^[12] while others think that Herodotus used any of these campaign or calendar years and combined them with year periods at some points in his narrative.^[13] Each interpretation yields different results for the chronology of Herodotus’s history – including the chronology of the Egyptian revolt. Let me illustrate this in a bit more detail.

When Herodotus writes that Darius began three years of military preparations after the battle of Marathon (ca. September 490), we could interpret this as three year periods. The fourth year, in which Egypt rebelled, would then have started in ca. September 487. But it is also possible that Herodotus referred to three calendar or campaign years instead of three year periods here. If he referred to the Athenian archon calendar, for example, the fourth year after the battle of Marathon would have started in ca. June 487; and if he referred to a campaign year, the fourth year would have started in spring 487 (whereby, in each case, the “first” year would be the year in which the battle of Marathon actually happened).^[14]

The same problem applies to the end of the Egyptian revolt: cuneiform sources indicate that Darius died at the end of November 486; and Herodotus says that Xerxes sent an army to Egypt in the second or next year after Darius’s death.^[15] It is possible that we should interpret this as a literal second year period after Darius’s death, which would mean that the army went to Egypt at some point after November 485 BC.^[16] But it is also possible that Herodotus placed the re-conquest of Egypt in the next calendar or campaign year after Darius’s death. This means that, if a year for Herodotus was a Persian regnal year, Xerxes’s army could have gone to Egypt as early as 6 April 485 – again several months earlier than an interpretation of year periods would have us believe.

None of the interpretations of Herodotus’s “year” can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, so multiple chronological possibilities remain. It should be emphasized, however, that the possibilities are not endless. One can reasonably say that Herodotus dates the Egyptian rebellion to somewhere between March 487 and June 484, which are the outer-limits of the different chronological interpretations combined (see Table1).^[17] One could go a step further and qualify the outermost parameters of the beginning and end of the revolt as well: the beginning fell somewhere between March 487 and September 486; and the end somewhere between March 485 and June 484. We are therefore left with a period of at least seven months (September 486 – March 485) and at most three years and four months (March 487 – June 484), somewhere in which a revolt of unknown length must be placed.

II The Egyptiantermini post andante quem

As mentioned above, Egyptologists have long had a different interpretation of the rebellion’s chronology: the start of the event is often placed in 486 or 486/485, rather than 487 or 487/486. This divergence can be explained by two things: first, while Egyptologists have likewise based their dates on Herodotus’s chronology, they have done so in a more approximate manner; and second, the date-formulae of two Egyptian texts have been used as stricttermini post andante quem for the episode. The combination of these two elements has resulted in a more narrow – and, in my view, fallible – time-span for the rebellion. Let us start with the Egyptian texts.

Egyptian documents are often dated to the regnal year of a specific king. When we’re lucky, the documents even mention the month and day of writing. Such date-formulae are valuable evidence: they can show us the number of years that a specific monarch ruled, they can indicate a change of rulership, and – at the very least – they can tells us which king was or was not recognized at a specific moment in time. When we study Egypt’s second rebellion, therefore, texts that show us the dated recognition of Darius and Xerxes (or the absence of that recognition) in the period 487–484 are important sources of information. What we find is the following: the last Egyptian text from Darius’s reign – as far as such texts are excavated and published – is P. Loeb 1, which dates to 5 October 486 (17 Payni of year thirty-six of Darius),^[20] while the first Egyptian text from Xerxes’s reign is Posener 25, which dates to 9 January 484 (19 Thoth of year two of Xerxes).^[21] The first year of Xerxes, on the other hand, is entirely undocumented in Egypt.

Comparing this documentary situation to Herodotus’s narrative, Egyptologists have created the following argument: Herodotus says that Egypt was in revolt by the time that Darius died. The exact date of Darius’s death is ca. November 486 (a date based on evidence from cuneiform sources).^[22] The last text which recognizes Darius’s reign in Egypt is dated to 5 October 486. Therefore, the Egyptian rebellion must have begun somewhere after October but before November 486 BC. Herodotus also says that Xerxes sent an army to Egypt in the second year after Darius’s death. As the first Egyptian text which recognizes Xerxes’s reign dates to 9 January 484, the rebellion must have ended between November 485 (the start of the second year after Darius’s death) and January 484. Based on this chronology, the rebellion must have lasted at least a year and one month (from before November 486 to after November 485), and at most one year and three months (from after 5 October 486 to before 9 January 484) – a period of time in which zero Egyptian texts are dated to Persian kings. Roughly speaking, this would date the start of the revolt to the end of 486 and its defeat to the turn of 485/484.^[23]

The argument that the Egyptian rebellion should be dated to 486–485/484 has been widely adopted in Egyptology and studies of the Achaemenid Empire.^[24] The claim that the rebellion began at or even after Darius’s death in November 486 must have been the result of this argument as well: after all, the argument has confined the revolt’s possible beginnings to a narrow window of time at the very end of Darius’s reign (i. e. to October – November 486). Unfortunately, the 486–485/484 date has become so accepted that modern scholars appear to be unaware of its foundation: some studies which mention the revolt seem to attribute the dates directly to Herodotus, rather than to a chronological study.^[25] This creates the impression that the dates of the Egyptian sources, which were used to establish thetermini post andante quem of the rebellion in the first place, are perfectly compatible with Herodotus’s text. They are not, however. It may be helpful to revisit Herodotus’s chronology of the revolt; and to highlight where his chronology contradicts the chronology created by Egyptologists.

Herodotus vs. the Egyptian sources. Let us start with the end of the revolt: Egyptologists have set theterminus ante quem for the revolt’s defeat at 9 January 484, based on the date of Posener 25. Theterminus post quem for the revolt’s defeat (namely November 485) is not based on an Egyptian source, however. The date is only founded on Herodotus 7.7 in which Xerxes is said to have re-invaded Egypt in the “second” year after Darius’s death. The Egyptological argument takes this passage quite literally to mean that, if Darius died in November 486, the second year after his death would have started in November 485. That this is a misreading of the Greek text, and a too simplistic interpretation of Herodotus’s chronology, was already shown above: first, the word for “second” can also mean “next” in Herodotus’s narrative; second, it is not clear whether Herodotus is talking about year periods or calendar years here.^[26] So, in the absence of further Egyptian sources, we are left with Herodotus’s vagueterminus post quem for the rebellion’s defeat: it may have ended anywhere after March 485.

As for the revolt’s starting period: it is here that we run into a more significant contradiction between the Egyptological reconstruction and Herodotus’s chronology. Herodotus, as was argued above, placed the start of the Egyptian revolt in a yearbefore Darius’s death, more precisely between March 487 and September 486. The Egyptian sources, however, seem to indicate that the revolt begannear Darius’s death: if P. Loeb 1 is ourterminus post quem for the revolt’s beginning, then it must have started after 5 October 486, and before Darius’s death in the following month. This date falls explicitlyafter Herodotus’s outer limit for the start of the rebellion (i. e. September 486).^[27] We are therefore faced with two options: either Herodotus’s chronology is incorrect, and Egypt still recognized Darius at the end of his reign; or our interpretation of Herodotus’s chronology is incorrect, and it should be amended to incorporate October 486. The first option does not require further elaboration. We can look at option two in a bit more detail, though.

It is possible to interpret Herodotus’s chronology in such a way that it incorporates October 486 within its starting-period for the revolt. One could argue, for example, that Herodotus placed the start of the three years of military demands after the battle of Marathon in October 490, rather than in September. The fourth year after the battle would then have started in October 487; and the year would have ended in October 486 BC. P. Loeb 1 was written at the start of the latter month, so the revoltcould have begun on a later day that month and still have fallen within Herodotus’s chronology for the event. This requires us to assume the following: some time would have elapsed (in Herodotus’s mind) between the end of the battle at Marathon and the moment that Darius heard about the Persian defeat, and/or some time would have elapsed between the moment that Darius heard the news and the period of military demands. It also requires us to assume that the years which Herodotus referred to were year periods, and not campaign or calendar years. All of this is quite reasonable.

There is one problem, however. If we want to place the start of the Egyptian revolt in the last days of October 486,and consider Herodotus’s chronology as correct, we are forced to assume that the quarrel between Xerxes and Artobazanes (which Herodotus 7.2 claims happened at the same time as Darius’s plans for an invasion of both Egypt and Athens) happened at the end of October or beginning of November 486. This also requires us to assume that Darius nominated Xerxes as his heir apparent quite quickly after the quarrel began, because Darius died in November of that year. And it requires us to assume that the “year” in which Darius died, which was the year following Egypt’s revolt and Xerxes’s nomination (as Herodotus 7.4 describes it), was a hypothetical fifth year of military demands. This year could then have started in October/November 486, and be narrowly chronologically compliant with Darius’s death in November. Such an interpretation of Herodotus’s text is not impossible. It does feel, however, like a stretch of the actual narrative.

If an emendation of Herodotus’s chronology does not look like the best solution to explain the date in P. Loeb 1, we are faced with the following dilemma: either we accept Herodotus’s chronology for the rebellion, and dismiss the date in P. Loeb 1 as an anomaly, or we take the date in P. Loeb 1 seriously as aterminus post quem, and dismiss Herodotus’s chronology as incorrect. Most historians of antiquity – or, at least, most Egyptologists – would find this an easy choice: the evidence of contemporary and native sources trumps that of a non-Egyptian narrative which was written decades after the event. Hence, P. Loeb 1 should take primacy over Herodotus, and theterminus post quem of the revolt really is October 486. Such an interpretation of the Egyptian sources, however, has its own particular problems.

The problem of the Egyptian sources. When we interpret the dates of P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25 astermini post andante quem for the Egyptian rebellion, it is important to emphasize that we are operating under the following assumption: if the writers of P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25 recognized Persian kings at a specific moment in time, so the assumption goes, then the rest of the Egyptian population at that time must have recognized Persian kings as well. This is, in fact, quite a far-reaching generalization.

First of all, we should remind ourselves that the textual corpus of Persian Period Egypt is limited: the history of large parts of the country remains sparsely documented or even entirely undocumented. Second, we should remind ourselves that this limited corpus precludes knowledge of where the revolt began or how it may have progressed. It is possible that the rebellion began in the Delta, for example, though there are no documents from the region which can prove that hypothesis.^[28] The rebellion could then have spread to other parts of Egypt in the months after its beginning, but we do not know how much time that would have taken. And the rebellion may eventually have affected the whole of Egypt, but we are not sure whether it actually did. The interpretation of our small handful of date-formulae is therefore seriously hampered: all they can show us is which king was recognized in a specific locality at a particular point in time; but they can never show us which king was recognized in the rest of Egypt.^[29]

To conclude, I would posit that the date-formulae of P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25 do not prove that the Persians controlled the whole of Egypt in October 486 and January 484. Rebels may already or still have been active in other parts of the country.^[30] This conclusion has one important consequence: if P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25 cannot be used to chronologically delineate the Egyptian rebellion, then the only chronological framework we’re left with is Herodotus’s. Subsequently, because Herodotus’s chronology is much wider than the chronology created by Egyptologists, the number of Egyptian sources that might be linked to the rebellion widens as well. These sources deserve a closer look.

III The Egyptian sources: a social divide

At the risk of sounding repetitive: Herodotus’s chronology allows that the Egyptian revolt began as early as March 487 (in year thirty-five of Darius), and that it lasted until June 484 (in year two of Xerxes). Egyptian texts dated to 487–484 are shown in Figure1 for easy reference. There are ca. nineteen of them in total.^[31] Our current goal is to scrutinize all of these texts, and to see whether any of them (and not just P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25) can inform us about the Egyptian rebellion.

Now, when one looks at the texts in Figure1, four things can be observed immediately: 1) sixteen of the nineteen texts fall within Herodotus’s chronology for the revolt (including P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25), which means that all sixteen of them could have coincided with the troubles; 2) all nineteen texts can be divided into six different textual corpora, based on their provenance and contents; 3) five of these corpora stem from Upper Egypt, which means that our understanding of the events in 487–484 remains largely limited to the southern Nile Valley;^[32] and 4) three of the six corpora end in or shortly after year thirty-five of Darius, while the other three continue into the reign of Xerxes (and beyond).

All of these observations are important and interrelated. My focus in the following pages will be on element number four, however. I will argue that the three corpora that “survived” the revolt (i. e. those whose documentation continued after the rebellion had been defeated) belonged to a specific social stratum in Egyptian society, while the three corpora that ended near or in the period of revolt belonged to a different one. More importantly, I will argue that these social differences overlapped with differing political loyalties at the end of Darius’s reign. How this observation affects our understanding of the revolt’s chronology will be revisited at the end of this section. Let us start, however, with a look at the social realities behind the texts.

Figure 1

All currently known Egyptian sources dated between year thirty-five of Darius and year two of Xerxes.^[33]

The corpora that survived the revolt. The three textual corpora that “survived” the Egyptian revolt consist of papyri from Elephantine, rock inscriptions from the Wadi Hammamat, and several inscribed vases which were found outside of Egypt. This may sound like a varied group of texts. But they have more in common than one might think. All three corpora, for example, contain texts that are dated to year thirty-six of Darius and year two of Xerxes (though most without the month or day preserved). More importantly, all of the corpora were tied, in one way or another, to the Persian imperial administration of Egypt. This is clear from even the most cursory glance at the contents of the texts.

First of all, Posener 24 and Posener 25 were written in the Wadi Hammamat, far away in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. Their author was a Persian called Atiyawahi, son of Artames and Qandjou. Atiyawahi inscribed about eight rock inscriptions from year twenty-six of Darius until year thirteen of Xerxes. It is unfortunate that none of them mention the purpose of Atiyawahi’s visits: he may have been in the Wadi Hammamat for mining expeditions, patrol duty and/or travel to and from the Red Sea coast. Whatever the purpose of this travels, though, it is clear that Atiyawahi had a relatively high position in the Persian administration of Egypt: his inscriptions clearly state that he was governor of Coptos and an official of Persia at the time. His younger brother, Ariyawrata, later inherited his posts.^[34]

Secondly, P. Berlin 13582 (Pharmouthi of year thirty-five of Darius), P. Loeb 1 (17 Payni of year thirty-six of Darius) and P. Berlin 23107 (year two of Xerxes) were all found at the island of Elephantine, located at Egypt’s most southern border. Elephantine housed a well-known community of foreign mercenaries in the Persian Period, and the island produced a large corpus of mostly Aramaic but also demotic texts – a corpus which lasted at least until ca. 400.^[35] The three aforementioned texts were all part of this corpus (even though they may have been written by different people). Whereas the Aramaic P. Berlin 23107 is too fragmentary to understand correctly, it is clear that the demotic P. Berlin 13582 and P. Loeb 1 were both related to a man called Parnu. The former concerns a receipt for a payment made to the collection-box of Parnu, while the latter is a letter written to Parnu by an inferior of his. Now, like Atiyawahi, Parnu was a Persian who enjoyed a relatively high position in the administration of Egypt: the Elephantine documents indicate that he was commander of the fortress at Syene (opposite Elephantine) and governor of Tshetres, Egypt’s most southern province.^[36]

Third and finally, BLMJ 1979 (year thirty-six of Darius), Posener 43 and Posener 44 (both year two of Xerxes) all concern brief inscriptions on vases. The inscriptions merely record the regnal year, and the name and titles of the Persian king.^[37] It is nevertheless obvious that the objects were tied to the Persian imperial administration: the objects belong to a much larger corpus of vases which was found all over the empire; many of these vases were inscribed in both hieroglyphs and cuneiform;^[38] all of them allude to the reigns of Darius, Xerxes or Artaxerxes; and a lot of them have been found in the Iranian heartland. Posener 43 and Posener 44, for example, were found in the palace of Susa. Where and by whom these vases were made exactly (e. g. were they made and/or inscribed in Egypt, or by Egyptian artisans in some other part of the empire?) remains obscure.^[39] But it has been argued convincingly that the vases were related to Egyptian tribute payments (which would explain their presence in the imperial capitals), and/or to royal gifts (which would explain the presence of a vase in e. g. the famous Mausoleum of Hallicarnassus, or the one found in a burial tumulus in southern Russia).^[40]

The question that remains is what these texts can tell us about the rebellion in Egypt. The least we can get from them, of course, is that some people in Egypt recognized Darius’s reign in his very last regnal year (i. e. between 23 December 487 and 22 December 486); and that the same people – or, at least, people in the same milieu – recognized Xerxes’s reign from at least his second regnal year onwards (i. e. between 22 December 485 and 21 December 484). What we cannot get from them, however, is when the rebellion would have begun and ended exactly: based on the texts’ contents, it is likely that the people who wrote the texts would have remained loyal to the Persian regime as long as they could – even though other Egyptians may already have revolted. The Wadi Hammamat inscriptions show, for example, that Atiyawahi maintained his high position in the Persian administration of Egypt after the revolt had been defeated. If Atiyawahi had supported the rebellion, surely he would have been replaced? Another sign of continued loyalty is the date-formula of P. Loeb 1: as we have seen above, P. Loeb 1 was probably writtenafter the rebellion had already begun, and yet the date still referred to Darius’s reign. It is therefore safe to say that Parnu and the people who were subordinate to him recognized Darius’s reign despite the fact that some contemporaries had already started to fight against him.^[41]

The corpora that ended near or during the revolt. The three textual corpora that ended near or during the revolt are quite different from those that “survived” the event. All three corpora consist of larger groups of demotic papyri, for example – groups which I will henceforth call “archives.” The archive from Hermopolis is small and contains only six contracts, four of which were written in year thirty-five of Darius;^[42] the archive from Hou is a bit larger and contains thirteen texts, the earliest of which is dated to Darius’s twenty-fifth year; and the archive from Thebes is the largest and contains ca. nineteen documents, the earliest of which is dated to Amasis’s fifteenth year.^[43] More importantly, none of these archives were connected to the Persian imperial administration – in marked contrast with the vases, Elephantine texts and Wadi Hammamat inscriptions discussed above. The archives only show us people with homogenously Egyptian names, people whose lives revolved around geese, mummies, and real estate, and people who primarily interacted (as far as the documents tell us) with other Egyptians.

For the exact contents of all of these texts, I refer to the reader to the relevant publications. The issue that I want to elaborate on here, however, is this: none of the three archives that ended near or during the revolt contain documents dated to year thirty-six of Darius (or to any years of Xerxes). Year thirty-five of Darius is the last Persian regnal year that we find in all of them. We may therefore ask ourselves the following question: are we sure that these people continued to recognize Persian kings in 486–484, like their contemporaries in e. g. Elephantine did? The Egyptian sources, in fact, suggest that they did not.

Psamtik IV and the rebellion in Hou. So far, our discussion of the Egyptian rebellion has been focused on Herodotus’s narrative on the one hand, and on several Egyptian texts dated to Darius and Xerxes on the other. One may be excused to think that the Egyptian sources do not provide us with anypositive evidence about the rebellion. They do, however: three Egyptian papyri, all of them part of the Hou archive mentioned above, are dated to the second regnal year of a king called Psamtik. While these papyri used to be attributed to Psamtik III, the last short-lived king of the Saite dynasty (527–526), it was argued long ago that the Psamtik in question had to be a rebel-king. Unfortunately, the Hou papyri have received little attention in modern scholarship; so I hope the reader will forgive me for a short digression on their contents.^[44]

The demotic papyri from Hou probably reached the antiquities market of Luxor in the 1890 s.^[45] They were bought by Wilhelm Spiegelberg at different moments in time and for different institutions: some of them ended up in the papyrus collection of the University and State Library of Strasbourg, while the others eventually arrived at the Egyptological institute of Munich. Despite this division, it was evident upon publication of the papyri that they were probably found together.^[46] Most of them concerned “gooseherds of the Domain of Amun,” for example. More importantly, there were several individuals who appeared in multiple documents from both lots of papyri. Pestman was the first who, in 1984, published a full overview of these prosopographical interconnections. His study resulted in the following, crucial observations.

The three papyri from Psamtik’s second regnal year (later known as P. Hou 8, 7 and 4) were more closely tied to the papyri from Darius’s reign than previously thought. One man, for example, acted as a witness in P. Hou 7 and P. Hou 4 (both year two of Psamtik), but also as a witness in P. Hou 6 and P. Hou 5 (both from Darius’s reign; the former from an unknown year, the latter from year twenty-five). Another man was the scribe of P. Hou 7 (year two of Psamtik), but also of P. Hou 13 and P. Hou 12 (both from year thirty-five of Darius). And a third man featured as Party A in P. Hou 4 (year two of Psamtik) and also as Party A in P. Hou 3 (year thirty-five of Darius). Pestman observed that if year two of Psamtik referred to Psamtik III, as previously assumed, two of these men would have had an uncommon career-span of ca. forty years (526–487). Moreover, the Hou archive would then have displayed a documentary gap of at least twenty-eight years, as the earliest papyrus from Darius’s reign stemmed from his twenty-fifth year (P. Hou 5; see Table2). Pestman therefore argued that P. Hou 8, 7 and 4 were unlikely to have been written in 526; and he re-dated the papyri to the end of Darius’s reign instead. Psamtik was subsequently called “Psamtik IV” – a rebel-king in ca. 486.^[47]

Do we know anything else about this “Psamtik IV”? Unfortunately not – not with certainty, anyway. What we do know, however, is that many of the rebel-kings of Persian Period Egypt associated themselves with the name “Psamtik.” A rebel-king of the 460 s is said to have had a father called “Psamtik,” for example (though we do not know whether this Psamtik was a rebel-king himself).^[48] It is also said that a “Psamtik,” king of Egypt, sent grain to Athens in 445/444.^[49] And we know that a “Psamtik,” king of Egypt, held power in ca. 400.^[50] On top of that, there are three Egyptian objects that bear the cartouches of two different Psamtiks – Psamtiks who cannot be identified with any of their Saite Period namesakes. One is a scarab which refers to a Psamtik Nebkaenra, and the others are a sistrum-handle and a naophorous statue which refer to a Psamtik Amasis (son-of-Neith).^[51] The objects may have referred to any of the aforementioned Psamtiks; or to Psamtiks whose existence we are otherwise unaware of.

That there are Psamtiks galore in Saite and Persian Period Egypt – known both from Greek and from Egyptian sources – renders Pestman’s hypothesis even more plausible: there is no obvious reason why the Psamtik of the Hou papyri has to be identified with Psamtik III rather than with any of the other Psamtiks that existed. The decisive factors in the identification therefore have to be the contents of the papyri themselves, and the coherence of the archive in which they were found. These factors, as shown above, point to a date at the end of Darius’s reign. Note that, theoretically, P. Hou 8, 7 and 4 could be dated to a year in-between year twenty-five and year thirty-four of Darius, as those years are undocumented in the Hou archive. However, as the only rebellion known to have existed in Darius’s later reign is the one mentioned by Herodotus (and by Aristotle; and possibly by the Daiva inscription), a date for Psamtik IV in ca. 486 remains the most likely hypothesis.^[55]

Once we accept the likelihood of Psamtik IV’s existence, what else can be said about his reign? First of all, the date-formulae of P. Hou 8, 7 and 4 enable us to reconstruct the rebellion’s chronological progression with a bit more precision – an element which I will revisit below. Secondly, it is important to emphasize that P. Hou 8, 7 and 4 give us the only certain indication of the rebellion’s geographical spread in Egypt: we may not know where the rebellion started, but we at least know that it came to affect Hou in the southern Nile Valley. This fact alone begs the question about the rebellion’s impact on other towns of Upper Egypt. Might the rebellion have reached Hermopolis and Thebes as well?

The rebellion in Hermopolis and Thebes. The archives from Hermopolis and Thebes do not contain any papyri dated to Psamtik IV (or to any other Psamtik, for that matter). Whether their archive-holders eventually recognized Psamtik IV’s reign can therefore not be proven. What can also not be proven, however, is that they continued to recognize Darius’s and Xerxes’s reigns in 486–484: as noted above, neither the archive from Hermopolis nor the one from Thebes contain any documents dated to year thirty-six of Darius or later. This is similar to what we see in the archive from Hou (and unlike what we see in the corpora that survived the revolt). However, whereas the archive from Hou visibly switched to the regnal years of Psamtik IV at some point after September/October 487 (i. e. after Payni of year thirty-five of Darius), the archives from Hermopolis and Thebes simply ended after February/March and June/July 487 respectively (i. e. after Hathyr and Phamenoth of year thirty-five of Darius). What does that mean, if anything?

That an archive ended generally means that its documents were disposed of in antiquity or that it was (suddenly) abandoned by its keepers. The possible reasons behind such acts are numerous: they range from changing environmental conditions, which may have prompted families to migrate and to leave some of their possessions behind, to the simple fact that old documents could have lost their value over time, and were hence discarded on rubbish dumps. Vleeming, the primary editor of the Hou papyri, (tentatively) favored the latter scenario: “One is (...) bothered by the question, why did someone dispose of all these texts in one go (in one’s grave? on a rubbish heap?). We can only tentatively suggest that the texts had fulfilled their function: the donkeys had died, the cows had passed away, the land lease had lost its pertinence, etcetera.”^[56] The same may have been true for the archives from Thebes and Hou. If so, they cannot tell us much about the Egyptian rebellion.

Another possible explanation for the archives’ end needs to be raised, however: we know that political upheaval – such as a rebellion – could also result in the simultaneous disposal or abandonment of documents. This is especially evident in Persian Period Babylonia. After all, the two short-lived revolts that affected northern Babylonia in the summer and autumn of 484 coincided with the end of a large number of northern Babylonian archives. It is interesting to note that some of these archives contained documents which were dated to rebel-kings, while others appear to have broken off just before the revolt began. On top of that, archives from southern Babylonia (which had, as far as we know, not participated in the revolt) and archives which were more closely tied to the Persian imperial administration “survived” the events.^[57] The similarity with the Egyptian material is obvious. The following question therefore presents itself: did the archives from Hermopolis and Thebes end in year thirty-five of Darius because Psamtik’s rebellion came to affect those towns?

The answer to that question can only be “maybe”: the scarcity of the Egyptian material does not allow for much certainty here. Nevertheless, the possibility needs to be raised at the very least.^[58] A connection between the rebellion in Hou and the end of the archive in Thebes is especially plausible: Thebes lay in close proximity to Hou (see Map 1), and the two towns were not only connected by the desert-route of the Wadi el-Hol but also by close institutional and cultic ties.^[59] It is therefore hard to imagine that Psamtik’s rebellion would have affected Hou but would have had no influence whatsoever on the Theban population.

Map 1

Part of Upper Egypt where the majority of sources dated between 487–484 were found (adapted by the author fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Egypt_map-en.svg).

Chronological analysis. A closer look at the texts that fall within Herodotus’s chronology for the rebellion has shown a clear divide in the Egyptian corpus. On the one hand, we have people (both Persians and Egyptians) who were involved with the Persian imperial administration. They seem to have recognized Darius’s reign until 486, and to have recognized Xerxes’s reign from at least 484 onwards. On the other hand, we have Egyptians who recognized Darius’s reign until ca. 487. Some of them suddenly disappear from our view in the middle of that year, while others appear to have recognized a rebel-king for a while, until they too disappear from the record. The question that remains is whether we can synthesize these bits of information into a more coherent chronological narrative.

To repeat: all chronologies of Egypt’s second rebellion are ultimately based on Herodotus. We have seen that he dated the rebellion’s beginning to some point between March 487 and September 486, and the rebellion’s end to some point between March 485 and June 484. It is only when we want to establish the details of the rebellion’s chronology more clearly that we start to rely on the Egyptian sources. Now, depending on our interpretation of those sources, one could think of roughly two ways in which to sort the Egyptian texts at our disposal. They are as follows.

1). If we want to take the apparent documentary break of the Egyptian sources in year thirty-five of Darius seriously, then we could place the start of the Egyptian revolt in 487 (more precisely between March and December 487). Assuming that Psamtik IV claimed the Egyptian throne from the very beginning of the rebellion, his (undocumented) first regnal year would have started in 487 as well. This means that the papyri dated to his second regnal year stem from 486; and that his reign was at least contemporary with year thirty-five and year thirty-six of Darius.^[60] Therefore, P. Tsenhor 17 (Thebes), P. Hou 3, 2, 17 and 12 (Hou), and P. Berlin 13582 (Elephantine) could all have predated or coincided with the rebellion (depending on the exact month of 487 in which the rebellion began); while Posener 24 (Wadi Hammamat), BLMJ 1979 (vase unknown provenance) and P. Loeb 1 (Elephantine) would certainly have coincided with the revolt. As for the rebellion’s end: Psamtik’s reign would have lasted until March 485 at the least (year one of Xerxes), and until June of 484 at the latest (year two of Xerxes). He therefore must have enjoyed a third regnal year in Egypt (ca. 485), and he may have enjoyed a fourth (ca. 484).^[61] Note that P. Berlin 23107 (Elephantine), Posener 25 (Wadi Hammamat), Posener 43 and 44 (vases from Susa) may either have coincided with or postdated his reign. In this scenario, the minimum time-span of the revolt would be ca. a year and four months (December 487 – March 485); the maximum time-span ca. three years and four months (March 487 – June 484).

2). If, on the other hand, we want to minimize the amount of (visible) political fragmentation in Egypt, then we could place the start of the Egyptian revolt in 486 (more precisely between January and September 486). Psamtik’s first regnal year would then have started in 486 as well, which means that the papyri dated to his second regnal year stem from 485, and that his reign was at least contemporary with year thirty-six of Darius and year one of Xerxes. All texts dated to year thirty-five of Darius, therefore, would have predated the Egyptian rebellion; while Posener 24 (Wadi Hammamat) and BLMJ 1979 (vase of unknown provenance) could have predated or coincided with the rebellion. Only P. Loeb 1 (Elephantine) must certainly have coincided with the revolt. As for the rebellion’s end: Psamtik’s reign may have been thwarted shortly after the Hou papyri were written, i. e. after April/May 485 (year one of Xerxes).^[62] It may, however, have lasted until as late as June of 484 (year two of Xerxes). Theoretically, therefore, Psamtik could have enjoyed a third regnal year in Egypt (ca. 484). P. Berlin 23107 (Elephantine), Posener 25 (Wadi Hammamat), Posener 43 and 44 (vases from Susa) may either have coincided with or postdated his reign. In this scenario, the minimum time-span of the revolt would be ca. eight months (September 486 – April/May 485); the maximum time-span ca. two years and six months (January 486 – June 484).

With the evidence we have at present, neither of these scenarios can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It is therefore best to maintain the vague dates of 487–484 for Egypt’s second revolt, with the importantcaveat that the rebellion may have affected different parts of Egypt at different moments in time with varying degrees of intensity.

V Conclusion

The present article began and ended with the problem of dating the second Egyptian revolt. We have seen, among other things, that all chronologies of the revolt are ultimately based on Herodotus’sHistories – a work which dates the Egyptian revolt to some point between March 487 and June 484. We have also seen that Egyptologists have tried to specify this chronology more clearly: for them, the dates of P. Loeb 1 (5 October 486) and Posener 25 (9 January 484) have become the stricttermini post andante quem for the event. This article has argued, on the other hand, that P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25 were written by people who were tied to the Persian imperial administration of Egypt. It is probable that these people remained loyal to the Persian kings for as long as they could; and it is therefore possible that their texts coincided with, rather than pre- or post-dated, the Egyptian revolt. The downside to this argument is that it rids us of specific dates for the unrest: the only chronological framework we’re left with is now Herodotus’s. What we gain, however, is an expanded corpus of Egyptian sources that might be related to the troubles.

There are several things we can learn from this expanded corpus of sources. First of all, the corpus draws our attention to a documentary divide: whereas some groups of Egyptian texts “survived” the revolt, others ended near or during the rebellion. We have seen above that this documentary divide overlaps with a social divide: the former groups were tied to the Persian imperial administration (and included texts such as P. Loeb 1 and Posener 25), while the latter were tied to Egyptian communities, some of whom supported a rebel-king. Secondly, the expanded corpus of sources draws our attention more closely to the geographical extent of the revolt. We have seen that the rebellion affected Hou, for example, and that it may have influenced the important city of Thebes (and, possibly, Hermopolis). If it did, then it is plausible that other regions of Upper Egypt would have been affected as well – though in what way exactly remains an unanswered question.^[63]

In the end, it can only be hoped that future finds and publications will throw more light on the Egyptian troubles of ca. 487–484. Until then, we will have to be satisfied with our meagre trail of breadcrumbs.