| Amasis II | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ahmose II | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Head of Amasis II,c. 550 BCE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pharaoh | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reign | 570–526 BCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor | Apries | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Successor | Psamtik III | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Consort | Tentkheta, mother ofPsamtik III Nakhtubasterau Ladice Khedebneithirbinet II? (daughter ofApries) Tadiasir? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | Psamtik III Pasenenkhonsu Ahmose (D) Tashereniset II ? Nitocris II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mother | Tashereniset I | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 526 B.C.E. (agedc. 80s)[3] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Burial | Temple of Neith atSais | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dynasty | 26th dynasty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Amasis II (Ancient Greek:ἌμασιςÁmasis;Phoenician:𐤇𐤌𐤎ḤMS)[4] orAhmose II was apharaoh (reigned 570 – 526 BCE) of theTwenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor ofApries atSais. He was the last great ruler ofEgypt before thePersian conquest.[5]
Most of our information about him is derived fromHerodotus (2.161ff) and can only be imperfectly verified by monumental evidence. According to the Greek historian, he was of common origins.[6] He was originally anofficer in the Egyptian army. His birthplace was Siuph atSaïs. He took part in a general campaign of PharaohPsamtik II in 592 BC inNubia.[7]
A revolt which broke out among native Egyptian soldiers gave him his opportunity to seize the throne. These troops, returning home from a disastrous military expedition toCyrene in Libya, suspected that they had been betrayed in order thatApries, the reigning king, might rule more absolutely by means of his Greekmercenaries; many Egyptians fully sympathized with them. General Amasis, sent to meet them and quell the revolt, was proclaimed king by the rebels instead, and Apries, who then had to rely entirely on his mercenaries, was defeated[8] (though it is suggested that Apries had more native support than classical sources describe).[9] Apries then fled to an "island" (possibly an elevated or isolated base of Apries within Egypt)[10][11] and was killed while mounting a final insurrection against Amasis in 567 BCE with the aid of a shipped force (probably Greek and maybe Carian),[12] while the Babylonians also invaded Egypt the same year.[13][14][15] An inscription confirms the struggle between the native Egyptian and the foreign soldiery, and proves that Apries was killed and honourably buried in the fourth year of Amasis (c. 567 BCE).[8] Amasis' revolt against Apries is also alluded to inJeremiah 44:30. Amasis then married Khedebneithirbinet II, one of the daughters of his predecessorApries, in order to legitimise his kingship.[16]
Some information is known about the family origins of Amasis: his mother was a certain Tashereniset, as a bust of her, today located in the British Museum, shows.[17] A stone block from Mehallet el-Kubra also establishes that his maternal grandmother—Tashereniset's mother—was a certain Tjenmutetj.[17]
His court is relatively well known. The head of the gate guard Ahmose-sa-Neith appears on numerous monuments, including the location of his sarcophagus. He was referenced on monuments of the 30th Dynasty and apparently had a special significance in his time. Wahibre was 'Leader of the southern foreigners' and 'Head of the doors of foreigners', so he was the highest official for border security. Under Amasis the career of the doctor, Udjahorresnet, began, who was of particular importance to thePersians. Several "heads of the fleet" are known. Psamtek Meryneit and Pasherientaihet / Padineith are the only known viziers.
Herodotus describes how Amasis II would eventually cause a confrontation with the Persian armies. According to Herodotus, Amasis was asked byCambyses II orCyrus the Great for an Egyptianophthalmologist on good terms. Amasis seems to have complied by forcing an Egyptian physician into mandatory labor, causing him to leave his family behind in Egypt and move to Persia in forced exile. In an attempt to exact revenge for this, the physician grew very close to Cambyses and suggested that Cambyses should ask Amasis for a daughter in marriage in order to solidify his bonds with the Egyptians. Cambyses complied and requested a daughter of Amasis for marriage.[18]
Amasis, worrying that his daughter would be a concubine to the Persian king, refused to give up his offspring; Amasis also was not willing to take on the Persian empire, so he concocted a deception in which he forced the daughter of the ex-pharaohApries, whom Herodotus explicitly confirms to have been killed by Amasis, to go to Persia instead of his own offspring.[18][19][20]
This daughter of Apries was none other than Nitetis, who was, as per Herodotus's account, "tall and beautiful". Nitetis naturally betrayed Amasis and upon being greeted by the Persian king explained Amasis's trickery and her true origins. This infuriated Cambyses and he vowed to take revenge for it. Amasis died before Cambyses reached him, but his heir and son Psamtik III was defeated by the Persians.[18][20]
Herodotus also describes how, just like his predecessor, Amasis relied on Greek mercenaries and councilmen. One such figure wasPhanes of Halicarnassus, who would later leave Amasis, for reasons that Herodotus does not clearly know, but suspects were personal between the two figures. Amasis sent one of hiseunuchs to capture Phanes, but the eunuch was bested by the wise councilman and Phanes fled to Persia, meeting up with Cambyses and providing advice for his invasion of Egypt. Egypt was finally lost to the Persians during thebattle of Pelusium in 525 BC.[20]
Amasis brought Egypt into closer contact with Greece than ever before. Herodotus relates that under his prudent administration, Egypt reached a new level of wealth; Amasis adorned the temples ofLower Egypt especially with splendidmonolithicshrines and other monuments (his activity here is proved by existing remains).[8] For example, a shrine built by him was excavated atTell Nebesha.[21]
Amasis was described by Herodotus as aphilhellene.[22] He assigned the commercial colony ofNaucratis on theCanopic branch of theNile to the Greeks, and when thetemple of Delphi was burnt, he contributed 1,000talents to the rebuilding. He also married a Greek princess namedLadice daughter of KingBattus III and made alliances withPolycrates of Samos andCroesus of Lydia.[8]Montaigne cites the story byHerodotus that Ladice cured Amasis of hisimpotence by praying to Aphrodite.[23]
Under Amasis, Egypt's agricultural based economy reached its zenith. Herodotus, who visited Egypt less than a century after Amasis II's death, writes that:
It is said that it was during the reign of Ahmose II (Amasis) that Egypt attained its highest level of prosperity both in respect of what the river gave the land and in respect of what the land yielded to men and that the number of inhabited cities at that time reached in total 20,000.[24]
His kingdom consisted probably of Egypt only, as far as theFirst Cataract, but to this he addedCyprus, and his influence was great inCyrene, Libya.[8] In his fourth year (c. 567 BCE), Egypt was invaded by the Babylonians, under the leadership ofNebuchadnezzar II.[25][13][14] It is believed that Amasis managed to repel this invasion, forcing Nebuchadnezzar II to retire plans to conquer his kingdom.[26] (However, some have suggested that Nebuchadnezzar came to defeat Apries, the combined forces of Amasis and Nebuchadnezzar managing to kill him, securing Amasis' throne, though as vassal king.)[27][15] Amasis was later faced with another formidable enemy with the rise of Persia underCyrus who ascended to the throne in 559 BCE; his final years were preoccupied by the threat of the impending Persian onslaught against Egypt.[28] With great strategic skill, Cyrus had destroyed Lydia in 546 BCE and finally defeated the Babylonians in 538 BCE which left Amasis with no major Near Eastern allies to counter Persia's increasing military might.[28] Amasis reacted by cultivating closer ties with the Greek states to counter the future Persian invasion into Egypt but died in 526 BCE shortly before the Persians attacked.[28] The final assault instead fell upon his sonPsamtik III, whom the Persians defeated in 525 BCE after he had reigned for only six months.[29]
Amasis II died in 526 BC. He was buried at the royal necropolis of Sais within the temple enclosure of Neith, and while his tomb has not been rediscovered, Herodotus describes it for us:
[It is] a great cloistered building of stone, decorated with pillars carved in the imitation of palm-trees, and other costly ornaments. Within the cloister is a chamber with double doors, and behind the doors stands the sepulchre.[30]
Herodotus also relates the desecration of Amasis' mummy when the Persian kingCambyses conquered Egypt and thus ended the 26th (Saite) Dynasty:
No sooner did [Cambyses] enter the palace of Amasis that he gave orders for his [Amasis's] body to be taken from the tomb where it lay. This done, he proceeded to have it treated with every possible indignity, such as beating it with whips, sticking it with goads, and plucking its hairs... As the body had been embalmed and would not fall to pieces under the blows, Cambyses had it burned.[31]
From the fifth century BCE, there is evidence of stories circulating about Amasis, in Egyptian sources (including a demotic papyrus of the third century BCE),Herodotus,Hellanikos, andPlutarch'sConvivium Septem Sapientium. 'In those tales Amasis was presented as a non-conventional Pharaoh, behaving in ways unbecoming to a king but gifted with practical wisdom and cunning, a trickster on the throne or a kind of comic EgyptianSolomon'.[32]
For example, Herodotus relates that, when the Egyptians disrespected Amasis for having been born a commoner, he had his golden footbath (ποδανιπτήρ) melted down, made into a statue of a god, and placed in the centre of city where people would worship it. After the people of that city had worhsipped and "did great reverence" to it, Amasis gathered them and declared to them that the golden image they now worshipped had once been a footbath where people would vomit, urinate and wash their feet. He claimed that likewise, although he was once a man of the people, he was now their king and they ought to fittingly respect him.[33]
On another occasion, Herodotus tells that Amasis' friends admonished him for spending his time frivolously instead of on governing the country. He responded to them that archers stretch theirbows only when they need them, because if they kept them constantly stretched the bows would break. "So also is the state of man: if he should always be in earnest and not relax himself for sport at the due time, he would either go mad or be struck with stupor before he was aware; and knowing this well, I distribute a portion of the time to each of the two ways of living."[34]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Amasis s.v. Amasis II.". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 782. This cites:φιλέλλην δὲ γενόμενος ὁ Ἄμασις[Moreover Amasis became a lover of the Hellenes]
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