This would be an early form of psychological warfare.[5]. Cat MummyMary Harrsch (Photographed at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Calif.) (CC BY-NC-SA). Phanes was captured in Lycia but outwitted his guards by getting them drunk and escaped to Persia, and assisted the Persian king in all manners of strategy, and was instrumental in shaping his resolve for conquest of Egypt. Sources: Los nueve libros de la Historia (Herdoto)/The complete fragments of Ctesias of Cnidus: translation and commentary with an introduction (Andrew Nichols)/Stratagems (Polyaenus en Attalus)/The world of Ancient Egypt. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/43/the-battle-of-pelusium-a-victory-decided-by-cats/. Even so, this did not mean Bastet could not dispense justice or right wrongs when she saw the need. The influence of Egypt with Amosis reached places such as Cyprus in the north, Cyrene in the west and the first waterfall in the south, but the Persian Empire already appeared in the east. Polyaenus claims that Cambyses had his men carry the "sacred" animals in front of them to the attack. Many were massacred on the field, and Herodotus reports seeing their bones still in the sand many years later; he even commented on the difference between the Persian and the Egyptian skulls. It is probably a legend, typical but so fascinating that many people have tried to find their remains and in 2009 an Italian archaeological expedition found human bones along with weapons and bronze ornaments identified as achaemenides. The battle was preceded and followed by sieges at Gaza and Memphis. World History Encyclopedia. Given this (surely exaggerated) passage of pasthistory, Psammenitus might have felt a bit confident, especially with their already fortified advantage. This decisive battle transferred the throne of the Pharaohs to Cambyses II of Persia, marking the beginning of the Achaemenid Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt.

Now according to Herodotus, the bitterness between the two empires was sparked when Psammenitus father, Amasis, decided to dupe Cambyses by sending him a wrong woman. On the other hand, modern sources talk about how instead of using living animals, the Persians might have taken the symbolic route to defeatthe Egyptians. The "slaughterers of Bastet" were said to inflict plague and other disasters on humanity. Polyaenus recounts how the Egyptians were successfully holding back the Persian advance when Cambyses II suddenly switched tactics. However by the time the Persian expeditionary forces reached the Egyptian borders, Amasis was already dead, and his son Psammenitus had to take part in the impending confrontation.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'realmofhistory_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_3',151,'0','0'])};if(typeof __ez_fad_position!='undefined'){__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-realmofhistory_com-medrectangle-4-0')}; As a result, the Pharaoh who had only ruled for six short months, decided to march up to the extreme eastern reaches of his kingdom. Submitted by Joshua J. The most common recounting of the events leading to the battle of Pelusium is from Greek historians, particularly Herodotus. Pelusium or Pelosio was a city in Lower Egypt, located in the Nile Delta, although that name derived from the Greek and was later given by the classic authors, the real was Per-Amon. Hall)/A History Of Persia (Sir Percy Sykes)/Wikipedia, Published under a Creative Commons 4.0 License, 10 historical characters who mysteriously disappeared, Mellification, the process of dissolving a human body in honey to create a healing confection. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. While this may be sound advice, the refusal of the Egyptians to compromise their beliefs - no matter the cost - is a telling detail in understanding what made their culture so admirable and their civilization among the most impressive. The period of government of the latter had been prosperous and long, more than forty years, which shows his good work because although noble had no royal blood and had come to power in a military coup. Bibliography Mark has lived in Greece and Germany and traveled through Egypt. Related Content Once again, according to Herodotus, Egyptians was so fond of their cats that they preferred to save their cats instead of themselves, when trapped inside a burning building. [2][3], Psamtik had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand the threat of the Persian attack by an alliance with the Greeks, but this hope failed, as the Cypriot towns and the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, who possessed a large fleet, now preferred to join the Persians. He has taught history, writing, literature, and philosophy at the college level. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, in a last attempt to bring an end to the struggle, sent a Persian herald in a ship to exhort the Egyptians to give up before further bloodshed. Furthermore, there was a big probability that the Egyptians forces (like their Persian counterparts) employed a lot of foreign mercenaries, including Arabs and Greeks who were surely not that fond of Bastet. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Although the number of troops on both sides is unknown, the Greek historian Ctesias tells in his Persica that both Egyptians and Persians had foreign allies and mercenaries: Ionians and Cararians the former, other Greeks and Bedouins the latter. Herodotus says, further, "All the inmates of a house where a cat has died a natural death shave their eyebrows" as a sign of their grief, and cats were mummified with jewelry just as people were (Nardo, 96). This claim is contradicted by reports of other writers, inscriptions, and artwork which shows Cambyses II's great appreciation for Egyptian culture and religion including his rebuilding of Memphis and its continuation as the capital of the Persian satrapy. According to Herodotus, the conflict between the Pharaoh Amasis II of Egypt and Cambyses II of Persia was a gradual process involving multiple personalities, mostly Egyptians. This time is characterized by a lack of a strong central government, civil war, and social instability although it was not as dark or dismal as early Egyptologists would claim. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. Assuming Herodotus is correct, in between the insult and the battle, Amasis died and left the country in the hands of his son Psametik III (also known as Psammeticus III). Even so, the country was nowhere near the strength or military might of the New Kingdom. Posted By: Dattatreya Mandal Whether this story is true, the Persians would have eventually attacked Egypt anyway. This value is visible everywhere throughout their culture from art to Egyptian religion but is epitomized by the Battle of Pelusium of 525 BCE. As Herodotus describes a sea of skulls at the Nile basin, upon the remnants of which he remarks on the differences between the Persian and the Egyptian heads. He further observes that one must never trust in one's own strength or goodness in battle but instead prepare for any contingency. According to Herodotus, an Egyptian physician was requested by Cambyses from Amasis on good terms, to which Amasis complied. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. But probably one of the most unheard of employed in those warlike necessities has been the cat. This might suggest that the battle took place on the edge of the desert, rather than on cultivated land, although it does seem a long time for the bodies to have remained visible and unburied. Unfortunately for the Egyptians, Cambyses came to know about the Egyptian (obsessive) veneration forcats. According to Herodotus, Cambyses initially behaved with a certain moderation, sparing the son of Psamtik due to feeling "a touch of pity",[6]:54 but later, dissatisfied with his victory and unable to punish the already deceased Amasis for his trickery, decided to commit what Herodotus calls an un-Persian act: he desecrated the tomb of the mummified Amasis and ordered the mummy burned. (2017, June 13). And, since we are talking about practicality, there is an interesting anecdote given by Herodotus concerning the Battle of Pelusium (as written in HistoryofWar.org) . The Battle of Pelusium: A Victory Decided by Cats. [6]:57. Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Calif.) (CC BY-NC-SA). Pharaoh Amasis of the 26th Dynasty (also known as Ahmose II, 570-526 BCE) was among the greatest rulers of this period and restored some of Egypt's former glory and military prestige. On the other side, Herodotus does not mention this unusual tactic, but he does mention another equally demoralizing one: Cambyses had Amasis tomb profaned and his mummy burned. Bastet was extremely popular throughout Egypt with both men and women from the 2nd Dynasty (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BCE) onward, with her cult centered at the city of Bubastis from at least the 5th century BCE. A freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, New York, Joshua J. Herodotus, however, makes no mention of any such strategy, and "gives hardly any information" about the fighting in general. Mark, Joshua J.. "The Battle of Pelusium: A Victory Decided by Cats." 21 Jul 2022. It has been suggested that the battle would have gone to the Persians regardless of the tactics used since Cambyses II was far more experienced in war than the young Pharaoh Psametik III. After this short struggle, the troops of Psamtik fled, and soon the retreat became a complete rout. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University and University of Missouri. Of course, the Greek historian only picks up the version of the losers. The decisive military conflict happened at Pelusium. World History Encyclopedia, 13 Jun 2017. It was fought near Pelusium, an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30km to the southeast of the modern Port Said, in 525 BC. Sources: Ancient.eu / Attalus /HistoryofWar / Ripleys. The Persians, who were expanding their empire, would have known of the earlier conquest and Egypt's inability to defend itself as it could in the New Kingdom and so would have had little hesitation in launching an invasion. Upon sighting the Persian vessel at the port of Memphis, the Egyptians ran out, attacking the ship and killing every man in it, carrying their torn limbs with them back to the city. Cambyses II had written to Amasis asking for one of his daughters as a wife, but Amasis, not wishing to comply, sent the daughter of his predecessor Apries. [2] The Egyptians were now besieged in their stronghold of Memphis. When word of the Persian mobilization reached him, however, he did his best to mount a defense and prepare for battle. Life had been given by the gods and reverence for it extended beyond human beings to all living things. Painted by French painter Adrien Guignet. Those Egyptians not killed at Pelusium fled to the safety of Memphis with the Persian army in pursuit. Now interestingly, in spite of the crucial nature of the conflict, much of the information about the battle is only available to us through the writings of ancient authors and historians, namely Herodotus and Polyaenus. World History Encyclopedia. For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. [2] As Cambyses advanced to Memphis, it is said that for every Mytilenian killed during the siege of Memphis, ten Egyptians died, which makes the number of dead Egyptians two thousand, who may have been executed at the time or after the siege, because two hundred Mytileneans were killed. The adorable critters ranging from cats, dogs to even sheep, dissuaded the animal-loving Egyptians from firing their arrows thus allowing the Persians to take the initiative and win the battle.

Fought in 525 BC near Pelusium which was an important Egyptian settlement on the eastern reaches of the Nile Delta, the battle pitted the Persian leader Cambyses II against Pharaoh Psametik III (also known as Psammenitus). [2], Despite having full control over the Neo-Babylonian empire and its sub-regions including northern Arabia, Cambyses sent a message to the King of Arabia requesting safe passage through the desert road from Gaza to Pelusium. Psamtik III, son of Amasis II, of the XXVI dynasty, ascended to the throne. The young pharaoh, who had only ruled for six months at the time, must have felt confident he could repel any attack. The victory, however, was due far more to Cambyses II's knowledge of Egyptian culture than his record as a field commander.

The struggle was bloody but there was no color, at that time the Achaemenid Empire was the main power of the known world and militarily Egypt was not a rival. He noted that the skulls of the Egyptians were distinguishable from those of the Persians by their superior hardness, a fact confirmed he said by the mummies, and which he ascribed to the Egyptians' shaving their heads from infancy, and to the Persians covering them up with folds of cloth or linen. The fortress of Pelusium was strong and well provisioned and so was the capital. Mark, published on 13 June 2017. Thank you! The Egyptians under Psametik III, seeing their own beloved goddess on the shields of enemies, and fearing to fight lest they injure the animals being driven before the enemy, surrendered their position and took flight in a rout. She was the goddess of the home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth. Except for brief periods, Egypt ceased to be an autonomous nation following the Persian victory. After the Battle of Pelusium, the Persians would rule Egypt in the 27th and 31st Dynasties and pose a constant threat, even when they were driven out, in the 28th - 30th. In fact, the use of such psychologically-inspired battlefield ploys was not unheard of during ancient times as is evident from the grand Macedonian phalanx demonstration (planned by Alexander the Great) that both impressed and intimidated the rebelling Illyrians. The Persian king, knowing the veneration the Egyptians held for cats, had the image of Bastet painted on his soldiers' shields and, further, "ranged before his front line dogs, sheep, cats, ibises and whatever other animals the Egyptians hold dear" (Polyaenus VII.9). The very fact that he used their values against them in battle attests to this admiration; he knew the Egyptians would respond exactly as they did because they could not do otherwise. According to Herodotus, Apries was the previous pharaoh whom Amasis had defeated and killed, and whose daughter was now to be sent in place of Amasis's own offspring. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot their arrows for fear of wounding the animals, and so Pelusium was stormed successfully. Among the many ways people could offend the goddess was to harm one of her cats. The Battle of Pelusium: A Victory Decided by Cats, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/article/43/the-battle-of-pelusium-a-victory-decided-by-cats/. Psametik III fortified his position at Pelusium near the mouth of the Nile and awaited the Persian attack while simultaneously preparing his capital city of Memphis to withstand a siege. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. It is possible the mummified cats found at Bubastis were pets who had died naturally and were brought to be interred at a sacred spot. To that end, the native Egyptian mythology and religion popularized the worship of Bastet (or Bast). In the middle of the 6th century B.C. In the year 525 B.C. The battle was won through a very unusual strategy on Cambyses II's part: the use of animals as hostages and, especially, cats. They would have thought it better to surrender than betray their beliefs. There would still be a fascinating epilogue collected also by Herodotus: that of the Persian army sent to seize the oasis of Siwa, where the famous Oracle of Amon was located, the same that Alexander the Great would later visit to be invested with mysterious divinity. One could then wait for the beginning of a siege but it turns out that it was not necessary either, again thanks to the cats and this time very real. Fundamentally they were cats, which, in effect, paralyzed the Egyptian actions and led them to abandon the fortress, continuing their disbanded up to Memphis. Cambyses complied, requesting the hand of the daughter of Amasis in marriage. All Rights Reserved. At first glance it is a bit disconcerting to imagine felines in combat which are not major beasts for example, it is said that Ramesses II had a trained lion who fought beside him in the Battle of Kadesh and there are no lack of similar cases with tigers or leopards and it does not seem that the nails of a cat have enough power to face a warrior. Now when examined from the practical perspective, the use of real animals by the Persian forces to unnerve the Egyptians does seem a bit far-fetched. Pelusium probably surrendered itself immediately after the battle. The story is told by Polyaenus, a Macedonian general and lawyer from the 2nd century A.D. who wrote a military treatise in eight books entitled Stratagems (of which only references remain because it has been lost), and who explains that the Persians threw those animals that Egyptians considered sacred over the battlements in order to obtain a kind of covering fire in their assaults. Although the Egyptians did occasionally eat meat, and their royalty certainly engaged in the hunt, the Egyptian diet was primarily vegetarian or pescatarian, and this reflected the understanding of the sacred nature of all existence. Psamtik was taken prisoner and subjected to the humiliation of seeing his daughter forced to work collecting water from the Nile and his son chained and harnessed like a saddle before losing his life. Cats were so highly regarded in ancient Egypt that the punishment for killing one was death, and as Herodotus reports, Egyptians caught in a burning building would save the cats before saving themselves or attempting to put out the fire. Polyaenus, "a retired Macedonian general more interested in novelty than historical accuracy",[4] claims that, according to legend, Cambyses captured Pelusium by using a clever strategy. The physician (most likely an ancient ophthalmologist) resented the forced labor that Amasis had imposed on him, and in retaliation, persuaded Cambyses to ask of Amasis a daughter in marriage, knowing how Amasis would dislike losing his daughter to a Persian. Books According to Polyaenus, the Persian king took advantage of this seemingly unhealthy feline fascination of his enemys culture by positioning many such animals in the front-lines of his own army. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'realmofhistory_com-box-4','ezslot_4',156,'0','0'])};if(typeof __ez_fad_position!='undefined'){__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-realmofhistory_com-box-4-0')};But all was not well on the alliance front, with Greeks from the Cypriot towns, along with the large fleet of tyrant Polycrates of Samos (a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea), deciding to join the Persians in their invasion. World History Encyclopedia.

It was what happened with Pelusium, if we give veracity to the story of Herodotus, not confirmed by the archaeological record. The young woman was insulted by this decision - especially since it was a tradition that Egyptian women were not given to foreign kings - and when she arrived at Cambyses II's court, she revealed her true identity. Egypt was already the only state that remained independent in the area, so its conquest was a matter of time. [3] The Arabian king, himself an enemy of Amasis and glad to facilitate his destruction, granted safe passage to Cambyses and even supplied him with troops. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Psametik III was therefore left on his own to handle the crisis. The young and inexperienced Pharaoh could not be compared to a figure like Cambyses II, the heir of Cyrus the Great and as willing as he was to expand his domains. Amasis himself died six months before Cambyses reached Egypt. Cambyses II accused Amasis of sending him a 'fake wife' and mobilized his troops for war. He later committed suicide after attempting a revolt against the Persians.[2]. Cats were a popular pet in ancient Egypt and closely associated with the goddess Bastet (also known as Bast) who appears in Egyptian art with the body of a woman and the head of a cat or as a sitting cat in a regal pose. The Persians would have known of Egypt's inability to defend itself & so would have had little hesitation in launching an invasion. Certain animals, like the cat and dog, did seem to have a special significance, however, due to their association with deities and it was this knowledge of Egyptian culture and values which gave Cambyses II the victory at Pelusium regardless of the youth of his opponent or Egypt's decline as a world power after the New Kingdom. However, Herodotus takes a contrasting approach by mentioning very few details of the battle itself, except for its unusually high casualties and an ultimate Persian victory. This was the age of the Egyptian Empire during which its borders expanded and treasury filled. Herodotus visited the battlefield about seventy-five years later, and reported that the bones of the dead were still lying in the desert. Historically, Persians were not the only foreign power that had tried to invade Egypt through the Pelusium route. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. She was first represented as a woman with the head of a lioness and closely associated with the vengeful goddess Sekhmet, but the two diverged over time until Bastet was imagined as more of a close companion while Sekhmet remained a force of divine vengeance. Cambyses II is often depicted as a brutal and careless monarch by the Greek writers who had no love for the Persians. Psamtik, in a violent act of revenge prior to the confrontation with the Persian army, arrested all the sons of Phanes and stood them between two bowls. The ancient Egyptians had a great reverence for life in all its forms. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. She protected a household from evil spirits and disease, especially diseases affecting women and children, and also played a role in one's afterlife. However, Pierre Briant concludes that Herodotus' recorded information regarding Cambyses' actions in Egypt after the victory is false. Your email address will not be published. [2] According to Polybius, even with all the precautions taken on entering the border of Egypt, only the city of Gaza resisted the Persians, which fell after a long siege. Although the Assyrians were driven from the country, Egypt would not have the resources to withstand the coming of the Persians. Memphis was besieged and fell after a relatively short interval. On discovering the ruse, Cambyses was so furious that he was bent on invading Egypt itself. It has been suggested that cats were sacrificed to Bastet in the same way dogs were to Anubis, but this claim has been challenged. License. Psamtik then drank of it and made every other councilman drink their blood before the battles.[2]. The Egyptians subsequently fortified their positions by the mouth of the Nile near the city of Pelusium. It is said that Cambyses II, after the battle, hurled cats into the faces of the defeated Egyptians in scorn that they would surrender their country and their freedom fearing for the safety of common animals. The period of the New Kingdom of Egypt (c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE) was a time of prosperity and growth in every area of the civilization. In the year 526 B.C. Polycrates sent 40 triremes to the Persians. Even when animals were eaten, thanks were given for the sacrifice, pets were well cared for, and wildlife in nature was respected. It should be noted, however, that Herodotus' depiction of Cambyses II has been challenged. Battle between Ancient Egypt and the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Srpskohrvatski / , 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Pelusium&oldid=1096737755, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 6 July 2022, at 09:38. Then, after taking Pelusium, he sent a herald to Memphis to negotiate their surrender but the Egyptians killed him, so a real revenge was unleashed in which ten Egyptians died for each Persian, either in combat or later executions, adding about two thousand people of the Menphyte elite: priests, nobles, senior officials and even one of the sons of Pharaoh. Mark, J. J. Egypt became a possession of Persia, and Cambyses its Pharaoh. RealmofHistory(C)2019. Memphis fell, then. But according to fewancient writers, beyond grand strategies and sea-borne armies, the deciding factor in the Battle of Pelusium oddly pertained to cats. It is the demonic aspect that mainly features in the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead and in medical spells. He claimed to have examined the skulls and found that the Persians had thin, brittle bones and the Egyptians thick solid bones. Thus, the Persian troops devastated the formations of the Egyptians, who were tremendously disturbed to see that the adversary had on his shields the image of Bastet, the goddess of the Egyptian pantheon that embodied harmony and happiness and whose iconographic representation had the form of a cat (or woman with a feline head and carrying a sistrum). The fact is that Herodotus puts the gloomy image of a sea of skulls (according to him, the Egyptians were distinguished by having the hardest skin, the result of their habit of shaving from an early age), while Ctesias details that the Persians caused them fifty thousand casualties for only seven thousand of their own. Mummified pets of different kinds have been found including gazelles, baboons, birds, and even fish. This recourse to the distorting element of diplomatic relations is classic and Herodotus insists on it with the story of a Pharaohs advisor, a Greek mercenary called Fanes of Halicarnassus who would also have sought refuge in Persia after disagreements with Amasis, informing Cambyses of all the details necessary to begin the conquest of Egypt. The opulence and success of this era could not last, however, and by c. 1069 BCE the empire was falling apart and the country entered what later scholars have called the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 1069 - 525 BCE).