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Ochus better known by his
dynastic name of Artaxerxes III, was King of Kings of the Persian Empire from
358 to 338. He was the son and successor of Artaxerxes II and his mother was Stateira. Before
ascending the throne Artaxerxes was a satrap and commander of his father's
army. Artaxerxes came to power after one of his brothers was executed, another
committed suicide, the last murdered and his father, Artaxerxes II died. Soon
after becoming king, Artaxerxes murdered all of the royal family to secure his
place as king. He started two major campaigns against Egypt. The first campaign
failed, and was followed up by rebellions throughout the western part of his
empire. In 343 Artaxerxes defeated
Nectanebo II, the
Pharaoh of Egypt, driving him from Egypt, stopping a revolt in Phoenicia on the
way. In Artaxerxes' later years, Philip II of Macedon's power was increasing in
Greece, where he tried to convince the Greeks to revolt against the Persian
Empire. His activities were opposed by Artaxerxes, and with his support, the
city of Perinthus resisted a Macedonian siege. In 359, just before ascending
the throne, he attacked Egypt as a reaction to Egypt's failed attacks on
coastal regions of Phoenicia. In 355 Artaxerxes forced Athens to conclude a
peace which required the city's forces to leave Anatolia and to acknowledge the
independence of its rebellious allies. Artaxerxes started a campaign against
the rebellious Cadusii, but he managed to appease both of the Cadusian kings.
In around 351 Artaxerxes embarked on a campaign to recover Egypt, which had
revolted under his father, Artaxerxes II. At the same time a rebellion had
broken out in Asia Minor, which, being supported by Thebes, threatened to
become serious. Levying a vast army, Artaxerxes marched into Egypt, and engaged
Nectanebo II. After a year of fighting the Egyptian Pharaoh, Nectanebo
inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians with the support of mercenaries led
by the Greek generals: the Athenian Diophantus and the Spartan Lamius.
Artaxerxes was compelled to retreat and postpone his plans to reconquer Egypt.
Soon after this Egyptian defeat, Phoenicia, Anatolia and Cyprus declared their
independence from Persian rule.
In 343 Artaxerxes committed responsibility for the suppression of the Cyprian
rebels to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed 8000 Greek mercenaries and
forty triremes, commanded by
Phocion the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of the elder
Evagoras, the Cypriot
monarch. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus. Artaxerxes initiated a
counter-offensive against Sidon by commanding the satrap of Syria Belesys and
Mazaeus, the satrap of Cilicia, to invade the city and to keep the Phoenicians
in check. Both satraps suffered crushing defeats at the hands of Tennes, the
Sidonese king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries sent to him by
Nectanebo II and commanded by Mentor of
Rhodes. As a result, the Persian forces were driven out of Phoenicia. After
this, Artaxerxes personally led an army of 330,000 men against Sidon.
Artaxerxes' army comprised 300,000 foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 300 triremes,
and 500 transports or provision ships. After gathering this army, he sought
assistance from the Greeks. Though refused aid by Athens and Sparta, he
succeeded in obtaining a thousand Theban heavy-armed hoplites under Lacrates,
three thousand Argives under Nicostratus, and six thousand Æolians,
Ionians, and Dorians from the Greek cities of Anatolia.
This Greek support was numerically small, amounting to no more than 10,000 men,
but it formed, together with the Greek mercenaries from Egypt who went over to
him afterwards, the force on which he placed his chief reliance, and to which
the ultimate success of his expedition was mainly due. The approach of
Artaxerxes sufficiently weakened the resolution of Tennes that he endeavoured
to purchase his own pardon by delivering up 100 principal citizens of Sidon
into the hands of the Persian king, and then admitting Artaxerxes within the
defences of the town. Artaxerxes had the 100 citizens transfixed with javelins,
and when 500 more came out as supplicants to seek his mercy, Artaxerxes
consigned them to the same fate. Sidon was then burnt to the ground, either by
Artaxerxes or by the Sidonian citizens. Forty thousand people died in the
conflagration. Artaxerxes sold the ruins at a high price to speculators, who
calculated on reimbursing themselves by the treasures which they hoped to dig
out from among the ashes. Tennes was later put to death by Artaxerxes.
Artaxerxes later sent Jews who supported the revolt to Hyrcania, on the south
coast of the Caspian Sea. The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the
invasion of Egypt. In 343, Artaxerxes, in addition to his 330,000 Persians, had
now a force of 14,000 Greeks furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor: 4,000
under Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of
Tennes from Egypt; 3,000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided these
troops into three bodies, and placed at the head of each a Persian and a Greek.
The Greek commanders were Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes and Nicostratus
of Argos while the Persians were led by Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the
chief of the eunuchs. Nectanebo II resisted with an army of 100,000 of whom
20,000 were Greek mercenaries. Nectanebo II occupied the Nile and its various
branches with his large navy. The character of the country, intersected by
numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns, was in his favour and
Nectanebo II might have been expected to offer a prolonged, if not even a
successful, resistance. But he lacked good generals, and over-confident in his
own powers of command, he was able to be out-manoeuvred by the Greek mercenary
generals and his forces eventually defeated by the combined Persian armies.
After his defeat, Nectanebo hastily fled to Memphis, leaving the fortified
towns to be defended by their garrisons. These garrisons consisted of partly
Greek and partly Egyptian troops; between whom jealousies and suspicions were
easily sown by the Persian leaders. As a result, the Persians were able to
rapidly reduce numerous towns across Lower Egypt and were advancing upon
Memphis when Nectanebo decided to quit the country and flee southwards to
Ethiopia. The Persian army completely routed the Egyptians and occupied the
Lower Delta of the Nile. Following Nectanebo fleeing to Ethiopia, all of Egypt
submitted to Artaxerxes. The Jews in Egypt were sent either to Babylon or to
the south coast of the Caspian Sea, the same location that the Jews of
Phoenicia had earlier been sent. After this victory over the Egyptians,
Artaxerxes had the city walls destroyed, started a reign of terror, and set
about looting all the temples. Persia gained a significant amount of wealth
from this looting. Artaxerxes also raised high taxes and attempted to weaken
Egypt enough that it could never revolt against Persia. For the 10 years that
Persia controlled Egypt, believers in the native religion were persecuted and
sacred books were stolen. Before he returned to Persia, he appointed
Pherendares as satrap of Egypt. With the wealth gained from his reconquering
Egypt, Artaxerxes was able to amply reward his mercenaries. He then returned to
his capital having successfully completed his invasion of Egypt. After the
conquest of Egypt, there were no more revolts or rebellions against Artaxerxes.
Mentor of Rhodes and Bagoas, the two generals who had most distinguished
themselves in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced to posts of the highest
importance. Mentor, who was governor of the entire Asiatic seaboard, was
successful in reducing to subjection many of the chiefs who during the recent
troubles had rebelled against Persian rule. In the course of a few years Mentor
and his forces were able to bring the whole Asian Mediterranean coast into
complete submission and dependence. Bagoas went back to the Persian capital
with Artaxerxes, where he took a leading role in the internal administration of
the Empire and maintained tranquility throughout the rest of the Empire. During
the last six years of the reign of Artaxerxes III, the Persian Empire was
governed by a vigorous and successful government. The Persian forces in Ionia
and Lycia regained control of the Aegean and the Mediterranean Sea and took
over much of Athens’ former island empire. In response, Isocrates of
Athens started giving speeches calling for a ‘crusade against the
barbarians’ but there was not enough strength left in any of the Greek
city-states to answer his call. Although there weren't any rebellions in the
Persian Empire itself, the growing power and territory of Philip II of Macedon
in Macedon (against which Demosthenes was in vain warning the Athenians)
attracted the attention of Artaxerxes. In response, he ordered that Persian
influence was to be used to check and constrain the rising power and influence
of the Macedonian kingdom. In 340 a Persian force was dispatched to assist the
Thracian prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence. Sufficient
effective aid was given to the city of Perinthus that the numerous and well-appointed
army with which Philip had commenced his siege of the city was compelled to
give up the attempt. By the last year of Artaxerxes' rule, Philip II already
had plans in place for an invasion of the Persian Empire, which would crown his
career, but the Greeks would not unite with him. In 338 Artaxerxes III was
according to a Greek source, Diodorus of Sicily, poisoned by Bagoas with the
assistance of a physician.
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Artaxerxes III (r.359-338) was the third-from-last Persian emperor of
the Achaemenid dynasty, and restored Persian control of Egypt after just over
sixty years of independence. Before he came to the throne he was called Ochus,
but he took his father's name after becoming Emperor. Artaxerxes III succeeded
his father Artaxerxes II to the throne in 359. In the aftermath of his
succession he killed off many of his close relatives in an attempt to prevent
revolts again him, leaving the Achaemenid family rather short on male heirs. In
356, in a further attempt to secure his position, he ordered the satraps to
dismiss all of their mercenary troops. Although the later Persian Empire wasn't
as powerful as it had been under the earlier emperors, Artaxerxes III was still
able to intervene effectively in Greece.
The Social War of 357-55:
which saw Athens attempting to punish some of her allies, was a breach of the
King's Peace of 387-6, which had guaranteed the autonomy of most Greek cities.
Artaxerxes was able to force Athens to accept a peace in which some of their
allies were granted autonomy. Egypt had revolted against the Persians in 405,
and had fought off a Persian attack in 373. Artaxerxes made a first attempt to
reconquer Egypt in 351-350, but without success. Few details of this campaign
have survived, but it was mentioned by Demosthenes in his On the Liberty of the
Rhodians of 351 as an ongoing campaign that was rumoured to have failed. This
failure possibly helped to trigger a revolt that began in Sidon, and spread to
Palestine, Phoenicia and Cilicia. The revolt was crushed in 345, when
Artaxerxes, aided by Mentor of Rhodes, led a
massive army against Sidon. In 343 Artaxerxes III raised an army with Greek
contingents from Thebes, the Argive and Asia Minor and led that army in person
on yet another campaign in Egypt (although the eunuch Bagoas served as
commander-in-chief of the army). This time he was successful, and Persian
control was restored after a great victory at Pelusium. He did fail to capture
the defeated royal family and the pharaoh Nectanebo II, who fled south into
Nubia. Artaxerxes had the walls of Egyptian cities destroyed, plundered their
temples, and was said to have personally killed the sacred Apis Bull. Although
Persian rule had been re-established, these actions made it very unpopular, and
help explain why Alexander the Great was greeted so readily when he invaded.
Battles and Sieges of Philip II of Macedon, 358-338:
Artaxerxes's biggest foreign policy mistake was underestimating the threat from
Philip II of Macedonia. He refused to support Athens against the Macedonians.
In 340 Philip besieged Perinthus and
Byzantium, on the European side of the
Bosphorus. Artaxerxes sent help to the cities, and forced the Macedonians to
lift the siege. This was only a temporary setback for Philip, who went on to
win dominance of Greece at Chaeronea in 338, at the end of the Fourth Sacred
War. Most of mainland Greece was now under Macedonia control, denying the
Persians the chance to play off different Greek factions against each other as
they had done so successfully in the past. In 338 Artaxerxes was poisoned by
his doctor, who was following the orders of the eunuch Bagoas. All but one of
his sons were also murdered at this time. Bagoas then placed the surviving son,
Arses, on the throne (338-336), before finally helping raise Darius III, the
last Achaemenid emperor, to power. Although Artaxerxes's reign was marked by
the last significant Persian successes, he had a very bad press in the ancient
sources, being described as reckless, a coward, secluded in his palace, a
merciless despot and his successes were credited to either Greek mercenaries or
the poor qualities of his opponents. However he must have had more qualities
than he is normally given credit for, as he was able re-conquer Egypt and still
had significant influence in Greece.
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