The story of Cambyses II, the Persian king who reigned from 530 to 522 BC, is filled with ambition, conquest, and a touch of mystery. While he is celebrated for conquering Egypt, his military endeavors also included a less successful campaign towards Ethiopia, which began with an infamous episode in 524 BC.
After the death of his father Cyrus the Great, Cambyses II of Persia was enthroned as the ruler of the ancient Achaemenid Empire in 530 BC. Cambyses started showing glimpses of his leadership skills in 538 BC during the Nowruz, also known as the Persian New Year. In 530 BC, his father named him as regent when he decided to embark on a trip to Central Asia to confront the Massagetae. Cyrus was killed during this journey and Cambyses took over as the leader of the empire.
Cambyses II’s greatest achievement as the King of Persia was conquering Egypt. In 525 BC, the Egyptian and Persians faced off in the city of Pelusium. After a fierce battle, the Egyptians were defeated and were forced to seek refuge in the city of Memphis in Egypt. The city was later seized by the Persians, and Psamtik was captured. After his victory, Cambyses took control of Egypt and was unofficially known as the “king of Upper and Lower Egypt”.
As the ruler of Egypt, he attempted to expand the territories of the state which led him to conquer other regions, including Cyrenaica. He tried to occupy areas like the Oasis of Amon, Carthage, and Ethiopia. He captured the northern part of Ethiopia, but was forced to release it after he exhausted all his resources.
In 524 BC Cambyses dispatched from Luxor an army of 50,000 men to destroy the Siwan oracle - a dispersion of forces that he could ill afford on his way to capture Ethiopia.
Solving the 2,500 Year Old Mystery of Persia's Lost Army #CambysesLostArmy #AncientMysteries
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Map of the Achaemenid Empire around 500 BCE, highlighting its vast reach.
Siwa Oasis and the Oracle of Amon
The Siwa Oasis lies in a broad low area in the desert of western Egypt, 300 kilometers (185 miles) southwest of the Mediterranean port city of Mersa Matruh. From the moment you leave the impoverished vegetation of the coastal strip until you reach Siwa, you see hardly a sprig of green in the stony or gravelly desert. Then, abruptly, you reach the edge of the scarp; at your feet lies the depression that is Siwa, averaging some 20 meters (65 feet) below sea level: a sea of green palms, a mosaic of lakes, an expanse of irrigated fields. Siwa owes its existence to an abundance of permanent fresh-water springs that permit intensive cultivation.
Flint implements show that Siwa was already inhabited in paleolithic and neolithic times, but the first historical records date from the Middle and New Kingdoms of pharaonic Egypt (2050-1800 BC and 1570-1090 BC). Yet Siwa was, in its way, a center of Egyptian culture, for a temple there, built to honor the ram-headed sun god Amon-Ra, housed a divine oracle whose fame, by about 700 BC, was widespread in the eastern Mediterranean.
Such an apparently supernatural victory must have enormously increased the prestige of the oracle throughout the region, though it is from the Greeks that we have most of our information. The famous Greek poet Pindar sent to Siwa a hymn of praise carved on a stone stele that has unfortunately since been lost. Lysander, the great general, tried to bribe the oracle to assist his attempt to be crowned king of Sparta. The most illustrious visitor to Siwa was undoubtedly Alexander the Great. He was acclaimed pharaoh of Egypt after defeating the Persian Darius in the battle of Issus in 333 BC.
The temple of the oracle where Alexander was received can still be seen on the hill of Aghurmi, the old capital of Siwa. Indeed, there was also a second Temple of Amon in Siwa that almost survived into the 20th century.
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The Lost Army of Cambyses
In 524 BC, Persian Emperor Cambyses supposedly sent an army of fifty-thousand men to attack and enslave the “Ammonians”-denizens of the Temple of Amun in modern Siwa.
According to Herodotus, Cambyses detached a contingent of fifty-thousand men and sent them to attack and enslave the Ammonians, and burn the sacred temple of Zeus-Ammon (the Oracle of Ammon or Amun). This army was last seen in the “Island of the Blessed” - though we do not know what specific location this refers to. It was apparently about seven days from Thebes.
The most fundamental and basic need in this trip is water-if we assume about 3 liters/day/person to survive this journey (don’t forget the heat and sweating and water loss), and that they travel about 3 miles/hour and 10 hours/day (it’s fair to assume that this was an infantry move), it still puts the journey to be about 20+ days-and this is the best case. There are many interesting stories in the ancient world of armies attacking the opponents’ baggage trains to demoralize the troops.
It is worth noting that Herodotus is wont to depict Cambyses as a mentally unstable man, so sometimes Herodotus’ motives are suspect in the stories. Historians acknowledge that some of what Herodotus wrote about Cambyses is almost certainly false (e.g., that he killed the sacred Apis bull).
Over the years, many expeditions have sought this army. Here is an article about two Italian brothers who said they found the army. There is also a BBC documentary/expedition that tried to find it.
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Expeditions and Discoveries
From September 1983 to February 1984, the American journalist and author Gary S. Chafetz led an expedition to search for the Lost Army, having been sponsored by Harvard University, the National Geographic Society, the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority, and the Ligabue Research Institute.
In the summer of 2000, a Helwan University geological team, prospecting for petroleum in Egypt's Western Desert, came across well-preserved fragments of textiles, bits of metal resembling weapons, and human remains that it believed to be traces of the Lost Army of Cambyses.
In November 2009, two Italian archaeologists, Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, announced the discovery of human remains, weapons, a sliver bracelet and earrings which date to the era of the Persian army. According to these two archaeologists this is the first archaeological evidence of the story reported by Herodotus.
As a result of his excavations at the Dakhla Oasis, in 2015 Olaf E. Kaper of the University of Leiden argued that the Lost Army was not destroyed by a sandstorm, but rather ambushed and defeated by a rebel Egyptian pharaoh, Petubastis III.
A bust of Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian whose writings provide much of our knowledge about Cambyses' campaign.
Cambyses' Legacy
In 522 BC, while still in Egypt, Cambyses received news of an uprising against him in Persia. It was believed that Smerdis, who claimed to be his brother, was the originator of the rebellion. He hurriedly left to his homeland to tackle the unrest. On his way, he developed a wound on his thigh. The wound, according to historians, developed into a gangrene which caused his death some weeks later. He died in the city of Agbatana. Herodotus later described him as a “mad ruler”.
Though he was initially considered as a blessing from the gods, Cambyses’ legacy died along with him. Aside from his victory in Egypt, the former King of Persia was unable to establish himself as one of the Empire’s greatest leaders. On the other hand, Cambyses has been credited for improving the military of the Empire. Through his well-built army, he was able to defeat many states and expand the territories of the empire.
