King Cambyses II seizes Egypt
After the fall of Babylon at the hands of the Persians in 539 BC and their control over Mesopotamia. A few years later, specifically in 525 BC, the Persians, led by King Cambyses II, attacked Egypt, occupied it, and captured its pharaoh Psamatek III. Egypt became the property of Persia, and Cambyses II, its pharaoh, became the king of the Persians.
Because they defeated the pharaohs of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, the Persian kings were recognized as pharaohs and became known as the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty. It lasted from 525 BC to 404 BC.
Reasons for the Persian attack on Egypt
According to Greek historians, especially Herodotus, King Cambyses II of Persia asked King Ahmose II of Egypt to be an ophthalmologist in exchange for a good return, but the doctor hated the hard work that King Ahmose assigned to him every now and then in distant countries.
He convinced Cambyses II to ask Ahmose II to marry his daughter, knowing that he would refuse, which would anger Cambyses II. But Ahmose II did not want a conflict to arise between him and the Persians, so he sent him the daughter of the former pharaoh Apris...but she confessed to Cambyses II that she was not the daughter of Ahmose II, so he became angry. Cambyses II considered this an insult.
The battle took place at Al-Farma. (Ancient Port Said area) As Herodotus describes a sea of skulls in the Nile Basin, according to Ctesias, fifty thousand Egyptians fell, while the entire loss on the Persian side was only seven thousand. After this short struggle, the Psamtik forces fled, and the retreat soon became a complete rout. Confused and fleeing, the Egyptians took refuge in Memphis. The Egyptians were now besieged in their stronghold of Memphis
According to Herodotus, Cambyses, in a last-ditch attempt to end the war, sent a Persian message in a ship urging the Egyptians to surrender before more blood was shed. Seeing the Persian ship in the port of Memphis, the Egyptians attacked it and killed every man in it, carrying their torn limbs with them back to the city. As Cambyses advanced to Memphis, he is said to have killed ten Egyptians for every Mytilene man killed during the siege of Memphis, making the Egyptian death toll at two thousand, including those who had been executed sometime before or after the siege. Al-Farma itself probably surrendered immediately after the battle. The pharaoh was captured after the fall of Memphis and allowed to live under Persian surveillance. He was later executed after an attempted rebellion against the Persians.
The picture is of the statue of Psamtik III
Source: websites