Artaxerxes II

Artaxerxes II ascended the Persian throne in 404 BC following the death of his father Darius II. His nominal reign over Egypt lasted less than a year, with dates secure within a year. Almost immediately upon his accession, his brother Cyrus the Younger challenged his rule in the central Persian lands, triggering an imperial crisis.

This distraction allowed the Egyptian leader Amyrtaeus to mount a successful uprising in the Nile Delta. Artaxerxes was unable to dispatch troops to restore order, and Persian control collapsed rapidly across the country. He left no known monuments or building works in Egypt. He was later buried at Persepolis after a long reign in Persia, while Egypt entered a period of native independence under the Twenty-eighth Dynasty. Scholars know of his brief Egyptian claim through Aramaic administrative records and subsequent classical histories.

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