Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

66 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
and Phoenicia, we find Agesilaus as general, and
the Athenian Chabrias as admiral, commanding the
Egyptian forces in an attack on Syria ;
but their
success, otherwise not doubtful, was checked by
disputes in Egypt.
About B.C. 360 359, Artaxerxes died, it is said at the
advanced age of 94 years, and after a series of assassin-
ations, was succeeded by Artaxerxes III (Ochus), who,
in a reign of more than twenty years, marked by
deeds of singular atrocity, restored in some measure the
position of Persia as a considerable military monarchy :
the chronology of this period is difficult to unravel,
and we have no details of the events in the early part
of his reign : there is however, no doubt that Ochus
early contemplated the reduction of Egypt, which had
been for many years in a state of chronic rebellion.
In all the wars of this period, we find Greeks
fighting on either, indeed, not unfrequently on both
sides ; thus in the reduction of Cyprus, Evagoras the
son of the celebrated Graeco-Cyprian king of the
same name, commanded in conjunction with the
Athenian Phocion, 8000 Greek mercenaries, for the
enslavement of his own island and people. In
the first attack on Egypt, Artaxerxes was utterly
defeated by the king Nectanebo, aided by Diophantus
of Athens and Lamius of Sparta; the natural
result being that Cyprus and Phoenicia both took
up arms against him and shortly after declared their
independence. Not long afterwards, however, Idrieus
the Carian and Evagoras reduced Cyprus, while the
Rhodian Mentor, whom Nectanebo had sent to the
help of the king of Sidon, drove the Persians out
ot Syria, though but for a brief time.