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Nectanebo II
Nakhthoreb
Granodiorite head of Nectanebo II, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Pharaoh of Egypt
Reign	360–343 BC,  30th Dynasty
Predecessor	Teos
Successor	Artaxerxes III
Royal titulary Prenomen: Snedjemibre Pleasing to the Heart is Re, chosen of Onuris Nomen: Nakhthhorheb Strong is His Lord, Beloved of Hathor[1]

Nectanebo II (ruled 360 - 343 BC), also known by the name Nakhthoreb, was the third and last king of the Thirtieth dynasty of Egypt and also the last native Egyptian ruler of the country in antiquity.

Nectanebo was placed on the Egyptian throne by the Spartan king Agesilaus II, who helped him overthrow Teos and fight off a rival pretender. After a reign of 17 years, he was defeated by the Persian king Artaxerxes III, and fled first to Memphis then into Upper Egypt, and finally into exile in Nubia, where he vanishes from history. With Nectanebo's flight, all organized resistance to the Persians collapsed, and Egypt once again was reduced to a satrapy of the Persian Empire.

Nectanebo's sarcophagus

Nectanebo II's sarcophagus was found in modern times in a mosque at Alexandria; his intended burial "presumably lay at his native town [of] Sebennytos."^[2] At some point in time, the king's sarcophagus was "used as a water container, bath, or a tank for ablutions, as shown by the twelve draining holes drilled around the base."^[3] It today resides in the British Museum.

Nectanebo's gold stater

Obverse of gold stater.

Nectanebo II has the distinction of being the pharaoh to have minted a gold coin with hieroglyphs. The reverse of the coin has a horse reared on its back legs;^[4] the obverse has two hieroglyphs, in ligature, the necklace of gold, nb, upon the nfr symbol for beauty. (Perfect gold, or in modern translation: 'Fine' gold.)

Nectanebo and the Alexander Romance

There is an apocryphal tale, appearing in the pseudo-historical Alexander Romance, which details another end for the last Egyptian Pharaoh of Egypt. Soon after Alexander the Great's godhood was confirmed by the Oracle of Zeus Ammon, a rumor was begun that Nectanebo II did not travel to Nubia but instead to the court of Philip II of Macedon in the guise of an Egyptian magician. There, while Philip was away on campaign, Nectanebo convinced his wife Olympias that Amun was to come to her and that they would father a son. Nectanebo, disguising himself as Amun, slept with Olympias and from his issue came Alexander.^[5] This myth would hold strong appeal for Egyptians who desired continuity and harbored a strong dislike for foreign rule.

Black siltstone obelisk of King Nectanebo II. According to the vertical inscriptions he set up this obelisk at the doorway of the sanctuary of Thoth, the Twice-Great, Lord of Hermopolis. Nowadays it is placed in the British Museum, London.

In the early Ptolemaic tale of Nectanebo and Petesis^[6], only preserved in a Greek fragment from the Memphis Serapeum, the Pharaoh has a prophetic dream of Isis, in which the god Onuris is angry with him because of his unfinished temple in Sebennytos. Nectanebo calls in the best sculptor of the realm, Petesis, to finish the job, but he bungles his assignment when he gets drunk and chases a beautiful girl instead. The narrative ends abruptly here, but this is probably the preface to the fall of Egypt to the Persians.^[7]

References

1. ^ Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd., p.203
2. ^ Bill Manley, The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt" Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2003. p.101
3. ^ Sarcophagus of Nectanebo II
4. ^ Schulz, Seidel, 1998. Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs, Editors, Regine Schulz, Matthias Seidel, Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne, English translation version. p. 370. (obverse, reverse) (hardcover, ISBN 3-89508-913-3)
5. ^ Ogden, Daniel, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0195135756, p. 59 searchable at [1]
6. ^ Maspero, Gaston, Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt (1915), p. 239-242
7. ^ Koenen, Ludwig, "The Dream of Nektanebos", The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 22 (1985): 171-194.

External links

• Nectanebo II
• Livius.org: Nectanebo II