This book is the first monograph devoted to the history of Egypt during the Saite Dynasty (664–525 bce), a period of particular interest to Classicists. There has long been a lack of communication between the fields of Classics and Egyptology, and Classicists working on Archaic Greek history, culture and literature have only recently begun to engage with concurrent developments in Egypt. The Saite Dynasty was cotemporaneous with the late Archaic Period, and Saite Egypt was a vital context for an increasingly entangled Greek relationship with Egypt and for Greek expansion, overseas colonisation and cultural and economic interaction with non-Greeks prior to the Persian Wars. However, the complexities of the Egyptian source material and the dearth of accessible Egyptological histories of the Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period have impeded close engagement by Hellenists with Saite history and culture on its own terms, outside of the closely studied sites of Naucratis and Memphis. With this timely and interdisciplinary contribution F. attempts to fill an important gap in scholarship and to bridge the divide between Classics and Egyptology in approaching Saite Egypt. He utilises both Greek and Egyptian evidence to construct a clear and accessible narrative of Saite history for an academic but non-Egyptological audience.

Despite its title, a considerable portion of the book does not address the Saite (26^th) Dynasty. Chapter 1 presents a narrative of Egyptian history from the late New Kingdom to the 24^th Dynasty, and Chapter 2 covers the political history of the Kushite 25^th Dynasty, leading up to the reunification of the country by Psamtik I and the recommencement of direct, large-scale Greek relations with Egypt after the earlier decline in Graeco-Egyptian interaction during the Early Iron Age. Simply and sparsely written, these chapters will be useful to non-specialists. The next five chapters deal with the Saite Dynasty: Chapter 3 narrates the internal political history of Egypt under Psamtik I, while Chapter 4 examines international affairs and Egyptian foreign policy during this seminal reign for Graeco-Egyptian relations. Chapter 5 focuses on the reigns of Nekau II and Psamtik II, and Chapter 6 discusses the reigns of Apries and Ahmose II, who was named ‘Amasis’ in Greek and was endowed with a philhellenic reputation. Chapter 7 deals with the brief reign of Psamtik III, the Persian conquest of Egypt by Cambyses II and the onset of the 27^th Dynasty, which witnessed a three-way cultural and literary interchange between Greece, Egypt and Achaemenid Persia.

F.'s descriptive rather than argumentative approach lends itself well to engaging Classicists and non-Egyptologists in general with Egyptian political history concurrent with the Greek Archaic Period. F. is to be praised for approaching the Saite Dynasty as an emergent entity that arose from the Third Intermediate Period, avoiding the widespread teleological view that demarcates it as the beginning of the Late Period or as a stand-alone epoch. The book contains a great deal of useful material, and, throughout each chapter, F. helpfully uses the chronological framework of the 26^th Dynasty to situate Herodotus’ account of Saite history alongside indigenous Egyptian sources. However, the bibliography is littered with dozens of spelling mistakes and omissions, and the study itself contains a number of errors that can cause confusion for readers. In particular, F.'s insufficient engagement with important primary sources and an overreliance on secondary literature has resulted in important items of evidence being overlooked, which could mislead readers from different disciplinary backgrounds. For example, F. rightly notes the Libyan background of the 26^th Dynasty (p. 6); it is therefore striking that he fails to mention the Libyan etymology of the names (Psamtik I) and (Nekau II) as well as the Egyptian traditions connecting the 26^th Dynasty with Bakenranef, the sole king of the 24^th Dynasty. F. does not discuss Demotic literary traditions and cultural memories pertaining to the Assyrian invasions of Egypt (p. 37), most notably the Petition of Petese and the Inaros Cycle. F. claims that the insurrection against Apries led by Ahmose II was aided by ‘ongoing nationalistic resentment among the native forces at their constantly being displaced by Greek mercenaries within the Egyptian military establishment, with privileges being allotted to the foreign mercenaries’ (p. 148). Although some Caro-Egyptian inscriptions attest to a Carian presence in the Egyptian military leadership, there is no evidence of Greek mercenaries occupying privileged positions at this date. Classicists may be disappointed by the lack of Egyptological citation for F.'s description of the Saite state and temple institutions granting land to middle-class and sub-elite individuals (p. 163). In the description of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant (pp. 34–6) F. does not mention Herodotus 2.141 or the most recent scholarship (D. Kahn, ‘The War of Sennacherib Against Egypt as Described in Herodotus 2.141’, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 6:2 [2014], 23–33). The relevant Herodotean passages are also omitted from F.'s discussions of Nekau II's first Levantine campaign (2.159) and of Apries’ Libyan campaign (4.159).

Elsewhere, F.'s erroneous treatment of a number of Greek and Egyptian primary sources results in misconceptions regarding the cross-cultural and political relationships between the Greek city-states, Assyria and the Saite kings. For example, F. claims that Psamtik I was driven out of Sais by a coalition of Delta rulers who disliked his support for the Assyrians (pp. 55–6), citing Herodotus 2.152, despite the fact that neither Herodotus nor other Greek authors mention the Assyrians as a factor in Psamtik I's rise to power. Moreover, the rulers of the Delta principalities before Psamtik I's reunification of Egypt are described in Assyrian sources as vassals of Ashurbanipal, as F. earlier admits (pp. 46–7). The Hellenion of Naucratis (p. 90) was not ‘a group of Greek sanctuaries’, but a single building. The title held by the naval commander Hor () translates not as ‘Commander of Mercenaries’ (p. 135), but as ‘Leader of the Greek foreigners’. Hor also held the important title , ‘Trusted One of the King in the Foreign Lands of the Greeks’, not mentioned by F. The title of Udjahorresnet (p. 159) is translated incorrectly.

Overall, despite its shortcomings, this book comprises a useful initial step for broader, integrated studies of Greek sources on Saite Egypt and is of value to Greek historians and scholars working on Greek identity and on interactions between Greeks and non-Greeks in the Archaic Period. F. gives detailed consideration to a wide range of the most important historical, archaeological and literary evidence pertaining to Saite Egypt. With its detailed footnotes, the book will be especially helpful to students and academics within Classics in having amassed such a diverse dataset for easy consultation within a single volume. Studying the Saite Dynasty and the Graeco-Egyptian relationship during the Archaic Period demands expertise in multiple disciplines and languages, including Akkadian, Aramaic, Greek, Carian, Hebrew, Egyptian and Phoenician. In the context of such an imposing task, cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration are key. Previous studies, such as D. Klotz's 2019 monograph From Ashurbanipal to Alexander: Ancient Egypt During the Late Period (c. 672 – 332 bc) have been restricted by the space in which they must cover a period attested by a vast and diverse array of evidence. Still lacking is a holistic monograph covering not only the political and economic history but also the cultural and literary history of the Saite Dynasty, and its relationship to the Greek world. This book nonetheless succeeds in writing an accessible narrative of the history of Saite Egypt for a Classics audience and in demonstrating the need for closer engagement by Classicists with Late-Period Egypt.