Naucratis
—Written by Jason, narrated by Christina

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/hwts263--62631858 

The Nile Delta was, and still is, Egypt’s gateway for trade with the cultures that border the Mediterranean Sea. While the modern Nile River splits into two main channels: the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta Branch to the east, in ancient times, according to various authors, it had as many as seven different channels that emptied into the Mediterranean. It was within these distinct waterways that small villages and towns transformed into major trade ports for the ancient Egyptians. 

The most westerly of the Nile channels was called the Canopic Branch. It served as a major outlet for Egyptian merchandise because it was one of the easiest routes of travel from the river to the Mediterranean. One very important settlement, Naucratis, became a central location for the long-distance trade networks established in the ancient Near East.

Naucratis, roughly translated as "Naval Command" in ancient Greek, was a city that was the first and, for much of its early history the only permanent Greek settlement in Egypt. It served as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Greek and Egyptian art and culture. The site was an Egyptian town long before the Greeks arrived; this was followed by a period of merchant settlers arriving, and finally the establishment of a military settlement occupied by mercenaries.

Contact between Egyptians and Greeks goes back at least as far as the Minoan and Mycenaean periods and revolved mostly around commercial contact. Gold, grain, precious stones, aromatic resins, and other exotic goods from deeper within East Africa were transported north along the Nile River and loaded aboard ships and then dispatched along the eastern Mediterranean. Following the collapse of the Bronze Age (1200 - 1100 BCE), both the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures vanished, and contact was briefly lost.

The Egyptian pharaohs did not use only native peoples for their army: they also incorporated mercenaries to supplement. Ancient Greeks were famed for their combat prowess and sold their services on many occasions. Mercenaries at times could be more reliable than a fellow countryman especially in times of civil war.

In 570 BC, the Pharaoh Apries (reigning from 589–570 BC), the fourth king of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, found himself in this exact situation. Pharaoh Apries was forced to raise an army of 30,000 mercenaries to fight against Amasis, a former general who turned rebel. Despite fighting valiantly, Apries and his mercenaries were crushed and Amasis seized the crown and named himself Amasis II (reigning from 570–526 BC). 

However, Amasis did not execute or expel the defeated Greek mercenaries, rather he used them to guard against fellow Egyptians. The Greek historian Herodotus stated in his work The Histories that "Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among other favors which he granted them, gave to such as liked to settle in Egypt the city of Naucratis for their residence." Most likely the old settlement of Naucratis had already been long established, and the city was given to the mercenaries as their garrison home.

Amasis II converted Naucratis into a major treaty-port and commercial link with the western Mediterranean. The most likely reason to contain Greeks activities in one place was to keep them under his control. It did not become the colony of any Greek city-state (which was what usually happened when Greek settlers left their home territory) but was an open trading post controlled by the Pharaonic state. According again to Herodotus, the natives of Naucratis were composed of at least twelve Greek city-states working in a rare long-term collaboration.

The Egyptians supplied the Greeks with mostly grain but also linen and papyrus while the Greeks bartered mostly silver but also timber, olive oil and wine. The presence of Greek hoplites also gave the added benefit for the pharaohs to hire heavy infantry that was superior to not only native rebels, but also rival kingdoms. Additionally, Greek expertise in ship handling and naval warfare also helped to shield the Nile Delta from outside attacks.

Naucratis soon became a profound source of inspiration to the Greeks by re-exposing them to the wonders of Egyptian architecture and sculpture lost to them since the collapse of the Bronze Age. Egyptian artifacts soon began their flow along the Greek trade routes finding their way into the homes and workshops of the Ionian Greek world and, via Aegina, the city-states of mainland Greece. Greek historians and poets wrote detailed, and fanciful, descriptions of the wonders found along the Nile.

Eventually Naucratis was overshadowed following both manmade and natural circumstances. Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria in April 331 BC after he captured the Egyptian Satrapy from the Persians. He chose the site for Alexandria, envisioning the building of a causeway to the nearby island of Pharos that would generate two great natural harbors and be much closer to the Mediterranean than Naucratis. The more natural decline of Naucratis occurred because of the Canopic branch where it was silted up at the end of the first millennium CE.