Did Persia Beat Egypt by Hiding Behind Cats?

Legend has it that the Persian army marched on Egypt behind a wall of cats, so Egyptian archers wouldn't dare shoot. Did that really decide the battle?

Here's what's real. In 525 BC the Persian king Cambyses II defeated Pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium, on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta, and Egypt became part of the Persian Empire.

The cat shield is another matter. The Greek historian Herodotus later visited the battlefield. He wrote about the bones of the fallen and says nothing about animals at all. The cat story first turns up in Polyaenus's Stratagems, a book of military tricks written around AD 163, about seven centuries after the battle. In that version, Cambyses lines up dogs, sheep, cats and ibises in front of his troops, and the Egyptians stop their attack rather than hurt animals they held sacred.

Egyptians really did revere cats and linked them to the goddess Bastet. So the story is believable, which is probably why it survives. But it is most likely a legend.

Bonus oddity: Herodotus claimed the Egyptian skulls on the battlefield were far harder than the Persian ones. He blamed it on Egyptians shaving their heads in the sun and Persians wearing felt caps. That's his claim, not modern science.

Would a wall of cats stop you? Tell us in the comments.

#Shorts #History #AncientEgypt #Persia

Sources:
- Battle of Pelusium (525 BC) (Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pelusium_(525_BC)
- Polyaenus, Stratagems, Book 7 (adapted from the translation by R. Shepherd, 1793) (attalus.org): https://www.attalus.org/translate/polyaenus7.html
- Polyaenus (Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyaenus
- The History of Herodotus, Book III, translated by G. C. Macaulay (1890) (Wikisource): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_History_of_Herodotus_(Macaulay)/Book_III
- Cats in ancient Egypt (Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_ancient_Egypt

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