During the reign of Nectanebo II, Egyptian artists developed a specific style that left a distinctive mark on the reliefs of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

The Persians occupied Memphis and then seized the rest of Egypt, incorporating the country into the Achaemenid Empire under Artaxerxes III.

[14] However, following the conclusion of the Peace of Antalcidas in 387 BC between the Achaemenids and the Greek city-states, Egypt and Cyprus became the only obstacles to Persian hegemony in the Mediterranean.

[15] In an attempt to quickly raise finances for the war, Teos imposed taxes on Egyptians and seized temple property.

[19] Under Nectanebo II a decree forbidding stone quarrying in the so-called "Mysterious Mountains" in Abydos was issued.

After a year of fighting, Nectanebo and his allied generals, Diophantus of Athens [ca] and Lamius of Sparta, managed to defeat the Achaemenids.

[26] At the end of 344 BC, ambassadors of Artaxerxes III arrived in Greece, asking for the Greeks' participation in a campaign against Egypt.

[28] In addition, Nectanebo had a number of flat-bottomed boats intended to prevent an enemy from entering the Nile mouths.

[29] The vulnerable points along his Mediterranean sea border and east boundary were protected by strongholds, fortifications and entrenched camps.

[26] Nectanebo II was ultimately defeated and, in the summer of 342 BC, Artaxerxes entered Memphis[30] and installed a satrap.

[32] Though placed in an unfortunate period of Egyptian history, and with his legacy perhaps marred by being the last pharaoh to rule an independent Egypt, Nectanebo was an extensive builder, likely on a scale that would equal many kings of the glory days of the New Kingdom.

Nectanebo's name has been found at Heliopolis, Athribis, and Bubastis in the Nile Delta, among other places, but he built most extensively at Sebennytos,[34] including the modern site of Behbeit El Hagar.

[37] Soon after, following the Battle of Alexandria in 1801, Napoleon's forces surrendered to the British, and conditionally turned over antiquities they had gathered from the ancient city.

Alexander the Great's body was temporarily entombed in Memphis following his death in 323 BC, and Saqqara is a suspected location of his temporary Memphite tomb.

[38] In an article in the Egyptology journal Kmt (fall 2020), Andrew Chugg showed that a 3rd century BC fragment of a high status Macedonian tomb found embedded in the foundations of St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1960 (which was believed to have been brought over from Alexandria along with the relics of St. Mark in 828 AD) is an exact fit as part of a tomb-casing for the sarcophagus, sparking renewed claims that the sarcophagus once held Alexander's remains.

[43] In the early Ptolemaic tale of Nectanebo and Petesis,[44] preserved only in a Greek fragment from the Serapeum of Saqqara, 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.

[46] The legend of Nectanebo (or Nectanebus, or Natanabo, as reported in some versions of the Alexander Romance) left a profound mark on European culture up to the Renaissance and beyond.

It is no coincidence that this character is included in the Sola Busca tarot (with the name Natanabo) together with other important "actors" of the same legend: Alexander, Philip of Macedon, Olympias and Ammon.

[47] An alchemical interpretation of this character was provided by the Italian scholar Sofia Di Vincenzo in a study on the Sola Busca Tarot, where she explains that Natanabo represents a celestial messenger who came to earth with a gift, the helmet, which is a symbol of invulnerability and both physical and mental potency.