foreigners and barbarians: The Middle East ple, the texts include both Nubia, where Egyptian military forces were constantly on alert, and Byblos, with which Egypt maintained a mainly peaceful trading relationship Unlike the Nine Bows, the execration texts list only non-Egyptian peoples The implication in the texts is that any non-Egyptian—any foreigner—was a potential enemy of Egypt Although foreigners typically were viewed as potential enemies of the Egyptian state, warriors from Nubia and Libya were recruited as mercenaries for the Egyptian army When the Sixth Dynasty (ca 2323–ca 2150 b.c.e.) official Weni led the Egyptian army against Asiatics in the north and the nomadic tribes in the east, he commanded an army made up of Egyptians and Nubians from Wawat, Irtjet, Kaau, Yam, and Medja from the eastern desert Recruits from Nubia and Medja also joined the armies of the Herakleopolitan and Theban dynasties in the First Intermediate Period (2134– 2040 b.c.e.) These Nubian mercenaries fought for the Egyptians against Asiatics, but they also fought in battles meant to secure the southern border against their fellow Nubians Middle Kingdom Egypt (2040–1640 b.c.e.) saw mercenaries recruited from the oases in the western desert In the 19th and 20th Dynasties (1307–1070 b.c.e.) major wars with the Libyans resulted in large numbers of Libyan prisoners, who were relocated to settlements in the eastern delta These Libyans, former enemies of Egypt, consequently were relied upon to protect Egypt’s eastern border In the Late Period the kings of the Saite Dynasty (664–525 b.c.e.) were said to have relied heavily on Greek and Carian mercenaries The nature of foreign mercenaries and the fact that they often fought against their own people show an ambiguity on the part of the Egyptians; both the enemy of Egypt and the army protecting Egypt were of the same people The attitude of the Egyptians toward the Nubians in the south was increasingly one of domination and fear In the Old Kingdom, King Merenre (2255–2246 b.c.e.) visited the southern frontier and met with the chiefs of Wawat, Irtjet, and the Medja The Egyptian texts interpreted this as an act of homage on the part of the Nubians, but it was probably a mission geared toward promoting goodwill along the southern border This goodwill policy was far from the normal course of action There are records of military campaigns against Nubia from the Early Dynastic Period on In the Middle Kingdom, Egyptian kings built two series of large fortresses along the Nile in Nubia The largest fort had a garrison of approximately 300 soldiers and their families In all, several thousand soldiers and supporting staff were stationed in the 13 forts This is an immense force, given that the indigenous population of Lower Nubia has been estimated at only 10,000 The pharaohs of the New Kingdom (1550–1070 b.c.e.) built even more forts and established a branch of the Egyptian government to rule in Nubia To assimilate the Nubians into Egyptian society, the children of the Kushite chiefs were sent to the Egyptian court to learn the language, customs, religion, and so forth of the Egyptian people The indigenous population was subject to the viceroy of Kush, who acted on the king’s behalf 485 The Egyptians took less drastic measures when dealing with the lands of Palestine during the period of Egyptian domination in the New Kingdom While warfare in this area was not unknown, the nations of Palestine were less likely to be a major threat; the Egyptians, while still cautious, did not fear them as they did Nubia Fortified Egyptian settlements in Palestine were rare Indigenous populations became vassal states, but in some cases were able to rule themselves as opposed to being ruled by Egyptian governors THE MIDDLE EAST BY J USTIN CORFIELD Many of the large empires that covered the ancient Near East were multiethnic, consisting of large numbers of different and often linguistically diverse peoples The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires embraced much wider areas than those of the city-states of Sumer and often subjugated alien peoples through force The Assyrians, in particular, gained a reputation for the persecution of their enemies Their great king Ashurbanipal (r 668–627 b.c.e.) sacked Tyre, and his subsequent suppression of the people of Elam resulted in the deportation of many leading Elamites to Samaria in Palestine The holding of the Hebrews in exile in Babylonia from 587 to 538 b.c.e is another well-known case, documented in the Bible Achaemenid Persia was a massive, multilingual empire extending over the entire Near East The Persians used Aramaic as the written language of administration and communication between the capital and outlying areas, Elamite as the principal language of administration at the capital Persepolis, and Old Persian when erecting public monuments with royal inscriptions (which, however, were usually written in Babylonian and Elamite as well) The Persians freed the Hebrews from their Babylonian exile and began to reverse some of the deportations perpetrated by the Assyrians As the Persian Empire grew in importance, it attracted many Greek merchants and soldiers By the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great, large Greek communities existed throughout much of the Persian Empire, and substantial units of Greek soldiers fought in the Persian army At Gaugamela in 331 b.c.e these soldiers were placed around the Immortals who guarded Darius III (r 336–330 b.c.e.), showing his trust for them on the battlefield These Greeks were to be heavily persecuted when Alexander the Great and his successors came to power Alexander the Great and the “Successor States” that emerged from the Diadochi Wars after his death were also multiethnic Although there was always a Greek-Macedonian governing class, most of the administrators were locally born For many of the farmers in small villages and settlements throughout the Near East, the change in rule from the Persians to the Seleucids probably had little real impact Many of the cities in the Near East most likely became increasingly multiethnic and multilingual Although occasional racial scapegoating must have occurred, and stereotyping abounds