Phase I: Rome's Defeat
It was during the battle of Actium where Egypt would find itself fully independent once more, and Rome would suffer her first ever major defeat. The rivalry between Octavian (Ceasar's successor) and Marc Antony reached a boiling point. Octavian and other romans were furious with how Marc Antony had simply gave away many of Rome's far eastern Mediterranean possession's to the "sorceress queen" of Egypt, Cleopatra VII.
In Actium the two fleets of Marc Antony and Octavian collided, and despite the superiority of tactics and technology in the Roman ships, it was Cleopatra's determination and bravery in the battle that lead to a Roman Defeat. The Egyptians then had a good portion of the Eastern Roman empire under their control, and Rome was impotent to prevent Egypt from keeping them. Octavian suffered an embarrassing defeat and a power struggle for a new successor soon followed.
While Cleopatra was fighting more for her love of Marc Antony than actual love for her nation, the result of the battle left Egypt the strongest it had been in centuries. Once a nation on the decline, Egypt was suddenly a regional power on par with that of Rome.
Despite her victory however, she was still to be the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, Cleopatra's victory over Rome with Marc Antony made them both overconfident in their rule over the nation. They still did little to improve life for the Native Egyptians living under them. As a result, what started as just another uprising (there were many under Ptolemaic rule) finally ended in a full overthrow of the Hellenic ruling class and reinstated Native Egyptian rule in the year 14 BC, the Romans, who tried to take advantage in the sudden change in Egyptian government attempted to invade Alexandria and take the symbolic city.
However the Egyptian people were not about to allow themselves to be taken over by yet another foreign power, and defeated the Roman Army outside the city. It was a sloppy battle for both sides, but the Egyptian determination to stay Egyptian won out the day in the end. Rome would never again attempt to take control of the world's oldest Civilization.
Following that victory, the new Egyptian leader, Pharaoh Amyrtaeus II, sought to reunite all of Egypt once again. While Amyrtaeus was not his original name, he took it as a way to relate the overthrow of Hellenic rule with that to the actions of Amyrtaeus who overthrew the Persians in 404 BC. In the year 8 BC he launched his reunion campaign and it was completed only two years before the birth of Christ. This new union of the two Egypts had officially begun the start of what would be called the "Forth Kingdom" and also the 34th Dynasty.
Next: Phase II: The breakup of Rome & Egypt Resists Christianity
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