of religious customs in Egypt. When Cambyses placed a garrison of troops nearby the Temple of Neith at Sais, Wedjahor-Resne convinced the king to move them, as their presence may have been viewed as sacrilegious by the gods. The Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt, the last native rulers of Egypt for over 2,000 years, enabled Egyptian culture, religion, and art to flourish. Nectanebo I, the founder of this dynasty, became an accomplished builder, he worked on temples across the country and is responsible for initiating construction at the site of Philae. His grandson, Nectanebo II (who succeeded him after leading a military coup against the designated successor Teos), improved on this legacy and further established the dynasty as a time during which Egyptian culture thrived. The latter Nectanebo was thoroughly involved with religion and was quite enthusiastic about the cults of the gods, and art under his reign left a distinctive mark on the art of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Nectanebo, though perhaps one of the more competent Egyptian kings of the Late Period, was ultimately unable to undo the centuries-long decline of the civilisation. Egypt would be conquered again by the Persians under Artaxerxes III in 343 BC, then by Alexander the Great nine years later in 332 BC. Although the deposition of Nectanebo II in 343 BC represents the end of Egyptian autonomy until the Republic of Egypt in AD 1953, over two millennia later, the end of native hegemony over Egypt can in no way be considered the end of ancient Egyptian culture in the country. Syncretism with Graeco-Roman religion Egyptian religion initially came into contact with Graeco-Roman polytheism, which led to a large degree of syncretism rather than opposition. The cult of Isis spread first to the Hellenistic world in the Ptolemaic period after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and then to Italy and Rome. Though Augustus, after defeating Cleopatra and Mark Antony and annexing Egypt, disallowed statues to Isis and Serapis (another prominent god in Ptolemaic Egypt) within the pomerium, Egyptian deities nevertheless gradually became normalised in Roman religion and were considered by the emperors of the Flavian dynasty as patrons of their rule. In the second and third centuries AD, Isis and Serapis were worshipped in the majority of towns in even the western half of the empire, although they probably did not pervade the countryside. Temples to them exist from Palmyra in Syria to